NBA Lockout Special: Money Talks

We just passed the 90-Day NBA Lockout milestone. That’s 3 months for those of you marking your calendar. The league has already canceled the entire preseason, multiple annual events, and is now threatening to cancel the first two weeks of the regular season if a deal isn’t made by Monday. Sadly, it doesn’t seem as if one’s going to be made by Monday, if at all.

The league is evidently more concerned with narrowing the gap on its 300 million dollars in lost revenue from last season than actually constructing a new collective bargaining agreement. ESPN reports, “The league offered players a 46 percent share of basketball-related revenue, 11 percent less than they received in the last deal and 7 percent less than the last proposal by the players.”

So it seems that money does in fact talk, and, conversely, it seems that those without money can’t talk.

All the focus thus far has been on the multi-millionaire players who are suffering more from boredom than income loss, and the multi-billionaire owners whose only concern is that the players don’t get a majority of next year’s revenue pie, but what about those without access to the media’s headlines? The individuals who maintain the functionality of the league through their unnoticed and unheralded work behind the scenes are the ones that are being most affected by this work stoppage, yet their words are being drowned out by those in the limelight. Overlooked and underappreciated, this league’s staff and officials, maintenance workers, concession stand employees, security personnel, and others like them are being denied the privilege to work because of the greediness of those atop the NBA’s hierarchy. And, worst of all, they’re being ignored; turned a blind eye to.

Over 110 employees (which makes up about 11 percent of the league’s head offices) have already been laid off as of July, and who knows how many more are to come. NBA spokesman Mike Bass told The Associated Press that they weren’t laid off because of the lockout, but rather as “a response to the underlying issue that the league’s expenses far outpace [its] revenues.”

The lockout and the laying off of these individuals are solely due to the league and its unregulated spending. It has allowed the franchises to spend an excessive amount of money. Subpar players are receiving multi-million dollar contracts and owners are completely disregarding team salary caps.

I’m all for coming to an economical and reasonable solution to this lockout, but to ask the individuals whose income, or possibly even livelihood, is at stake to sacrifice for the good of those who are already financially stable is selfish and an utter travesty.

All in all, the world is a better place with professional basketball in action. There should be no room for petty arguments over the distribution of billions when those only seeking minimum wage are being denied the privilege to work. The media needs to begin to address the positions and opinions of the majority of those affected by the work stoppage—not just those with the majority of the cash.