Leverage for Players. Thoughts?

[Coach]

If I were the players, I would get a billionaire friend to help setup a 10 week long tourney with current NBA stars playing.

Here are the parameters:

8 Teams
Two locations (New York and Vegas)
2 games planed a night (approx)
3 games on Sat - Sunday off (NFL)
Double round robin (14 games)
Top 6 teams make playoffs.  1st round is 3 vs 6, 4 vs 5 single elimination game.
Second round is 1 vs highest remaining, 2 vs lowest remaining, best of 3.
Final is also best of 3.

I would recruit 8 superstars, and guarantee the 1 million each (they would also share in bonuses)

Each team would consist of 10 players, and would be drafted.

Base pay is based on Draft Position
Ex:  1st round pick is 1 million, second round pick is 900k, etc.
Bonus pay for wins, playoff wins and championship.

League pays insurance on existing NBA contracts.

The whole thing would run about ten weeks.  Run from Oct 1 - Dec 15
Two week training camp, 5 week regular season, 3 week playoff.

If it worked, do it again right after the Superbowl. 

I’m just guessing at the economics of it, but I'm sure ESPN would be all over it.  In the proposed structure above, total player salaries would be about 100 million (depending on the bonus structure)
Assume another 50 million in expenses (other salaries, arena lease agreements and misc stuff) to pull it together
Assume insurance on the league would be 10 million?
Total expenses would be 160 million

Revenues would look like this:
Gate: $ 40,000,000 (assuming avg ticket price of $40 and 15,000 average fans):
Merchandise:  $40,000,000 (easily….think people wouldn’t be lining to buy a new, unique Lebron Jersey?)
TV Deal:  $75,000,000 (consider that CBS paid 10.8 billion for 14 years = 771 million per year)
 Sponsorships: $40,000,000 (each team would be sold to a different sponsor for 5 million)
Total Revenue: 195 million.
Profit would be 35 million, could be split evenly between players and owner.
This could work.   And If the players could pull this off, the owners would cave in 10 seconds.

I know there are 1 million details that aren’t covered, but who wouldn’t watch?  As well, the player’s agents would be all over this, yes, even at the risk of their client getting injured.  They are more concerned about getting leverage against the owners for the future.  This tournament would give them HUGE leverage.

[Roy H.]

ESPN / ABC / TNT wouldn't touch the tournament; I think their contract with the NBA would preclude it.  You'd have to find another network.

It's an interesting enough idea, although I think it would be viewed more as a novelty / exhibition than anything else.  $150 million is probably too much to invest in something like that, if I had to guess, but a more modest tournament would at least give fans something to chew on.

[Jon]

During the last lockout, there was a minor version of this being talked about, when there was talk that Larry and Magic were going to play in it. 

I can't remember the exact details, though.  I feel like it was going to be played in Atlantic City. 

Anyone else recall? 

[bdm860]

I too was thinking about something like this.  I definitely think there’s potential with the idea.  I just think there are a few problems that would need to be worked out.

My problems are:

Ever been to a summer all-star game (that a lot of players throw in their home towns or current cities)?  I would think it would end up like that.  An All-Star game, a lot of star players, a lot of offense, not a lot of defense, and nobody really caring who wins.  I’ve gone before, they’re fun, but they’re only fun once in a while.  I don’t know if I’d keep paying (or watching) if they did this a couple of times a week, or even multiple times a day.  Remember the make shift All-Star game the players threw together during the last lockout that aired on Showtime (I think)?  Fun to watch once (and some would argue it wasn’t even good once), but would you watch that multiple times in a row? 

What kind of ratings do the Olympic team’s games and scrimmages get?  Again, you basically have an All-Star team, but at least they care about winning (well maybe not for the scrimmages), but still I don’t think the ratings are there (I could be wrong, never really seen them).  And whatever ratings they do have are because people are rooting for the USA (or home country).  It will be hard to get people to root for a team sponsored by a company that you have no loyalty to.  There are not enough people out there who only care only about watching top-level basketball; it’s really a small minority.  Take League Pass for example, now take out all the people who buy League Pass to follow one particular out-of-market team, now how many people do you have left buying League Pass?  What you have left is your basketball junkies who would definitely watch this league.  I have serious doubts as to how many people would follow such a temporary, make-shift league for a few weeks.  There are a lot of summer All-Star games that players throw now that have many big names attend, how come these aren’t televised now?  I just don’t think the ratings are there for them.

