The N.B.A. has exported its product to every corner of the world. The league, more than any other, has made rock stars out of its players, who are among the most recognized athletes on the planet.
But by missing one innovation — forging a true partnership with its cheap jerseys players — the league threatens to choke its growth. Commissioner David Stern likes to talk about partnership, but in the rough-and-tumble world of stalled labor negotiations, the fundamental relationship is anything but.
Shame on the league for not pushing for true partnership, but shame on the players for not insisting that equity in the league become a nonnegotiable plank in the labor talks. Instead, the currently stalled negotiations have involved the same wage-based scuffles between employer and employees: we give you a piece of the pie, and we’ll fight over the size of the slice every few years.
The N.B.A. and the players are engaged in another season-threatening Cheap Basketball jerseys battle over the distribution of what has become about $4 billion a year in revenue. This is not what a partnership looks like. If the N.B.A. and the players were actually partners, with players having an ownership stake in the league, we might be watching basketball instead of owners against players, owners against owners and players against player.
The concept of players’ equity would probably be met with great resistance from the owners and take years to work out. But given the tangled state of current negotiations, why not strategize now for the next contract?
“There’s not a better time than now,” said Steve Stoute, the founder and chief executive of Translation Consultation and Brand Imaging. Stoute works closely with entertainers and athletes, including Jay-Z and LeBron James, to help Fortune 500 corporations extend the companies’ marketing reach. He has written a book, “The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy.” He thinks that players — like many star actors — should have been negotiating for equity stakes a long time ago.
He pointed out that in James’s involvement with Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, Cannondale Bicycles and a new company, Sheets, which sells energy gel strips that include caffeine, James’s services are used for little up-front money in return for future payoffs.
Athletes would be open to that arrangement with franchises “if ownership and value and equity are discussed,” Stoute said.
“They’re asking for a piece of value,” he said. “Players will take less money and get a percentage of the value based off their contribution; they invest by taking less money in advance. Sandra Bullock takes less money up front in ‘The Blind Side’ but gets a huge back end. It’s apples and oranges in the arrangement but not in the concept: the more you invest, meaning the less you take up front, the more you get as a result of success.”
In the end, the N.B.A. would benefit because players would be sharing the risk. Under the current system, owners take all of the risks; players, whose contracts are guaranteed, take very few.
Under an equity arrangement, players would give up some of the money that is now guaranteed. In return for smaller guarantees, players would receive a share of the league’s profits — including a percentage of profits from the sale of N.B.A. franchises.
Taking less guaranteed money would be a risk for the players but would have a big upside. And the equity model would help sports owners — and the overall health of the league — because players would have additional incentive to maximize their efforts, on and off the court, and understand how onerous, long-term contracts and franchise-hopping can hurt their teams.