Solving the NBA Lockout, Duh.

I’m no genius, but it seems simple enough to me.  Give the Players 51% of ALL Total Revenues.  Then after that, figure out the new contract lengths, max salary amounts, Luxury Tax, revenue sharing amongst teams, etc etc etc.

With 51% of all revenues, the Players feel like they “won” the negotiations, and can tell all their members they get more than the Owners.  Personally, I think a 50-50 split of all total revenues is fair, but 51-49 gets things done much sooner.  There’s still some ego and pride at stake here too, after all.

The players have already given away hundreds of millions over the length of a new CBA from their old deal, by going down from the previously agreed upon 57%, to the newly proposed 53%.  Going from 57% to 51% gives the Owners over $1 billion in savings over the length of a new CBA. Considering the Owners locked out the Players because they “supposedly” lost $300 million-ish dollars last season, that’s not too shabby.

If the Owners insist upon 50-50 split of revenues, but under the “old rules” concerning BRI (Basketball Related Income – where they got about $400 million per year in stadium/team costs/etc “credits” off the top BEFORE splitting the rest with the Players), then a 50-50 BRI split in this situation is actually only about 47% of all Total Revenue for the Players under a new CBA.  That just doesn’t seem fair to me at all.  I’m sorry, but I can understand why the Players wouldn’t take that deal.  It stinks.

So yeah, split ALL Total Revenue 50-50, and then the rest of this crap shakes out quite easily (all things considered.) Considering both parties are supposedly merely only a few percentage points away, then missing any games is very very bad.  They’ll end up losing more to the lockout and not having games, than they would by agreeing to a bad CBA (see: “CBA Talk: A Little Math” link below.)

But as I said above, make that happen and it’s The End.  Lockout is over soon.  Games come back.  We are all happy.

If you want to read more on this matter, check out these excellent articles by quality scribes:

The Player Salaries Lost to a Lockout

CBA Talk: A Little Math

10 Lockout Questions to Chew On… Probably For a While

And as always, come discuss all this and more in the TWB Forums!