Miller: Occupy the NBA
By Zack Miller, Contributing Columnist
Published on Monday, February 6, 2012
The National Basketball Association is heading for trouble and, structurally, it’s the same kind of trouble our nation is in today. The NBA is facing a growing talent and revenue disparity problem similar to the income disparity problem that Occupy Wall Street and its unwashed, overeducated cousin, Occupy Dartmouth have identified.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m hyped that the season has belatedly kicked off. But amidst the blockbuster trades and the establishment of Lob City, a disturbing trend has gone unnoticed: Talent and revenues in the NBA are flowing upstream. Just as the top 1 percent of our nation has acquired an increasingly outsized share of our national wealth, an elite minority of big-market NBA owners are acquiring the lion’s share of the NBA’s superstars and profits. Last year, 22 NBA teams lost a combined $450 million, while the other eight teams saw consolidated profits of approximately $150 million. The gap between NBA’s haves and have-nots is widening, just like the gap between America’s rich and poor.
Los Angeles, Miami and New York all have large populations with wealthy, loyal fan bases, and thus their owners enjoy uniquely robust markets to which they can sell their product — basketball. Over the past few years, these teams have seen an influx of money and big-name talent, as players wisely decide that big cities are the best places to grow their personal brands and build championship teams.
Big-market bullying began with the L.A. Lakers trading with the Memphis Grizzlies for Pau Gasol in 2008, but it truly emerged with the corporatized formation of the Miami Heat, who agreed to pay $50 million a year to bring Lebron James and Chris Bosh down to South Beach, Fla. to play with Dwyane Wade. Next, New York committed about $40 million a year to bring in perennial all-stars Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire. This summer, it was not the Lakers, but the Clippers — the other beneficiaries of the Los Angeles market — who landed the NBA’s premier floor general, Chris Paul, to pair with the electrifying Blake Griffin.
Of course, there will always be other good teams in the NBA — just look at some of the recent champions. But, barring a few anomalies like the Oklahoma City Thunder, most of these other elite squads come from sizable markets.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of NBA owners are sliding down a dangerous path, paved with financial losses and the memories of departed superstars. Bleeding talent and revenues, these owners are rightly frustrated; they are the losers in an unfair arrangement.
So maybe it’s not so ridiculous to compare a bunch of rich, old white guys, themselves members of the 1 percent, to the Occupy protestors. Both groups are being deprived of profits by factors beyond their control, disadvantaged by systems that privilege a select minority over the large majority. So who is to blame? Occupy and the NBA would do well to recall the wise words of Gandhi: “Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.” Occupy has wrong-headedly blamed the players in our financial system — the bankers on Wall Street — for socio-economic inequity. This is as silly as blaming NBA players for wanting to take big contracts and win titles in big cities. And yet, this summer, the NBA owners did just that, locking out the players and demanding that they take salary cuts.
Occupy’s finger of blame should be pointed at Capitol Hill, or more precisely, at that gilded corner where banks and corporations intersect with government. This country’s current problems are not rooted in too much regulation, but too little. Capitalism is a powerful but dangerous beast. It is the reason for the U.S.’s international preeminence, but it must be tempered with regulation. Instead of whining about the bankers, Occupy should take their fight to an institution actually designed to respond to public opinion and demand a repeal of the Bush tax cuts and encourage serious limits on how much corporations and banks can donate to politicians.
I am less optimistic about what small-market NBA owners can do to remedy their own unfair situation. The NBA has agreed to increase revenue sharing between profitable big-market teams and struggling small market teams, but not enough to achieve parity or even pseudo-equality.
The shot clock is running out. Occupy and the NBA are getting hacked, but no one’s calling the fouls. We need some new referees.
