The Day The Empire Lost His Mind

Last night the NBA committed suicide.

The Owners specifically. They killed all the goodwill the fans had left after one of the most obnoxious lockouts in sports memory. I say obnoxious because at a time when we are asking everyone of the little people to take a haircut seeing owners bullying their employees whom they have frequently overpaid is difficult to stomach.

However we sports fanatics are a hardy lot. Give us enough time, in this case all of two weeks, and we are ready to fly the team colors and immerse ourselves completely into the season. Yet somehow this time it feels different. The ill will engendered by both owners and players, although for vastly different reasons, will in my opinion rear its ugly head again.

Stern and the owners are coming across as little more than patriarchs who are unable to run the "family business" in a way that acknowledges the reality that has always been present. That reality is that the fans come to the game not to watch the owners, they come to watch the players.They can curse, yell, threaten boycott all they want but when it's showtime they come out to watch the stars.

Small market teams have always been the least popular destinations for star players. It is proven in ratings, and by revenue numbers that bigger markets influence audience share for the all important tv contracts that generate revenue for the entire league. While the owners refused to enter into, what they deem necessary, revenue sharing agreement amongst themselves they gladly squeezed the players for givebacks in terms of revenue. Yet now they balked at a trade that was precipitated by exactly the very lack of revenue sharing amongst them. Not to mention a bloated league that is in dire need of contraction.

Instead of addressing the difficult issues they did the easy and cowardly thing and blamed the player(s). In doing so perhaps overshadowing a season that once looked promising, but could be tainted by one of the most selfish and defeatists moves ever made by a professional sports commissioner and the owners he serves. Stern used to be the model amongst those charged with shepherding the major sports in America. He no longer wears that crown, today he wears goat horns courtesy of his fellow owners.

Image courtesy of Awful Announcing