And then there’s the level of basketball.  It’s questionable whether the players would play at their top level, diving for loose balls, diving into the stands, giving 110% to the team, and care only about winning.  It could happen, the players have pride, but knowing this isn’t their real pay day, and knowing there will be no history book chronicling this temporary league, I have doubts what type of product we’ll see from the players.  Some players don’t even give it all in the NBA, I don’t know if they’d give it their all for this, making it something that wouldn’t be a great product.

I think you could generate interest for a couple of games, don’t know if you could generate enough interest and revenue for a full mini-season/tournament.

[Chris]

While I think this is an interesting idea, there are two issues I have.

1. I am not sure the economics of it will be anywhere near what you expect.  There will be a lot more overhead if they do it right, and I am not convinced the tickets would sell that well.  You will get some hardcore basketball fans, and sell out the first couple games, but I am not sure it would continue to fill seats, particularly without the real team loyalty to buy into (that takes time to build).

2. I don't think this would give much leverage to the players.  They would still be making a lot less money than they would even with huge paycuts in the NBA, and it is not really a longterm solution. 

So, while I think something like this would be fun, I don't see it doing much more than scratching the itch of a few fans, and simply prolonging the negotiation process as the owners sit back and wait for the players to realize upstart leagues are hard to do.

[bdm860]

Although despite of what I said above, it could work.  Building off what Coach said, I would make it more like a glorified pickup game with team captains.  You get your 8 teams, and you get 8 companies to sponsor them.  And part of the sponsorship includes securing a star to run your team.  So American Airlines wants to sponsor a team so they go out and get Derrick Rose, Google wants to sponsor a team so they go and get Kobe Bryant, etc.  Putting the power back in the players hands, a company says to Derrick Rose, Derrick we want you to be our captain, we have $10m to put together a team, go out and fill out a roster for $10m however you see fit (so Derrick can keep $9m for himself, or do it evenly, or whatever he wants).  Derrick calls his buddies, a lot of Bulls players, like Deng, Noah, Boozer, with some other friends. 

Think if a Celtic captained a team.  A company gets Rondo to captain their team.  Rondo calls Ray, Pierce, and KG up and they agree to play with Rondo.  Rondo also gets his buddy Perk and Tony Allen to play, and he also gets his buddies Dwight Howard and Josh Smith to play.  He gets Kelenna Azubuike and Chuck Hayes who he played with at Kentucky.  I would watch and cheer on that team.

If LeBron captains a team, I feel like he’d get Wade, Bosh, Mike Miller, and Haslem, with some other stars that he or Wade are friends with.

Carmelo captains a team, he asks Amare and Chris Paul to play with him, with a few other Knicks (like Chauncy Billups, Turiaf, Landy Fields).  Amare gets his buddy Steve Nash, Chris Paul gets David West and Tyson Chandler.  I would think Knicks fans would cheer for that.

Or think if Nike, adidas, or Gatorade all sponsored teams.  Nike tries to fill a team with all Nike guys, adidas tries to fill a team with adidas guys, etc.  But LeBron goes with a McDonald’s instead of Nike, does Dwayne Wade play with his buddy LeBron, or does he go with Nike, or does he go with T-Mobile?  This would be interesting (although I’d consider eliminating sponsors that already had individual sponsorship deals with players to avoid problems like this – I want the league about the players and not the corporate sponsors).

With the captains picking a lot of current and former teammates, it would keep a lot of fans interested because it closely resembles the team they cheer for now (or the team they hope to cheer for some day).  A lot of Bulls fans would cheer Rose’s team that’s made up of a lot of Bulls players.   Celtics fans would cheer Rondo’s team.  Heat fans would cheer on LeBron’s team (unless Wade decided to play for a different team, then Heat fans might not be as interested).

This is how I would make my league.

[Who]

I think any attempts to startup a new or temporary league will only show how valuable the already existing infrastructure of the NBA + owners really is.

I think it'll do nothing but hurt the player's case.

