turk3d wrote:If there was another league it would make more sense if it were started by some outside investors (rather than the players). The players could be considered players/owners (in a sense they are now with the existing shared revenue system).
This in fact would be no more different than what's referred to today as "employee owned" businesses (EOBs). One of the things that makes the way the league and the players shared revenue system so complicated is that the way it works in normal businesses is it's based on company profit, ie once the bills are paid and all the expenses are taken care of, the remaining profit is distributed back to the employees or a portion of it sometimes in the way of bonuses.
To me, that's the only way to do it and make it come out fair (make sure no one loses money that way). However, in order to do it, they would have to open up the books completely and honestly which I don't believe they've done. They can still have some sort of system to help money losing franchises to stay afloat (although I think losing franchises may not need to be moved elsewhere if they're not really viable).
Players can be a give a base salary (a lot lower) and depending on how well the franchise does (and perhaps they do if you want to have some sort of a performance bonus which I think is good) will determine what they make overall. If they were to take that approach, then they could even give stock to the players (the way that EOBs do) and even give them voting rights as shareholders. A somewhat novel approach but I think fair.
I do not think the players if convinced that teams were really losing money would be able to object about making necessary adjustments for survival. I think they just might object to the way the owners are suggesting to do it. At least they want a say in it, and I think they should have. Making them shareholders and having voting rights might accomplish this. Then in fact, they could get rid of the union.There's got to be solutions out there, they just need to work together (instead of apart) to find them,
so who gets to decide how much of a bonus each player gets? Who is to decide what is considered a real cost, and a fake one? After all the players right now are arguing that only some of the NBA owners costs are real. What are the new investors going to get out of the deal? How many do you think are going to invest hundreds of millions without a solid percentage of the revenue going back into their pocket, and a large percentage of the upside for that kind of investment.
Most employee owned companies are actually owned by the employee's pension plan, and while they all get some form of stockholder vote, there are management teams in position to actually run the company, and even still those companies have major issues. One of the reasons is overpaying employees and too rich of benefit plans for former employees as incredible as that idea is. For those who want you can look up examples with Qwest communications and united Airlines. And that is with a share of each company being owned by outside shareholders as well, and government oversight due to being public companies. What happens when the players do not have to report to anybody?
while it sounds good in theory you are expecting someone to front a ton of money, for the players to own enough of a percentage of the league to be considered the owners, and allowing them to get the votes to decide what they receive from the profits in pay and benefits, while the guys putting in the money end up being out voted and getting next to nothing in return for their investment.
Here's a better idea, why not have the players put together the league with their own money, then sale stock in a public offering to raise the money to begin actually playing the games. Then maybe the owners who just love the game will not really care that much if they get no return on their investment. of course they then have to deal with government oversight, public audits, and an arena full of owners who may not be too happy with them. then every time they overpay themselves they can do another public offering and raise more money, I am sure there are plenty of suckers that will keep paying for stock so that the players can get their extreme benefits and 57% of revenue. Pretty soon we can all own penny stocks in a league bleeding money while the players retire on the beach laughing.
Although it they do not do the offering just right, or are forced to give the actual shareholders voting rights then they still will end up taking paycuts as the average shareholder doesn't seem to like investments where they have to meet money calls every time the company overpays on payroll and benefits, and they really do not like when companies continue to have public offerings every year making their original investment worth that much less.
