I Loathe the Participation of NBA Players in International Competition – Part IV
Aug 3rd, 2007 by Answerman
IV. The Money
On CSI (doesn’t matter which one, the format is always the same) when we get to the last 10 minutes and the mystery is yet to be solved, the main character looks up knowingly and says to his team “just follow the money”, because money is the root of the evil (so says those of us without it, anyway).
There is money to be made in these FIBA competitions. There is a the big one – TV rights – and of course the jerseys, concessions, tickets, ad sales, etc. It doesn’t take a media genius to know that whatever the asking price is for the TV rights, it goes up when NBA players – and specifically Team USA is involved. Everyone wants to watch the famous “superstars” get beat. Further, as discussed in prior entries – FIBA makes the upset likely.
We know that the money does not go to the players who we are tuning in to watch. The money is being made off of their talent, their appeal, their practice, their hard work and our media’s ability to criticize them when they lose. Its also being made off their risk of injury…but they won’t see that nice FIBA TV cash.
Money also does not go to the teams paying these players salaries. This is particularly odd because it is the teams who are taking all the risk. For example, if Kobe Bryant/Chris Bosh/LeBron, etc. gets hurt in FIBA competition, Team USA will find a replacement or will lose. If Kobe Bryant gets hurt, his salary is still guaranteed by the LA Lakers. So barring a career ending injury, he’ll still get paid and will survive to sign another big deal.
But if Kobe Bryant gets hurt, the Lakers will take a huge loss on his salary. The team will also be weakened, through no fault or profit of their own. They will miss the playoffs and by enduring a losing season with a star player on the bench, it will cost them ad revenue and ticket sales. Moreover, the NBA, which struggles for its own ratings, loses one of its main attractions. Fans lose their ability to see a quality team play, which is why we buy tickets in the first place.
Clearly, we all know injury is part of the game. However, there is a big difference between a player being hurt playing on its employers behalf and not. When playing on the Lakers behalf, the Lakers can control how many minutes, the treatment before the game, the practices in between games, etc. In FIBA, the guys paying the money have no control.
Ask the owners of the Memphis Grizzlies what they went through last year. Their team was team barely hanging on to profitability and a spot in the playoffs. A FIBA summer and Gasol injury later, their team is mired in losing, Fratello loses his job, their fan base gets smaller and NBA fans are robbed of a good team. Grizzly owners are robbed of millions.
So what about that money – the money FIBA makes from selling the rights to broadcast these players, and all the extra money realized when Team USA is there? It doesn’t go to the people with risk, the people who we are tuning in to see – it goes to, who else – FIBA. They have no risk and no talent and no expenses. Maybe the FIBA money gets split amongst the participating teams – who also have no risk, but get their own jersey and sponsorship money.
Want to be fair, here’s fair:
- Team USA (or other), with all its unrealized FIBA money, should insure the teams of the players competing in a FIBA competition. Team Spain, for example, buys a policy insuring Gasol for any games missed for the season following a FIBA summer. At least, then, the contract is paid for – the other revenue losses cannot really be calculated with certainty, but Gasol’s per game payment can be calculated and paid by insurance.
- Give some of that nice FIBA money to NBA team owners with participating players. Want my player to go? He’s under contract. Pay me.
NBA must get these concessions for its teams or the NBA involvement with FIBA must end. It should be easy. The NBA holds all the cards. All the money in FIBA is entrenched in the NBA. Since FIBA and Team USA want their free money, they’ll do whatever the NBA says to keep the lazy greedy NBA players (who get no money and take on the extra work voluntarily) in the competition.
NBA contracts are pretty clear. Players under contract in season and out. Players are not allowed to ride motorcycles, fly planes or engage in other dangerous activities. The clauses are not for the player’s safety, its for the owner’s security. Yet, somehow, they are allowed to have 7 foot behemoths pound on them for 40 minutes a night, without any protection from the refs….and FIBA gets all the money.
More to come.
“NBA contracts are pretty clear. Players under contract in season and out. Players are not allowed to ride motorcycles, fly planes or engage in other dangerous activitiesYet, somehow, they are allowed to have 7 foot behemoths pound on them for 40 minutes a night, without any protection from the refs”
Yes, playing against “7 foot behemoths” is a dangerous activity in FIBA, even though NBA players do it everyday for a living. I guess during the offseason they shouldn’t work on their games, on a court, in the weightroom, in scrimmage, shooting practice, the training facility, FIBA or whatever. They can injure themselves in training or scrimmage just as easily as in a FIBA tournament, just look at Elton Brand, he did his achilles just lifting weights. Teams should tell their players not to play in FIBA because basketball is A DANGEROUS ACTIVITY!!!!
lol
And you’re right about the FIBA refs, they don’t call it fair. They are so biased they don’t even know the difference between a standard call, and a superstar call. In FIBA 2006 when the other team’s players touched up on LeBron or Wade the ref don’t reward his majesty for being present with a trip to the charity stripe.
