NEW YORK, N.Y. Oct. 12 (DPI Sports) — The NBA is close to cancelling its entire 2011-12 season while the NFL rolls along, its labor troubles behind it, continuing its dominance of America’s professional sports.
The NBA and its players have major issues to bridge — perhaps more challenging than the NFL’s. The NBA seeks to reduce the players’ percentage of the league’s gross revenues — to 50% or less — and also wants to shorten contracts in an effort to restore competitive balance in the league. The NFL’s re-structuring was less draconian, but required big concessions from players nonetheless.
But as the NBA impasse grinds on, one thing is clear: The leadership styles of the league’s two commissioners are contrasting sharply.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, by all accounts, personally wooed and cultivated relationships with the NFL Players Association leaders through the spring of 2011, as the lockout threatened the season. Player reps cited Goodell as a positive influence on the process. As a result the 52-year-old commissioner’s stature, only 5 years into his tenure, has never been greater.
In contrast, the 69-year-old Stern, now 27 years at the helm of his league, has, publicly at least, grown sullen and dour in recent years, and especially during the lockout he initiated, according to many commentators.
It hasn’t helped that the new NBA leadership projects little enthusiasm for the game as well. NBA chief operating officer Adam Silver, Stern’s hand-picked successor to be, also comes across publicly as detached and dry — “all the personality of a tax accountant” as one commentator put it — and hasn’t appeared to forge the personal bonds the way Goodell did during the NFL lockout.
Of course, it may be unfair to make comparisons. The median NFL salary is about $770,000, and the league average under $2 million. The NBA, of course, with about 1/5 as many players, has an average salary of about $5.5 million. And individual stars drive the commercial success of the NBA to a greater degree than the helmeted players of football.
As a result, Stern has plenty more to be personally antagonized about, and given the length of his tenure, has much more to know about to annoy him.
Recently Goodell was asked what kind advice he’d give Stern amid the basketball lockout, and Goodell demurred: “I talked to David yesterday. I don’t give him any advice,” Goodell said at a September news conference. “He’s the dean. He gives us advice.”
Recent articles highlight the differences between leagues and between commissioners:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/sports/basketball/owners-and-players-divided-by-push-to-restructure-the-nba.html
Meanwhile, fan criticism is growing. Reader comments are mostly dismissive of the travails of millionaire professional athletes and billionaire owners, and many are turned off by the over-exposed league and its labor problems already:
(Comment #77) “David Stern makes $15-23 million a year. he’s over-expanded the league into markets where it’s difficult cut a profit, increased the game schedule from 62 -82, and allowed new owners (Pistons, Wizards, and Warriors) to blatantly overpay for their franchises.
“The result is … the NBA owns the New Orleans Hornets, at least 20 meaningless games where teams just show up to avoid injury since they’re already out of the playoffs (try spending any money on a Timberwolf – Nets game in March). And these owners who overpaid for their franchises naively think they’ll be able to cut a quick profit? If any of us overpaid for a car – we’d be called a sucker – so what are these people?
“In this economy, the NBA is not “too big to fail.” It’s failed with its expansion, watered down talent, and increasing ticket prices: poor business decisions for quite a few teams.
“Has anyone called for Stern to take a pay cut or step down?”