[Coach]

Although despite of what I said above, it could work.  Building off what Coach said, I would make it more like a glorified pickup game with team captains.  You get your 8 teams, and you get 8 companies to sponsor them.  And part of the sponsorship includes securing a star to run your team.  So American Airlines wants to sponsor a team so they go out and get Derrick Rose, Google wants to sponsor a team so they go and get Kobe Bryant, etc.  Putting the power back in the players hands, a company says to Derrick Rose, Derrick we want you to be our captain, we have $10m to put together a team, go out and fill out a roster for $10m however you see fit (so Derrick can keep $9m for himself, or do it evenly, or whatever he wants).  Derrick calls his buddies, a lot of Bulls players, like Deng, Noah, Boozer, with some other friends. 

Think if a Celtic captained a team.  A company gets Rondo to captain their team.  Rondo calls Ray, Pierce, and KG up and they agree to play with Rondo.  Rondo also gets his buddy Perk and Tony Allen to play, and he also gets his buddies Dwight Howard and Josh Smith to play.  He gets Kelenna Azubuike and Chuck Hayes who he played with at Kentucky.  I would watch and cheer on that team.

If LeBron captains a team, I feel like he’d get Wade, Bosh, Mike Miller, and Haslem, with some other stars that he or Wade are friends with.

Carmelo captains a team, he asks Amare and Chris Paul to play with him, with a few other Knicks (like Chauncy Billups, Turiaf, Landy Fields).  Amare gets his buddy Steve Nash, Chris Paul gets David West and Tyson Chandler.  I would think Knicks fans would cheer for that.

Or think if Nike, adidas, or Gatorade all sponsored teams.  Nike tries to fill a team with all Nike guys, adidas tries to fill a team with adidas guys, etc.  But LeBron goes with a McDonald’s instead of Nike, does Dwayne Wade play with his buddy LeBron, or does he go with Nike, or does he go with T-Mobile?  This would be interesting (although I’d consider eliminating sponsors that already had individual sponsorship deals with players to avoid problems like this – I want the league about the players and not the corporate sponsors).

With the captains picking a lot of current and former teammates, it would keep a lot of fans interested because it closely resembles the team they cheer for now (or the team they hope to cheer for some day).  A lot of Bulls fans would cheer Rose’s team that’s made up of a lot of Bulls players.   Celtics fans would cheer Rondo’s team.  Heat fans would cheer on LeBron’s team (unless Wade decided to play for a different team, then Heat fans might not be as interested).

This is how I would make my league.

This is where I was going with the players captain idea.  You would get NBA type alliances, but there would be enought good players left over to fill out rosters, and you would have great teams.  I think the ball would be great, and as a 1 of a kind thing, the public would be captured.  Maybe ESPN couldn't do it, but someone would.  Maybe Spike TV jumps in, and does it, or Versus (they carry the NHL).  If someone is giving the NCAA tourney 771 million per year to carry the Tournament, someone would give 50-100 to exclusively carry this.  No questions asked.  Remember, Lebron got ESPN to carry a 1 hour show of what team he picked.  Imagine have a 2 hour draft special?  That would be almost better than the games it self!

Don't kid yourself.  The owners would e terrified at this possibility.  Yes, maybe it doesn't work to it's full potential, but what if it did?

[Coach]

The number one problem is, of course, someone investing the money to start the thing, the the owners cave.  Sure the 80 players playing in the tournament could vote the proposal down, but the other 300 or so union memebers would vote for it.  The stars would have to honor the NBA contracts, and the investment money would go down the drain...

[BballTim]

  What happens if you get 3-4 weeks into it and the lockout ends?

[Coach]

Just read Jay Kang and the Sports Guys article on Grantland:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7058281/we-need-renegade-basketball-league

Eerily similar?

[StartOrien]

I think if you're a financier, you take one look at how poorly attended the impact league was and walk away from the negotiating table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lP_cJVa9UI&feature=relmfu

Granted that seems to be more of a pickup atmosphere than a 'renegade league' as suggested, but still, you're not putting any money into that.

[CaptainJackLee]

Yeah, they should be shopping around a tv deal. In the end, it doesn't really matter though, their best course of action is to go the judicial litigation route and let some owners start panicking - there are enough of them to which a lockout would be disastrous.

[wdleehi]

How long does it take to set up such a league and how long till it makes money?


And for the investor, what happens if you put all this money in only to have the players cave to the owner the day before the 1st game?

[StartOrien]

Sometimes you need to leave the business to the businessmen