Well, Zack wants to force people to make things fair. Force the rich, poor and everyone in between to do what he sees as fair. Damn the individual rights that this country was founded on. Damn the players who go where they can get their favorite deal. In order to make things fair, Zack will need take what someone else is going to tell him is fair in every aspect of his life. Is that fair Zack? That’s what you are saying in no uncertain terms. That makes sense to you. It isn’t fair that Zack attends Dartmouth College. How many students get the shot at attending an elite college? Why does Dartmouth get the pick of the High School crop every year? Why do the top companies come to Dartmouth to recruit every year? What about Slow & Dumb as a Post University? Why aren’t those students getting better opportunities, but worse, why are Dartmouth students hogging them all up? Try to think in the larger perspective sometime you may learn something rather than talking trash. Dartmouth is far more guilty according to Zack than the NBA could possibly be. Every player in the NBA would be less than 50% of the people in the Dartmouth Class of ‘15.
By Z-Not on Feb 6 | 1:38 pm
“repeal the Bush tax cuts” “capitalism is a powerful but dangerous beast” “it is the reason for the US preeminence, but must be tempered with regulation” The free exchange of goods, services and labor must be regulated? Why, because you think so? Capitalism is nothing but the material expression of the exact equivalent of free speech. It is identical. It makes as much sense to regulate free speech as it does free trade, which is all capitalism is. That is, none. The Bush tax cuts did nothing but take the tax rate back to what it was before Clinton and the Democrats raised taxes in 1993. Taxes were raised retroactively and when the Democrats passed it with Congresswoman Mezvinsky as the one vote margin, she lost her re-election race and the Democrats lost the House of Reps for the first time in 40 years. The American people know that the government is an oppressive, expensive, corrupt overhead and destroyer of happiness and prosperity for no purpose other than its own power and to allow them and their friends not to have to work a day in their lives in order to become filthy rich. The Democrats let up a roar of a cheer and applause when they passed that Clinton tax increase over the objection of the American people who are tired of being screwed. There is no principle on God’s earth that gives anyone including Zack the right to treat some people differently under the law than any other. Each person who isn’t violating any law can not be legitimately forced to give up their property (money) based on the fact that they have more or earned more than any other person. That is called theft.
By Polly on Feb 6 | 9:56 pm
Great article Zack; couldn’t agree more. If only the NBA held to some of the same standards as the NFL. I still hate the player though: namely Lebron. I think he’s a sellout for leaving Cleveland and going to Miami. A city like Milwaukee or Denver will never get a big free agent like that.
@Polly The government isn’t stealing anyone’s money. If you want this country to remain in bankruptcy than keep the tax rate low and give tax breaks to the wealthy. If you want paved roads, public schools, and safety, you’re going to have to pay for that.
By Daniel on Feb 7 | 3:34 pm
@Daniel Oh really? The government isn’t stealing anyone’s money? It’s obvious they haven’t gotten much of yours yet. The federal government has relatively little to do with safety (local and state function and tax) almost nothing to do with public school funding, again local and state and varying amounts to do with “paved roads” depending on what kind of paved roads they happen to be. If you don’t know about the corruption, bribery, over payments, feather-bedding, pay to play and just plain theft that goes on in government activities, you really do need an education. This country isn’t in bankruptcy and didn’t get there because of “Low taxes” it got there because crooks in Washington can’t control their outrageous spending, thinking that good old sucker taxpayer will take it in the shorts again and again. Ever hear of taking some taxpayers money and spreading it around to your friends in the unions, car companies, “green energy” public and private schools and morons around the world? Our president does it every day. He is sticking it to the people every day. I’ll bet you remember the president running all over the country telling us that we had to pass the stimulus of $800 billion so that he could get all of those shovel ready jobs going. He said we needed all that money to fix the roads and bridges, to fix the “crumbling schools” and for police and fire….knowing all the time that most of those things are paid for by state and local taxes. So he took that money and gave it to his political allies. They didn’t build any roads or bridges, they didn’t fix any public schools and when he was asked about it the president laughed about the fact that there weren’t any “shovel ready jobs.” But you weren’t paying attention were you? $3.7 trillion dollars? of which $1.5 trillion is stolen, er borrowed from someone? What amount would you say would be sufficient if you wanted the roads paved, public schools and safety?
By Polly on Feb 7 | 6:18 pm