Whatsupwidat???
And FIBA “gets all the money”. Unlike every other international sports tournament they refuse to share any part of it amongst the teams and players that actually make up the tournament, not even to cover their travel expenses. They just cover their own outlay, pocket the rest, fund terrorist organisations on the side, and laugh all the way to the bank.
Jerry
Well said. I remember when Cuban made a comment about international play and got trashed for it. If i’m investing $100 + millions on a player, You bet I will not let him play tough physical basketball with the world’s best athletes at my own expense. I can maybe see if a team wants to develope a young player… but a proven commodity like dirk, or kobe…. losing these franchise players is crippling to say the least to an NBA team that can only have 5 players on the court at once.
I totally agree with you on every point completely. I have thought this way for a long time as well. How could anyone with half a brain not realize that it makes absolutely no sense to expect a franchise to risk a multimillion dollar asset for no return. A preschooler should know that! So now I wonder why owners have not offered star players amendments to current contracts to give incentive to not participate in Team USA. Maybe the league has rules against amendments? I don’t know. But what I think REALLY underlies the problem is this pervasive jingoistic notion that players ought to “serve their country” by participating in international competition and that owners would be “unpatriotic” to discourage them. Thus players that choose not to play in international competition either for personal reasons or out of respect for the fiduciary relationship that their contracts entail are lambasted by the media
as “selfish”, “unpatriotic”, “spoiled”, etc. If owners like Mark Cuban were to try to encourage or give incentives to players not to participate, the public calls them “greedy”, “unpatriotic”, etc.
And along the same lines, when players DO play in international competition, they get further lambasted. Given the circumstances that American players must work under, I think they have done well and should be praised. But rather, they get unfairly portrayed by these basketball “purists” as ball-hogging, pot-smoking gangstas’ who only care about showing off their moves and their “bling-bling”. It’s borderline racist. These people need to get their heads out of their A$$es and think rationally. They cream their shorts over the “team-oriented” FIBA style of play and lambaste the way a lot of our favorite NBA players play. They can think what they want, but is there a “right” way to play? NO!!! Basketball is ENTERTAINMENT. Ultimately, the reason why people pay to watch the sport is because it entertains and improves the quality of life. If Vince Carter’s acrobatic one-on-one moves is entertaining to viewers, then that’s what they should get, and they shouldn’t be lectured and harangued by self-righteous “purists” for liking what they like. When you work 60 hours a week at a desk, crunching numbers and graphs, that’s the last thing you want. I could go on and on about what is messed up about NBA players being pressured to play in international competition, but I have no time. And YES, they ARE PRESSURED because of the prevailing notion that as priviledge athletes, they OUGHT to play “for their country”. The whole thing makes me want to puke man.
So tell me, how much money does FIBA make on television rights? Who carries the FIBA programming around the world? Does the NBA get ANY benefit as being part of FIBA? USA Basketball? Do you have a single solitary clue about this issue? This post is ignorant, under the standard definition of that word.
And perhaps considering how Elton Brand ruptured his Achilles tendon yesterday, threatening his career, the NBA should ask for a percentage of the profits from the company that manufactured the equipment he was using at the time of his unfortunate injury. Wouldn’t be GREAT if it was made in CHINA???
Your reasons are getting weaker and weaker with each blog. Try, just for one minute, to visualize the fact that the NBA is not the only professional basketball league in the world, and realize that the vast majority of the players in FIBA tournaments don’t play in the NBA. Do you expect every single player in every tournament to be insured by FIBA? Or just NBA players?, which I think would be a bit cynical, don’t you?
One question, remember yourself in 1996, USA just won the Olympics, everyone still awed by plays like Carter jumping over Weis and so on. Were you still this adamant about NBA players not participating in FIBA events or did this hate inexplicably start when USA stopped winning? Answer truthfully please.
In Europe players go for defending their own country and also increase their market value (an NT player is obviously more valuable than a guy who is not).
In the USA it seems that being man, that is showing up, and taking the blame if they lose, is now a sin unlesse they get a few millions.
Luckily some US NBA players don’t see that way and want to play. Those are the true pros and patriots.
lets face it .. the nba’s newest stars all came from europe! the gasols ginobili parker garbajosa and all these guys is the present and the future of the nba……. the real competition and the real world championship is not being competed in the nba finals but rather it is on fiba sanction tournaments.. Come to think of it the US is being represented by the best players globally and yet they stil lose