This was written by Jared Sternberg, sitting in for his dad.
I've been a basketball fan almost my whole life. I love watching NBA games on television, I love playing basketball in the park and on my school and rec league teams, and I love playing NBA Live and 2K11 on my PS3. I also love wearing my NBA (Boston Celtics) and NCAA (UConn) gear.
I was born in 1999, which my dad tells me was a year after the last NBA lockout. My dad also said (and I looked it up on Google) that it took the NBA 5 or 6 years to recover.
I really don't know all the issues involved but I want my NBA. The past few seasons have been great. I'm a hardcore fan, but even my dad, who is just a casual fan, was into the playoffs this year. While I was rooting for the Celtics he was rooting against LeBron and the Heat. During the finals we were both rooting for Dallas. Even my mom, who never watches basketball, was watching the finals.
My parents are more NFL fans than anything else and are really happy the football lockout is over. I like football too, but basketball is my game. Why can't this lockout be over before the season too?
I did a Google search to see what the arguments are about. All I could come up with are these.
The owners say that 22 of the 30 teams are losing money. I don't get that. When my dad was at Magna, he used to write a big TV Sports report every year and it showed that the current TV deals with TNT, ESPN, and ABC bring in about $950 million a year for the NBA.
The owners want a salary cap, the players say no way. I think that means the owners don't want to pay too much to the players.
The players now get about 57% of basketball related income. The owners want more of a 50-50 split.
I couldn't find anything that said what the players were demanding. It sounds like they just want to take stuff away so they all make money. So I can kind of understand that.
What will happen if the season is late or canceled. I hate to say it but I'll be back and just as into it as before. But my mom and dad probably won't be as interested anymore. That means the NBA might lose some casual fans who were really involved this season. Won't ticket sales and ratings go down?
I don't care about all that. I just want the games to start on time. I can't wait to watch Charles Barkley and Shaq together on TNT talking about basketball, and the Celtics rule the NBA again.
Jared...thank you for the article. These last playoffs were so exciting and had so many great storylines. It will be a serious buzz kill if the strike lasts through 2012.
My 6 year old is now obsessed with the NBA, but I've yet to tell him about the possibility of no games next year.
Keeping fingers crossed!
Posted by: Brian McElroy | 08/03/2011 at 05:11 PM
Oh, it would be a really a big problem for the league if the lockout is not ended ASAP. The fan base of this league will have nowhere to go and its PR will decrease. It's so sad if this great league decides to delay the games for at least half a year. :(
Posted by: Lauryn Purtee | 08/23/2011 at 02:45 PM
On the recent news, it is said that the first two weeks of the 2011-2012 season is postponed due to the lockout. It's a big upset for the fans if the lockout lasts until next year.
Posted by: Robert Perez | 10/20/2011 at 01:29 PM