No NBA?!

Image From sportspagemagazine.com

In the day where image is everything, it amazes me that the NBA and it's players were unable to reach an agreement to save their season. David Stern and the owners have stalled any growth that the league was having/going to have for the near future. This lockout has tarnished the league for the fans. Those fans will now lose interest in the game, beacause even if a season happens this year it's going to be a very punctuated one with the possibility of replacement players.

The NBA needs to see that they are a different league than the NFL. Players in the NFL are covered by helmets and protective equipment and rarely seen like the players in the NBA. Players in the NBA are the reason the fans flock to the arenas not the teams. This was evidenced by the "dream team/big 3" being assembled in Miami (and the big 3 in Boston a few years ago.) Fans were finally showing up and staying for the length of the games in South Beach.

So the players asking for a little bit more than the owners seems like a fair deal to me. The owners now have the ball in their court. I dare them put in replacement players and see what their team brand gets them. No fans in the arenas and no fans watching the substandard game will wake them up in a hurry. Owners can't make money when there aren't games (except from memorabilia sales) while players can go play in other leagues internationally and still make a decent living. If the owners want these games to be played, they need to realize that the players bring fans to the games. Not the rich owners up in the press box that don't care about the people making them money (players) or the fans filling their arenas.

Get the deal done and save your league owners! Else someone might just make a new league and you will be holding onto rights that will be worth nothing in the end.