Rich: People with what is considered to be a lot of money, Wealthy: The ones who pay the rich.
The NBA and the players union again seem to be miles apart from an agreement. The NBA has complained that franchises are losing money and have negotiated poorly over the last few contracts and players want to keep the cash training rolling because they are the product and deserve the largest cut. We have heard a lot of numbers, like the NBA is willing to give 50% of revenues but some owners want it down to 47% while the players want above 52%. This will equate to millions in revenues either going to players or franchises. Where it doesn’t go is to the employees of those companies who are most likely either drawing unemployment or have lost it due to benefit decreases in their state. While the rich and wealthy are in the middle of the financial hissy fit normal people could be losing their homes, struggling to produce food on the table or just plain giving up.
See, stadiums and teams require a great deal of employees to serve beer, sell jerseys, clean up, repair or just manager the employees. You get more hours added to police force budget to help in crowd control and city workers get a boost for cleanup. Someone has to wash all of those jerseys and towels and someone needs to bleach the locker room. TV stations, their crews, writers, and photographers all then comes to town adding to the small business impact. Business is added to local hotels, coaches, journalist, TV personnel, restaurants, bars, clubs, small shops and parking. There is a much larger picture than just two rich spoiled groups fighting over who’ve gets what percent of the revenue pie.
I truly hope the NBA and the players union take in to consideration the ramifications of their actions. Yes they might lose some viewers or season ticket holders plus they might lose respect from the media or the casual fan but the biggest is they might lose their die hard following of their work force promote and love their organizations. I truly hope they take a page out of the NFL’s playbook and when this is all over and pay the people who make it all happen nightly. They also might want to run a few free promo’s for those local business that support them year after year or they may be playing games next year in a ghost town. With the current climate of economics and the light shining on greed right now, they may just want to do what’s right and move on before there is nothing to move on too.