Comments on: Portland owner, one of world’s richest men, complains about NBA finances

By: philtration

philtration — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:06:31 +0000

Revenue sharing is all fine and good but you bought a team in Portland so don’t complain about small market teams. I am pretty sure that half of the population of Portland did not pack up and move away after you made the deal.
Like every other sport, some teams can be contracted and it would improve the talent level.
Not every city has to have a team and none of this is guaranteed. Does the NBA really need 30 teams when so many are losing money?
If you don’t want to do away with teams altogether then take 10 teams and let them have their own league.
Lower ticket prices lower payrolls and if an NBA team signs one of your players then they pay you for him.
If they can’t run a smaller scaled league in smaller markets then they are the problem.

By: pdxpanther

pdxpanther — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:28:27 +0000

So you’re saying if you don’t own the Lakers, Knicks, Celtics or Bulls, you shouldn’t even bother? This is why the NBA is going into a lockout next year, because of David Stern’s arrogance and lack of ability to run a billion dollar company.

By: beagle11

beagle11 — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:53:35 +0000

This is such bull… Maybe he should get his face out of the microchips for 10 minutes and open a book on basic finance. Mr. Allen, you can not buy a penny stock and expect it to be google. You didn’t buy the Lakers or Knicks, you bought a franchise with a loyal local fan base but not much else. You should have known that the half billion you invested after buying the team wasn’t going to transform the pacific northwest into a big tv market and it wouldn’t transform the blazers brand into a Manchester United Globally. Use some of your 13 billion to hire someone to work out some simple accounting and figure out what you need to do to make your franchise profitable or sell the team to someone who will. Guess what happens to one of us when we make stupid business deals or cant stay economically viable, – our wife leaves us and we loose our home. Where is this country going when we have billionaires complaining about the very capitalism that made them rich and begging for redistribution of wealth. These owners complain about their stars leaving then complain that they’re hamstrung by a stars contract when it doesn’t work out. No one wants accountability for mistakes. They want the cash cows that are the big markets to be the white out on the text that is their mistake. And we as fans will suffer for billionaires arguing with millionaires when we have no off season following one the all time great nba seasons.

By: LPad

LPad — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:17:19 +0000

Paul Allen rights. Revenue sharing or rather the lack of revenue sharing is the problem. Without, revenue sharing the 30 teams are essentially 30 different companies operating in the same market as competitors. That’s why 22 teams can’t make a profit because they are competing against each other. Unfortunately, rather than fix this problem and adopt a revenue sharing model, the owners will lockout the players and say the cap needs to be reduced by 15 million. Even though, an extra 15 million will not make the Blazers profitable.