A couple weeks ago, the Sports Business Journal reported that the NBA borrowed $175 million to get some of its weaker performing franchises through tough times. Bill Simmons breaks down the back story to that in an epic column (more journalism than comedy) and predicts bad times ahead for the league.
Forecasts include:
The money quote:
So that's the climate for the No Benjamins Association right now: Murky, unpredictable and not so lucrative. And you wonder why I didn't want to write about All-Star Weekend. Looking at the big picture, the league won't struggle even 1/10th as much as the NHL in years to come -of all the wildest predictions I heard in Phoenix, the craziest came from a connected executive who predicted that fifteen NHL teams would go under within the next two years (and was dead serious) - and Major League Baseball is about to get creamed beyond belief. Other than the NFL, the NBA will emerge from this financial quagmire in the best shape of any professional sport; not just because its billion-dollar deals with Disney and Turner (inked fortuitously in the summer of 2007) run through the 2015-16 season but because the Lockout That Hasn't Happened Yet will ultimately solve every major league issue except its stupefyingly dreadful officiating.
I'm not tapped into league sources like Simmons, so I have no idea whether it's as bad as he says, but the column's a good read and makes a pretty compelling case.