Tag Archives: basketball
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Hey, so that whole thing about Besiktas being in trouble for football match-fixing?
Yeah, bad timing on that.
Jonathan Givony from Draft Express reports that Besiktas was nearing a deal for Kobe Bryant for $450,000 a month. That’s a $250k increase over what Deron Williams is reportedly getting. Which makes sense, since Bryant is arguably the biggest internationally known basketball player in the world.
So, yeah, having your account frozen, if the earlier report is accurate, that’s a bit of bad luck, that.
Deron Williams and Kobe Bryant on the same team would be the biggest ticket in Europe for basketball. It would likely open doors to television opportunities and increase sponsorship exponentially. If Besiktas’ personnel is cleared of the charges and Bryant does agree to come over, that changes the whole complexion of their future. It also sends a strong message to the owners that the best players will be going over.
The problem, naturally is that the $450,000 Besiktas would pay Bryant is money that could go to multiple members of the NBA non-elite, who are the ones that will struggle the most in the lockout. If the players are doing this only for themselves, great, should be a nice working vacation. But if this is being done to try and break ownership, some of that money needs to be spread to the rest of the players. Otherwise, all the stars will be doing is taking away more opportunities for the majority of the union to survive a prolonged lockout.
Williams and Bryant. He’d finally have a point guard worthy of his talents.
While the NBA stumbles all over itself trying to divide up a multi-billion dollar pie, the folks in Sacramento are making moves to put their own pie into the oven.
The Think Big Sacramento coalition, which is the ever-changing moniker of the grassroots political coalition to keep the Kings in town (formerly Here We Build), released a report on Thursday showing that a new Entertainment and Sports Complex (ESC) would bring the area $7 billion of economic activity and 3.1 million new visitors to the region over 30 years.
As sources close to the proceedings reported to us in late May, this report provides the backbone of financial proof necessary to convince Sacramento area voters that the ESC is a necessary and worthwhile venture. And while a public vote is not expected, the public’s blessing on the matter is obviously a key to its success.
The coalition, which includes politicians, city leaders, and consultants not just from the city of Sacramento, but from the neighboring counties as well, also struck it big when the report found that those neighboring counties would receive $26 million in revenue annually, while the county of Sacramento would receive $131 million of its own.
This information comes at a time when growing regional support for building an ESC in the city of Sacramento has challenged residents in the outskirts of the region to see and understand how economic benefits go beyond the proposed downtown site.
It also follows a previous report from Capitol Public Finance Group estimating that 4,095 jobs would be created in the Sacramento region during the completion of the ESC, which has a 12.8% unemployment rate, with another 400 new jobs being provided on an ongoing basis.
While politicians have hesitated in the past to get behind public financing for sports arenas, the tenor of the discussion in Sacramento has changed significantly, as regional leaders face the impending loss of those revenues should the Kings leave for Anaheim.
“The return on investment the public would get from this is enormous,” said Executive Director of Think Big Sacramento to Dale Kasler of the Sacramento Bee.
Rob Fong, city councilman for the city of Sacramento added that the ESC would be “not only good for downtown, not only good for Sacramento, it’s good for the six-county region.”
Add into the equation the excitement generated by the drafting of Jimmer Fredette and the acquisition of promising power forward J.J. Hickson, things look about as good as they can for a city that wouldn’t resign itself to the fate of losing their team. Heck, if they can re-sign free agent center Samuel Dalembert or otherwise bring in a veteran big man, there could even be a playoff series to properly eulogize the old Arco Arena (currently known as Power Balance Pavilion).
And if things continue heading in the right direction within the Sacramento City Council and the Think Big Sacramento coalition, the tone of that sendoff will be much more celebratory than the one this past April.
That is, if there is basketball to play.
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Hey, so that whole thing about Besiktas being in trouble for football match-fixing?
Yeah, bad timing on that.
Jonathan Givony from Draft Express reports that Besiktas was nearing a deal for Kobe Bryant for $450,000 a month. That’s a $250k increase over what Deron Williams is reportedly getting. Which makes sense, since Bryant is arguably the biggest internationally known basketball player in the world.
So, yeah, having your account frozen, if the earlier report is accurate, that’s a bit of bad luck, that.
Deron Williams and Kobe Bryant on the same team would be the biggest ticket in Europe for basketball. It would likely open doors to television opportunities and increase sponsorship exponentially. If Besiktas’ personnel is cleared of the charges and Bryant does agree to come over, that changes the whole complexion of their future. It also sends a strong message to the owners that the best players will be going over.
The problem, naturally is that the $450,000 Besiktas would pay Bryant is money that could go to multiple members of the NBA non-elite, who are the ones that will struggle the most in the lockout. If the players are doing this only for themselves, great, should be a nice working vacation. But if this is being done to try and break ownership, some of that money needs to be spread to the rest of the players. Otherwise, all the stars will be doing is taking away more opportunities for the majority of the union to survive a prolonged lockout.
