How many of you sports fans out there are sick of paying twenty-five dollars for a lousy seat at an NBA game? How many of you are sick of seeing the same teams in the finals every year? I’m sure there are thousands of you out there that feel this way, as do I. The way we can fix these problems is to demand that the NBA enforce a hard salary cap. A hard salary cap would lower ticket prices, allow for more teams to be more competitive and eliminate the possibility of any future lockouts. If the three things listed above aren’t met, it’s hard to say if the NBA will survive at all. I want to see the NBA survive, but not in the way things are being run now. A hard salary cap is the only way the fans and the players can coexist.
A hard salary cap will lower ticket prices. I, among many of friends am a die-hard NBA fan, but we can only afford to attend one or two games a year. The average ticket price in the NBA is twenty-five dollars and that doesn’t include a pair of binoculars, which you’ll need if you’re sitting in a twenty-five-dollar seat. That can give you an idea of how much a court side seat might cost you. Some people wonder why tickets are so much. Maybe Mike Kahn, who is the CBS Sportsline Executive Editor, can tell us why ticket prices are so high. In one of his articles he notes. Players’ salaries are escalating faster than revenue and it would be foolish not to throw a lid on it. Tickets are already out of sight for a middle class family. ( 2 ) That means to me that players are demanding more and more money and ticket prices have to go up to compensate for higher salaries. I n the Tampa Tribune, Bill Fay, a sports writer for the paper noted. Most of the teams h…
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…salary cap will provide an answer for some of the most serious problems facing the NBA. It will lower ticket prices, allow more teams to be more competitive and eliminate the any future lockouts. If these problems can be fixed by enforcing a hard salary cap, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be done. The NBA should enforce a hard salary cap.
Works Cited
Fay, Bill ” Owners Need To Be Restrained”, Tampa Tribune 5 July 1998, 1-2
Kahn, Mike,” Latest News Could Stall Negotiations”, October, 1998, n. pag. Online. World Wide Web
Nov. 14, 98
Anonymous.” Labor Issues”, The Salt Lake Tribune 30 June 1998,1
MacMullan, Jackie,” Lockout Limbo”, July 1998, n. pag. Online. World Wide Web
Nov. 14,1998
Professional Sports – NBA Players are Greedy
NBA Players are Greedy
How many of us would love to make $2.4 million a year? Or even better, how does $126 million over a six-year period sound? Then again, why stop there? As John Donovan, a sports analyst for Sports Illustrated and CNN points out, with the average salary of players in the NBA at $2.4 million a year, and some players with contracts well over $100 million, it’s hard to see what many of them are complaining about. Players in the NBA need to stop being so greedy, agree to a drug policy and realize that they are employed by the owners and should follow all rules and regulations set by the league.
Even though the NBA is a multi-billion dollar industry, it does not mean that the owners should have to pay over 50% of their revenues in player salaries. Something needs to be done to stop the enormous growth of player salaries that has been taking place the last couple of years. The NBA players union seems to believe that they should have salaries as high as the market can bear. The NBA was started by the owners and others as a business. Therefore, all of the players are employees of the owners and the league. The league and owners are the ones who do all of the advertising, make deals with television stations, sign contracts for licensing and make it all happen. They are the ones who should be reaping the most financial rewards. In his magazine article, “Held Ball”, Phil Taylor, a writer for Sports Illustrated lets us know that with the signing of a new four year, 2.6 billion dollar contract with NBC and Turner Sports, the league seems to have plenty of money. But with figures of about a billion dollars being paid out in player salaries, there is not enough money to pay for all the employees, …
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…h the introduction of a hard salary cap, restricted free agency, and a drug policy, the league would be more competitive and have a better image with the public. It is sad that some players in the league care more about how much money they make than the opportunity that they have, created by the league and the owners, to play the great game of basketball.
Works Cited
Donovan, John. “A lockout primer.” October, 1998, Online. World Wide Web. http://cnnsi.com/basketball/nba/1998/labor/news/1998/06/24/lockout_primer/ 13 Oct 1998
Donovan, John. “NBA on Shaky Ground as Owners, Players Fight Over Money.” CNN/SI. June 24, 1998
Jorgensen, Loren. “Black day for NBA.” Deseret News 14 Oct 1998, none
Robinson, Doug. “In NBA tiff, who are the good guys?” Deseret News 14 Oct 1998, none
Taylor, Phil. “Held Ball.” Sports Illustrated Oct 1998: 68-73.