Great article on declining Baseball Attendance

[Fred]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2009-05-11-attendance-package_N.htm

"Attendance is down 5.2% compared with the same number of home games at each park a year ago, according to Baseball-Reference.com, but not for a lack of effort from teams."

I believe this will hit the NBA much harder, since baseball is a more popular sport. The ramifications for the Bulls are obvious:

1. Hinrich will be harder to trade.
2. Reinsdorf will refuse to go into luxury tax territory.
3. The Bulls will not resign BG.
4. Most importantly, John Salmons turns 30 in December of this year. I'm not entirely certain that he will opt out at the end of next year. He's owed $5.8 in 2010-11. Will there be a big market for him at the end of next season?
5. The 2011 lockout will happen, as predicted by Bill Simmons.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090227

 

[dunkside.com]

usually this is a good rule to follow: if bill simmons predicts something, you can put your money on the opposite thing happening. he's sort of like a human "stat curse".

 

[dougthonus]

I wonder about the 2011 lockout. Part of me thinks there's no way in hell the players are going to be dumb enough to let it come to that, but history would prove me wrong over and over again.

In hockey they had the lockout, because the players were idiots, and after the lockout they got so much less than if they had accepted the first deal. Same thing will happen to NBA players if they go to battle with the league this time.

They players won't understand that half the owners will be saving money by having a lockout not losing it. They won'[t want to get back in unless then pendulum swings wildly in the other direction.

 

[charity stripe]

Is it the players that are idiots or just Billy Hunter?

 

[chi_hawks_23]

I love Bill Simmons articles. They usually are great for a good laugh, but you have to take everything he says with a grain of salt.

• The no luxury tax and no resigning Gordon are fair predictions IMO. Thats a result of "Jerry being Jerry".

• Hinrich can be traded this summer, no doubt about it. His playoff performance helped that out a ton. (How good would he look in Orlando right now)

• Salmons is an enigma. If he averages 18ppg next year, I can see him getting a 4yr/32mil deal from someone. Otherwise, he may just take the option.

• Lockout...who knows. Crapshoot right now.

 

[TheStig]

The lookout is pretty logical. With 2/3 of owners slated to lose money, they are better off keeping the doors shut. They will demand some pretty steep concessions and try to hold the players hostage. If the NBA wants to avoid this, they need to suspend the LT for a year.

 

[Newskoolbulls]

Baseball attendance is going down because people are tired of watching cheaters. Also come to NY and come to Citi Field or Yankee stadium. You will need to take out a loan for a family of four.

 

[sephcast]

Baseball attendance is also down due to so many games. The NBA has half the amount and less seats per stadium. There won't be that much of a problem.

 

[dougthonus]

TheStig wrote:

The lookout is pretty logical. With 2/3 of owners slated to lose money, they are better off keeping the doors shut. They will demand some pretty steep concessions and try to hold the players hostage. If the NBA wants to avoid this, they need to suspend the LT for a year.

I think even suspending the luxury tax for a year won't help. You have to remember all that luxury tax money goes do other teams, so it's not changing the health of the league just changing which pockets get the money, and a lot of the poorest teams are getting that luxury tax money. They'd be hurt even more if you suspended it.

The problem is even if you're losing money, you lose a ton of money with a lockout. It's not like you stop playing and you break even. I think teams spend something lose like 15 million per year if there's a lockout (roughly). Thus you have to be really underwater for the lockout to help you, but there probably are enough teams who are underwater enough that there will definitely be a lot of support for a lockout.

Is it the players that are idiots or just Billy Hunter?

No idea. He's got to do the best he can too. You can't expect the players to roll over.

One day this summer I'll do the "how to rework the CBA to be fair for players, management, and small market teams and increase the quality of the league" podcast.

 

[dougthonus]

Newskoolbulls wrote:

Baseball attendance is going down because people are tired of watching cheaters. Also come to NY and come to Citi Field or Yankee stadium. You will need to take out a loan for a family of four.

I think the scandal is a negative, but I don't think people care any more. Steroids is old news, when someone gets caught who is surprised or cares these days? I think the economy is the biggest driver of people not going.

Sephcast wrote:

Baseball attendance is also down due to so many games. The NBA has half the amount and less seats per stadium. There won't be that much of a problem.

Baseball has a far larger fan base and far cheaper seats last time I checked. It depends where you sit of course, but in the United center aside from the league mandated $10 section which is about 60 seats large, teh cheapest seats are $50 a ticket or so.

 

[TheStig]

dougthonus wrote:

TheStig wrote:

The lookout is pretty logical. With 2/3 of owners slated to lose money, they are better off keeping the doors shut. They will demand some pretty steep concessions and try to hold the players hostage. If the NBA wants to avoid this, they need to suspend the LT for a year.

I think even suspending the luxury tax for a year won't help. You have to remember all that luxury tax money goes do other teams, so it's not changing the health of the league just changing which pockets get the money, and a lot of the poorest teams are getting that luxury tax money. They'd be hurt even more if you suspended it.

The problem is even if you're losing money, you lose a ton of money with a lockout. It's not like you stop playing and you break even. I think teams spend something lose like 15 million per year if there's a lockout (roughly). Thus you have to be really underwater for the lockout to help you, but there probably are enough teams who are underwater enough that there will definitely be a lot of support for a lockout.

I fully understand but when the LT barrier drops a couple of million or more this year it will put most of those teams on the bubble into LT payers who won't get an LT payment anyway. I think most of the middle 10 teams that are on the bubble with become payers instead of recipients. In the the past the top 5 teams really paid the tax, with the lower barrier will have fire sales and more than half the league will start to pay.

 

[dougthonus]

I fully understand but when the LT barrier drops a couple of million or more this year it will put most of those teams on the bubble into LT payers who won't get an LT payment anyway. I think most of the middle 10 teams that are on the bubble with become payers instead of recipients. In the the past the top 5 teams really paid the tax, with the lower barrier will have fire sales and more than half the league will start to pay.

The tax threshold is only supposed to drop 1-2 million. I don't know how many teams there were last year that were right up against the tax that have no one coming off the books this year and will be over next year with no chance to shake things up. I can't imagine it's many.

 

[TheStig]

dougthonus wrote:

I fully understand but when the LT barrier drops a couple of million or more this year it will put most of those teams on the bubble into LT payers who won't get an LT payment anyway. I think most of the middle 10 teams that are on the bubble with become payers instead of recipients. In the the past the top 5 teams really paid the tax, with the lower barrier will have fire sales and more than half the league will start to pay.

The tax threshold is only supposed to drop 1-2 million. I don't know how many teams there were last year that were right up against the tax that have no one coming off the books this year and will be over next year with no chance to shake things up. I can't imagine it's many.

Teams that will be over 68 Million Committed that were under the LT this year
Washington
Denver
Miami
SA**will only have about 2 mill to fill out 3 spots
Orlando
NO



Teams that will have to let a major piece go to stay under
Chicago-BG
**Philly will be pretty close to the LT after paying MIller and filling out the roster
**Utah-Milsap, it really depends who opts out but if okur and boozer opt in they will pay the lt
Milwaukke-Charlie V

Edit: I don't think this will fix the main problem at hand but it will help keep the nba competitive during these hard times, avoid a nuclear summer and avoid fire sales. There are still major issues that need to be addressed but imo this is a good middle ground for the upcoming year.