San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt says owners are committed to a plan – NBA Labour Dispute News
Peter Holt, who is the owner of the San Antonio Spurs and chairs the NBA owners labour relations committee, has said in light of the NBA labour situation that owners are committed to their demands and could be forced to make tough
choices in a bid to get their way.
The NBA lockout, which has already cost the league 100 regular season games, continues to drag on, putting even more games at risk and even the whole season.
Holt was speaking in light of new fears for the season after talks between owners and players broke down last Thursday.
He was present at the meeting, where even the presence of federal mediator George Cohen failed to bridge the gap between the two sides. The Spurs owner has been present in most if not all meetings over the labour dispute and believes
the owners would undergo all measures to ensure their demands are incorporated into the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
"The competitive issues and the economic issues, certainly we don't want to lose the season, I don't think the NHL did either. It ended up happening," said Holt, "There are certain things that we feel we must have."
Those things apparently are an even split of the Basketball Related Income (BRI) and a hard salary cap. The NBA Commissioner David Stern has claimed that the league has been losing money for years. Twenty two of the 30 franchises
in the NBA, including Holt’s, suffered losses last season.
The owners want a more even split of the BRI; the players got 57 percent in the last CBA, to ensure that they can turn a profit. They want the hard salary cap to limit spending power of big market sides such as the Los Angeles
Lakers.
Owners believe the league would be more competitive if that were to happen.
Compared to the NFL labour dispute, which finished without regular season games being lost, the one in the NBA seems much more vicious, with both sides pretty much dug into their respective positions.
If anything, the players appear to have conceded more and the owners are now being viewed as the guilty party by many fans, who are angry that games continue to slip away. Holt explained that the NFL and NBA lockouts are very different,
principally because the NBA is not turning a profit.
"Different dynamic, I mean no doubt about it," said Holt.
"We're losing games, so there's a cost to that. And we also were in a very different position. NFL essentially was fighting over how to divide more riches. We're trying to figure out how to get our expenses down so we've got 30
teams that have an opportunity to make a little money, and so it's a very different situation."
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