NBA Contraction: Charlotte Bobcats on the Block

I try my hardest to avoid Bill Simmons.  He’s hired some really good writers over at Grantland.  He’s on ESPN TV once in a while, he’s involved in those 30 for 30 documentaries, of which I’ve liked several.  He’s involved on E:60 some times and I cringe when I see him or hear him speak.  Worst of all, he’s pretty much the strongest single voice in sports writing today, especially NBA writing and opinion.  He got David Stern, NBA Commissioner to come on his podcast, known as the BS Report.  I’ve actually downloaded it, plan to listen to the whole thing at some point when I can make myself.  We all know I hate Simmons, but I’ll set that aside for now.

What I’ve seen, basically everywhere in NBA world, that this was the biggest and most far reaching interview that Stern has done since the lockout.  He touches on a bit of everything.  What I saw that was Charlotte Bobcats specific was some of the standard Simmons Bobcats related bashing, as related by CardboardGerald and all those guys on Twitter and the major, MAJOR deal coming from this was Simmons challenging Stern to name some contractible teams.  Of course, being “The Sports Guy” Simmons had to put the Bobcats out there as an option.

As far as fanbases go, the Bobcats are in he bottom of the league.  The youngest franchise, what has to be, the shortest tenured players of any NBA roster.  The Bobcats have, admittedly, been a mess in the past 7 years.  The initial majority owner wanted out, found 2 bidders actually and the more popular option won out.  We know the status and it’s not good.  The TV audience might actually be less than the regular home attendance for the Bobcats.  There are many factors to blame with why the Charlotte Bobcats haven’t been successful in their first 7 years of existence, we don’t need to beat a dead horse here.

The NBA’s overall problems at this moment are what cause this “contraction” solution to come up.

The league as a whole isn’t making money.  There are 3-5 teams that you could say are making “good” money and then the rest, according to the NBA, are losing money.  The losses far outweigh whatever gains might be made, the league claims to the tune of $300 million last season.  So, yeah, the money is a big deal.  The Bobcats are losing money, I mean it’s getting better but it’s still pretty bad.  So, what are the options available?  Who knows, really, because the NBA and the players association won’t talk until September or so.

The first thing that starts to be discussed, which isn’t really a League/Union issue but an issue that must be looked at among the owners, is revenue sharing.  The Lakers make something like $150 million a year with their new TV deal.  Boston just signed a contract for the broadcast rights to their non-nationally televised games, that has been reported to double their annual TV revenue.  The Bobcats probably make nothing, still owing Time Warner Cable for the C-Set debacle, I don’t know, just my theory.  So there are haves and have-nots among the owners.  Whenever revenue sharing comes up, the haves immediately start worrying about leeches.  You could consider the MLB model to be the troubling picture of the future for NBA owners.  The fear would be that teams like the Bobcats, Bucks, Clippers or Hornets could become the NBA-version of the Pirates, Royals, A’s and Astros.  The teams that take that yearly paycheck from the league and say “thank you very much,” and don’t do anything else.

So these power teams and the league office would be looking at perpetual revenue receivers as an anchor or a ball and chain just pulling the rest of the league down.  So what do you do if you’re looking at the league as one business on the whole?  You cut losses, you break that chain that’s holding you back.  You contract teams that won’t perform.  A lot of fans of major market teams, of course Simmons is one, see it as an easy way get what they want, a profitable NBA and profitable teams at the top.

The easiest targets for contraction are obviously the Hornets and the Kings.  New Orleans is currently owned by the NBA.  Basically, very basically, George Shinn and the Hornets got into such deep debt to the league, that the league took the collateral available which of course is the team.  If the league already owns a team, rather than finding a new owner, why not contract the team?  The Kings may be the only team with arena issues in the league.  The Maloofs have lost a ton of money in the last couple years and despite a promising roster of young players, and the most NBA friendly Mayor (former all-star Kevin Johnson), the team is lost.  They tried to move to Anaheim, couldn’t.

Those are obvious, if you’re going to go ahead and go down that route.  People like Simmons seem to have it in for Charlotte or at least find them an easy target.  If you taste blood in the water, a weakness and you operate from a position of strength, you pounce.  Thankfully, Stern had the decisive and clear, correct response to hopefully shut Simmons up:

"“We have a long-term lease of a brand new building and we have a very unfortunate launch of that expansion franchise,” Stern said. “Michael Jordan is leading… what’s the opposite of an excavation? He is digging out, but he’s building up the franchise. Sponsorships are up, tickets are up, an unfortunate TV deal is being reworked on an ongoing basis. I think Charlotte will be a candidate for revenue sharing in its current format, no question about it. North Carolina — we’re going to abandon it and say they’re not supporting basketball?”"

Whew…First time I was happy with something Stern said since “With the noin-th pick in the NBA Draft….The Chur-lat Bobcats select…”  I hate that the Bobcats are in that revenue sharing situation, but the arena deal, the league, the owner, the area, all are going in our favor.

Andrew Barraclough is Senior Editor for RobertoGato.com, a Charlotte Bobcats Blog on theFansided Network.  Follow him on Twitter @therobertogato and Like the site on Facebook.