Partial Revenue Sharing?

[-Kees-]

This is just an idea that popped into my head, what if the NBA did a partial revenue sharing plan?

So if it is fully shared, than each team gets apx. 3.3% of the total revenue from all teams. I'm not sure what the current plan is, but what if we spread that out a bit? So like the 2 middle income teams get exactly 3.3% of TR (total revenue). Then the 13th team gets say 3.4% and the 16th gets 3.2% of the TR, 12th team gets 3.5% of the TR, 17th team gets 3.1% ect. or something like that.

This way, the big markets still have an advantage, but not as much as they would've had, had there been no revenue sharing.

[DBoys]

A week or two ago, Henry Abbott had a good article on this topic and where it's likely heading. As you note, it's not likely to be a pure split of everything, but rather an incentivized model that attempts to give all motivated owners the same advantages.


The league’s proposal

NBA owners have discussed various plans to make revenue sharing work. Serious consideration is being given to a model that seems to have the potential to address the big market/small market/well run/poorly run issues.

Instead of simply taking from the owners in the biggest cities, or from the moneymaking teams -- both schemes would punish owners who run their teams well, while rewarding the clueless -- the NBA has discussed assigning each market an expected level of annual revenue. Teams that fall below that threshold would in essence be punished for underperformance.

In other words, they’d say the Denver market, based on size, wealth, history and the like, can reasonably be expected to generate a certain level of ticket, local TV and sponsorship dollars. If the salespeople in Denver generate less than that -- in other words, if the business is not well run -- then tough. The Nuggets would contribute or receive money from the revenue sharing formula as if they had made this minimum number.

And to the extent they made more than their expected revenue, they could expect to share the wealth.

An important element of the plan is that it puts pressure on owners to run their businesses well -- some teams struggle because they face long odds, and there’s an appetite among owners like Buss to help those owners.

But nobody wants to help owners who simply aren’t running their businesses seriously.

[-Kees-]

Oh now that's a good idea. As long as the 'expected' for each team is the right number, than that would be a great option.