Basketball’s pay dispute: the 1 percent at war with the 1 percent

There is a something odd about Los Angeles this Autumn; something missing from the billboards, and newspapers, and flat screen television which jollify so many of the city’s public spaces.

Along with the rest of America, we are suffering from a strange and unfamiliar shortage of very tall, heavily-tattooed men prepared to play basketball several times a week in exchange for large amounts of money.

The NBA, the world’s foremost league, is in the midst of a crippling labour dispute. At issue: exactly how extortionate the wages paid to its outrageously-talented stars ought to be. Already, the entire pre-season has been cancelled. So too have fixtures scheduled for November, including the Thanksgiving encounters which traditionally provide light relief from the patriotic duty of eating large amounts of deep fried turkey (yes, really) and socialising with relatives you don’t spend enough time with.

US fans are wearily familiar with labour disputes (the latest developments in this one are here). An entire year of MLB baseball was lost in the nineties. And industrial action from NFL players was called off just days before this year’s American football season got underway.  But in LA, the absence of the NBA hits particularly hard. For this is at heart a basketball town. The local side, the purple and gold Lakers (colours above) represent the nation’s most successful franchise of recent years, with a nickname, “Showtime,” reflecting both their athletic flamboyance and the fact that the crowd at an average fixture contains more Hollywood A-listers than a red carpet on Oscar night.

The current dispute, of course, revolves squarely around money. Players, who earned an average of $5m last year, want more. NBA franchise owners, whose clubs are worth several hundred million dollars (even before other assets are considered) would like to pay them less. Loyal fans, as well as the minimum-wage employees who sell courtside hotdogs and tear tickets, are naturally the ones who suffer. They have nothing to gain from this mutual display of greed.

A few hundred yards from the Staples Center, where the Lakers play their home games, is the Occupy LA encampment. There, people will tell you that basketball’s Autumn of discontent speaks not just to the over-commercialisation of sport, but also the dysfunctional state of capitalism. As several hundred very tall multi-millionaires argue with several dozen greedy billionaires over how to divide up their wealth (while the rest of us twiddle our thumbs) it’s hard not to wonder if they have a point.

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• http://twitter.com/check0utgirl michael metcalfe

  They have a point.

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Cobham/712541970 Paul Cobham

  dear guy adams
  The specific numbers are irrelevant, this about not about mutual greed at all. This is about the owners, seeing all time high tv ratings, the value of their franchises as a whole increase and benefiting hugely from various tax savings and taking tax payers money to build new arenas at no cost to themselves. However, despite all this they claim they are losing money and are trying to force the players into taking a 9% pay cut. 
  If you want to compare it to the trials and tribulations of others, which again is misguided, perhaps ask them how they would feel about taking a 7-9% pay cut! The players have been aware of this situation for a long time, were encouraged to save and stay united. They are by no means pleading poverty, but are tired of being controlled by the billionaire boys network who are seeking to punish the players for their own poor decisions in previous contracts amongst other things.
  Your article is so lazily written, with a tone of disinterest thats makes we wonder why you bothered to post this article at all.

• http://profiles.google.com/marcus.lepidus marcus lepidus

  Excellent post, Mr. Cobham.  The bottom line is…regardless of how much they’re being paid…the players ARE workers…union workers at that… who because of their unique talents actually can, to some extent, bargain with management on a more level plane.  I suspect Guy Adams’ article was written solely to allow him to employ the ‘1% vs 1%’ in his in his clever title.