Williams and Bryant. He’d finally have a point guard worthy of his talents.
This is weird.
I’m sorry, it is. It’s just really odd to see the 14-year-old son of an NBA owner who was considered to be the good luck charm for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2011 NBA Lottery as a FatHead. It’s just peculiar. But there it is. Right there. On the screen
All the proceeds go to the Children’s Tumor Foundation, which is really nice. And it’s awesome that the 14-year-old has become such a basketball culture figure to warrant his own fathead. But still. Weird. Kind of creepy. Borderline creepy, really. Imagine putting that in your rec room before the fellas come over to hang out.
“Hey, Jim.”
“Hey, Bob.”
“I love what you’ve done with the place. Is that couch suede?”
“Poly-suede. Twice the material, none of the drawbacks! Beer?”
“Absolutely! Wow, this place is great. You’ve even got the “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls” pinball machine!”
“Took me a long time to find it, but it was worth the wait.”
“This place is great, I just can’t belie…oh.”
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“No, what?”
“Uh, is that Nick Gilbert?”
“Yeah, I’m a big Kyrie Irving fan.”
“So why not get the Kyrie Irving fathead?”
“Because this is awesome! He’s why the Cavs won the lottery!”
“Really? Not the fact that the Clippers, despite having been gifted Blake Griffin, will always find themselves running into the figurative NBA door on account of their being run by what some say is the worst human being on the planet?”
“Nope, all Nick!”
“…. You realize you have a 14-year-old boy hanging on your wall. Typically the only people who say that are (redacted on account of posthumous popularity) and Eli Roth.”
“Hey, if you don’t like it, you can get out. There’s the door. You’ll know it by the exit sign in Comic Sans.”
(HT: Deadspin via SBNation.com)
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We bring you another show of NBA player unity… but frankly we have questions about how well that is going to hold up long term.
Kevin Durant doesn’t want to hear any of that, as he told the Associated Press.
“We’re going to stand up for what we have to do, no matter how long it’s going to take,” Durant told The Associated Press after the conclusion of his two-day youth basketball camp.
“No matter how long the lockout’s going to take, we’re going to stand up. We’re not going to give in.”
I have no doubt that he and his fellow players mean that sincerely today.
But what happens when we get into September and their agents are in their ear about watching out for their own interests, and their friends are in their ear about cutting a deal to get back work because he only has so many years to make this NBA money? There are a lot of forces that pull on players, many of whom make a lot of money and spend a lot of money. Not having that money come in could hurt.
We’ll see how unified the players remain as this saga starts to drag out all summer and into the fall.
It’s official, we saw it on twitter.
Actually, it’s official because Deron Williams tweeted it and added a picture of his signature on a contract with Besiktas.
Williams has signed a deal that will have him playing in Turkey this fall if the NBA lockout isn’t resolved. Well, maybe it will, but he has signed the deal, as he tweeted.
Just made it official, headed to Turkey …signed with Beşiktaş &@BJK_Basketbol http://t.co/P77aghv
Credit the man for putting his name on the dotted line rather than giving lip service to being “open” to the idea of playing overseas. There are varied reports on his salary, but it could be as high as $5 million for a full season.
Which is $11 million less than his NBA deal, which is why he has an out clause to return to the NBA the second the lockout ends and the NBA starts to pick up steam again. Which could theoretically be before Beşiktaş even plays a game (the first one is Sept. 27, if the NBA is going to have a full season starting on time they need a deal about no later than that.
There is one other hang-up — that contract he already has signed with the Nets, which has two years and $34 million remaining (the second of those years a player option). To play for Beşiktaş he needs to get a “letter of clearance” from FIBA (the international basketball organization). FIBA has not yet said how they would rule on allowing situations like this during the lockout. The players union has said they would fight to allow guys to play overseas if locked out, mostly because they like the leverage.
If he does play, this is a big risk for Williams. The Nets could void his current deal, but really that’s not likely. The risk is going forward — Williams is on the verge of a big max contract (whatever the max is in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement) and a serious injury could cost him a lot of money.
But he wants to play, he put his name of the paper. Officially.
AP
Suddenly NBA players are like a lot of Americans — without health insurance.
Which is a big problem for the international players who want to help their teams qualify for the 2012 London Olympics through a series of FIBA Tournaments around the globe. Insurance doesn’t just have to cover treatment and rehab of an injury, there is the money owed on contracts and team issues that have to be covered in these policies. They are not cheap.
But Brazil’s basketball federation has stepped up to insure San Antonio’s Tiago Splitter, according to the Spurs blog at the Express-News.
He will play for the team in a series of exhibitions (including one against Team USA, which is filled with college players this summer), then in the FIBA Americas tournament in Argentina that will determine the Olympic qualifiers from the Western Hemisphere. (The USA has already qualified by winning last summer’s World Championships in Turkey — thank you Kevin Durant.)
