Jack Bauer wrote:
Curious Hair wrote:
They don't have the money to buy out six owners.
Curious Hair wrote:
Can't figure out how the union is going to be cool with eliminating 20% of their jobs. That proposal would go over like the ol' fart in church.
Sure, you're both right, but you can't deny the league would be better off with less teams, and the competition level would obviously increase. I do remember hearing whispers that Stern was in favor of contraction a year or two ago, but that obviously never went anywhere.
I would think that revenue's would go up, even with less teams, because fans will be more willing to spend the money if they know they aren't going to see a 15 win team night in, night out. Would YOU be willing to go to more games if you weren't seeing crap teams 2-3 times a week?
I do think it would be fun to do a mock dispersal draft though. Maybe I'll put something together this weekend for the fun of it.
Would the league be better off without its worst players and weakest markets? Sure, the basketball would be better, but it would be a public relations disaster on every level to not just relocate a team but straight-up shut it down. Remember that most of these teams are not only playing out of publicly-financed arenas, but publicly-financed arenas for which they hold a master lease, which is to say that they reap all the benefits of owning a building without having to pay property taxes on it. Sometimes they even charge the city to "manage" their arena, which is like charging your landlord to live in his apartment. They're terribly lopsided deals that exist only because cities want to concentrate people's spending into downtown areas, which is probably faulty economics, but they do it anyway. So after the city gives and gives and gives some more, the NBA just bails on them?
I find that when people start talking about contracting teams, the best thing to say is "great idea! We'll start with yours."
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Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.