First Official Day of the Lockout

As many of you may have heard, the NBA is in a lockout. Many that do not follow sports closely wonder what a lockout is and why it is happening. A lockout is a business tactic in which the owners physically lock the players out of there workplace. The actual definition given by Webster is "the withholding of employment by an employer and the whole or partial closing of the business establishment in order to gain concessions from or resist demands of employees." In other words, the lockout is not a player strike. The owners start the lockout as a result of an expired Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). The CBA is a formal and legal agreement between all of the players and all of the owners. They hammer out an agreement on how the money will be split, the length of contracts, and other crucial business elements. The previous CBA gave 57% of the Basketball Related Income (BRI) to the players and 43% to the owners. Currently the players have offered to drop to a 52-48 split, basically a 5% pay cut; the owners are demanding a 50-50 split. Lets just time out here for just a second. Imagine in your profession your boss announces that he wants you to take a 7% pay cut. Therefore, if you were making $100,000 per year, your boss is now announcing that you will make $93,000 next year. How many of you would go for that? You instead decide to have negotiations with your boss on this issue. You agree to take a 5% cut, understanding that the economy is bad and businesses do lose money from time to time. After making several concessions, your boss brings the issue of salary back to the surface. He still demands the 7% cut in pay? This situation is very similar to what the NBA is going through right now. Yes, the players do make a lot of money. Yes, they are in a business that generates a lot of money. All things put aside, this is still their job. These owners typically own several businesses and should know how to forecast the business future. If they want that 7% gap closed, they shouldn't have let it be that far below. While this may sound like I am defending the players, I kind of am; however, the real losers of the situation are those that depend on the season for their livelihoods. Many jobs will be lost as ticket takers, parking attendants, and others that have a job directly impacted with the season won't be going to work this year.