So what if the players threaten to start their own franchise?

[asdf1990]

Owners would probably shit bricks if the players managed to start their own league. They would lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

[97 bulls]

Investors invest their money in products that they know are reliable. People aren't going to invest into something that they aren't for sure they are going to profit off of. If that were the case all NBA players could get an endorsement and not just the bonafide superstars. Start a league, let it establish a name for itself, and then maybe the investors and sponsers will start rolling in, but getting someone to invest on a new name is hard. As an investor, am I really supposed to trust a bunch of professional athletes, with my money and name? You say they would hire marketing and business teams to handle all of the financial issues, but they aren't going to do it for free. Who's going to pay them? You mean to tell me NBA players can afford uniforms, travel expenses, venues, coach and staff, advertising, etc for an entire league?

Not only that, sure a lot of hardcore fans of basketball would watch, but I think it'd take some convincing for the casual fan to watch. Think about it, smaller franchises are cutting their loses for a reason and teams like the Heat, Lakers, and Celtics have the most televised games for a reason. They have established fanbases and TV networks know they're going to rack in the viewership.

Am I missing something?

Where would the order be amongst the players? Also wouldn't the players be operating at more of a loss than what the owners are asking them to take considering the fact that they not only have to invest in their own business, but be willing to take a paycut for the initial investment.

Hey I'm a pre-med major. Maybe I should just stick to that.

Think about it. Why are certain teams nationally televised? Certainly not cuz of the market. I remember when jordan played, the bulls were on tv 3 times a week. Once the bulls were broken up (the championship team mind you) they weren't televised at all. Hell even WGN stopped televising alot of their games. And they're a chicago station. How many of the celtics games were nationaly televised before garnett and allen joined pierce?the bulls and celtics are the 3rd and 5th tv markets in the us. And they rarely to never aired any of their games before the marketable players showed up.

[97 bulls]

FAIL on your first sentence, which pretty much invalidates anything else you had to say.

Investors fund highly speculative ventures every single day. The more speculative, the less certain it is that a profit will be turned.

Have you heard of Facebook? Investors put down millions far before the business earned any profits. The same can be said for many Internet start-ups of the last decade, or so.

What speculative investors do is look long-term. If they feel that eventually the funds they provide will get their money back, plus profits, then they'll go ahead with it.

In my view, the long-range viability of the third most popular sport in the country is secure. Losses will occur early, but if the underlying business plan is solid then profits would come later.

You my friend show you know business. The first rule in business is buy low and sell high.

[Blue&Orange]

So sum up all of your questions, the possible new system would like pretty much like the current one, except that it would be with new ownership, get it?

So now isn't a players league no more, it's just a different owners\investors league, where new owners\investors will front the majority of the money and then will let the players take the biggest slice... Good luck with that, ain't happening. Even zigalionaires like Paul Allen and Prokhorov aren't happy with the current deal, good luck finding those "investors"\"owners".

No one is saying that forming a new league would be "easy" or even that its likely to happen. An innovative idea was put on the table, and people are commenting on its possible viability.

You obviously don't think its viable, but others -- myself included -- think that under the right conditions, it could be.

I appreciate the soft backpeddling it means some sense is setting in.

And it's not an innovative idea , you think nobody thought of that ever? You think nobody on the players side, ever thought of that? That's the problem right there you and 97 bulls think that you just came up with some innovative breakthrough notion, that nobody have considered before.

[niko]

You'd basically be trying to make the NBA from scratch but without...
1) All the players. Not everyone would cross even in a best case scenario.
2) All the history.
3) The buildings to play in. (Where are you playing in NY?)
4) The Network contracts
5) The Partners (the advertising)

You would have to do all this from scratch. Right now, the owners are locking out the players because even with all this, they say the model is not profitable enough. BUT, you think a new group of people is going to do better ,from scratch.

That's just patently ridiculous. There is absolutely 0% chance of this.

[Shepseskaf]

So now isn't a players league no more, it's just a different owners\investors league, where new owners\investors will front the majority of the money and then will let the players take the biggest slice... Good luck with that, ain't happening. Even zigalionaires like Paul Allen and Prokhorov aren't happy with the current deal, good luck finding those "investors"\"owners".

You don't read very well. Either that, or you like the mischaracterize and overgeneralize.

No one said it would be a "players' league". What was proposed was that players take the initiative to start a new league sans the current owners.

It also was never said that the players would take a "bigger slice" then the main investors. The "slice" would have to be palatable to both sides, such that the players would find it acceptable and the potential owners would find it of interest to explore putting down funds for the venture.

I appreciate the soft backpeddling it means some sense is setting in.

And it's not an innovative idea , you think nobody thought of that ever? You think nobody on the players side, ever thought of that? That's the problem right there you and 97 bulls think that you just came up with some innovative breakthrough notion, that nobody have considered before.

Again, you're not reading. There has been no "backpeddling" at all. It was proposed as a "what if" scenario, and people have had their say.

As to being innovative, it certainly would be if such an idea every took root and an actual attempt was made.

Now do yourself and a favor and go back and actually read the previous posts before putting your own spin on things and misstating what was said.

[Hammertime]

What would be the motivation for players to do this. The players are currently throwing a hissy fit because they do not want to take a pay cut. In what alternate universe would a brand new league be able to pay them as much as they stand to make right now?