The Spurs also have Tony Parker (France) and Manu Ginobili (Argentina) dealing with the insurance issue. And there are numerous other players on other teams in the same boat. The solution is going to have to come from the national federations, but in the case of a team like France with six NBA players it can get very, very expensive.
With the lockout looming, many NBA players are considering playing in Europe as they wait for the new CBA to get hammered out. However, most European teams have limited finances, as well as a limit on how many U.S. players can be on a roster. However, some top agents think that there may be a very viable plan C for NBA players if the lockout continues. Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today has the story:
Lee and Young agree on a burgeoning basketball market that will be attractive in a long lockout: China.
“The biggest money is China, hands down,” Young said. “You can make almost double in China what you can in Europe. The Chinese league isn’t as good of a league, but if it’s all about money you might as well go over there and make as much money as you can.”
The Chinese season doesn’t start until December, and teams recruit in September and October, Lee said. Players by then will know if NBA games are lost.
“I can see a number of NBA guys getting attractive offers from Chinese teams that will have those walk-away outs,” Lee said.
It seemed like an odd move when Stephon Marbury went to China a few years ago, but if the lockout keeps going, he may end up looking like a trailblazer.
Reuters
Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley at the same desk every Thursday night.
First, that is appointment television. Second, TNT may want to increase its craft services budget (the people who cater food to the set).
TNT made it official Thursday, announcing that Shaquille O’Neal will join the “Inside the NBA” show before and after games on that network (mostly Thursday nights plus some other games and playoffs). Shaq will be on set with Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson and Kenny “the jet” Smith.
Already this is one of the most entertaining — and at moments insightful — television basketball shows out there. Adding another big personality will just improve the product. Frankly, more Shaq and less Magic Johnson is good for television.
The guy I would hate to see get squeezed in all this is Chris Webber — he is the best guy that TNT and NBA TV have working on air. (TNT produces the NBA TV studio shows.) Reports are he will still call games but not be in studio for TNT. Which is a shame. Webber is funny, insightful and I still miss him and Kevin McHale doing NBA TV together, they were fantastic. Just don’t kick the man to the curb.
AP
Nothing runs professional sports in the United States like television and television money. And it’s right in the middle of the NBA lockout.
That starts with the current television deal, set to pay the league $930 million next season (assuming there is a next season). We told you before about how the NBA’s television networks — TNT, ESPN/ABC — are set to lose $1.25 billion in revenue if there are no games.
Over at Hoopspeak, Ethan Sherwood Strauss explains how the NBA has missed the boat on its national television deal (first signed in 2007).
Ad Week reports that ESPN/ABC and TNT would miss out on up to 1.25 billion dollars from a year with no basketball ad money. If the 2011-2012 season actually happens, those channels would collectively pay 930 million dollars for that 1.25 billion return in broadcast revenue, a potential 320 million-dollar gap between what the NBA sells TV content for and what broadcasters make off of it. This is a quite a steal for the TV side considering that broadcasters often overpay for the privilege of attaching themselves to sports. For perspective, networks give the NFL 4 billion dollars in return for 3 billion in ad money. My suspicion is that pro basketball could easily make up the 300 million they claim to be losing–if only the league had a mulligan on TV rights negotiations.
They don’t get to redo those rights until 2016, although the current partners may be willing to do an earlier renegotiation to keep the rights without opening up the bidding.
But when they do, the NBA will see a big jump in revenue, according to Forbes.
The buzz in broadcasting circles is that the National Basketball Association’s terrific television ratings and greater competition for sports programming are going to result in at least a $3 billion increase in the league’s next deal (30 percent more a year than the current deal)…
While buzz sometimes nothing more than just buzz, in this case a 30% increase might be too conservative. The Los Angeles Lakers reportedly inked a new cable deal in February that will pay the team an average of $150 million a year, five times their current fee. Almost immediately after Peter Guber and Joe Lacob bought the Golden State Warriors last summer the team inked a new cable deal with Comcast. Although the figure has not been reported, I have been told the deal paid the new owners between $40 million to $50 million upfront, plus a more than 100% increase in the annual rights fee. Heck, even the National Hockey League just got a new deal with Comcast that will pay the league 170% more than its current agreement.
What Forbes is writing about both the owners and players realize — the league had the best ratings it had seen in a decade last year and they will be getting more television money in the future. Which brings us to the current Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations and lockout.
The last offer from the owners wanted to cap annual player salaries at $2 billion (they made $2.17 billion this past season) for a decade. Meaning that player salaries would remain flat an all of the money from the increased television rights deal would go into the owners pockets.
The players currently get 57 percent of the gross Basketball Related Income that comes into the league, a figure that includes the national television revenue. While the players have offered to lower their share down to 54 percent, they want it to remain a percentage because they want to share in the increased television revenue when it comes.
And that is part of the standoff. There will be more revenue for the league in future seasons, but who gets the lions share of it has to be hammered out.
If back in 2007 the league had not signed such a long television deal, one that had more flexibility, we might not be dealing with the threat of such a protracted lockout.
