NBA ‘Season From Hell’ Vexes Players and Sends Revenue Plunging

(Bloomberg) -- The first inquiry arrived at the NBA Players Association just seconds after Commissioner Adam Silver suspended the regular season because of the coronavirus. One player, and then another, and then a whole lot more, all wanted to know the same thing: How much was this going to cost them?

“Players aren’t stupid,” Michele Roberts, the union’s executive director, said in a phone interview. “Guys wanted a ballpark.”

The union was able to give a rough answer for its 450-or-so members, based on how much they would lose per game. But these days, there are more questions than answers.

The players want to know what-if this, what-if that. What if, they ask, the virus wipes out the entire season, including the playoffs?

When it comes to basketball-related income, or BRI, “it’s a season from hell,” Roberts said. “I would absolutely like a do-over. It’s not a happy time.”

The NBA doesn’t have answers, either. It all depends on how long it takes for the virus threat to subside.

For their part, league officials are modeling a number of possibilities. Among them: the doomsday scenario of an obliterated regular season and playoffs; staging regular-season games without fans; and a full rebound, with playoff games in front of beer-guzzling, jersey-buying fans.

“I’m realistic about the prospects of the regular season,” Roberts said. “But we should not lose all hope about having some modicum of playoffs.”

Salary Cap

Roberts said “more than a significant” amount of the league’s annual revenue is generated during the postseason. A dip in revenue directly affects the players because it’s how the salary cap -- a team’s spending limit -- is calculated. The more money the league makes, the more its teams can spend on players.

On the plus side, the NBA’s contract with its television partners, AT&T Inc.’s Turner and Walt Disney Co.’s ABC and ESPN, calls for the networks to keep making payments even if games aren’t played. The league’s labor deal, meantime, says owners don’t have to pay players for games nixed because of the virus.

“We’re anxiously awaiting the league’s estimates,” Roberts said. “The doomsday scenario is not a happy one.”

Making matters worse, the league earlier this season lost hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue over a tweet-related flap with China, which stopped showing NBA games.

If there’s a bright side, Roberts said, it’s that all the confusion has resulted in increased engagement between the union and its members. More and more, she said, players are seeing the union as a resource, which historically hasn’t been the case.

“Our players are leaning on us,” she said.

What the lifelong Knicks fans would prefer to see is the players leaning on each other literally -- as in, battling for rebounds on the court. There hasn’t been NBA basketball since March 12, when it was disclosed that a Utah Jazz player had tested positive for the virus. More players have tested positive since then, including Brooklyn Nets superstar Kevin Durant, adding to the uncertainty as to when, if at all, play resumes this season.

“Frankly, I’m dying to see a basketball game,” she said. “Even if it’s some weird, different kind of look for the playoffs, our fans would be delighted.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.