Slamball.

Scrap the union, reunionize and buy out the ABA, and to hell with the NBA. Same crowds will root for the same players. Let the players' union own the league and hire the GMs themselves. For the first year, no trades -- every player stays in the same market they're in now.

If the owners would rather ditch the revenue than let them play in the same arenas, go to smaller venues, with much lower ticket prices, and increase the odds of selling out the games that first year.

Also, bring back the rainbow ball. It makes jump shots look so much better.

If the owners wise up and want back in, let them come back as investors. Any union that seeks to prolong a confrontational relationship with management instead of seeking to become management is a bad union.

Fan bases arent dedicated to the teams here the way they are in european soccer. The second division teams that get stuck in the middle of that division would never survive financially.

Constrict the number of teams until all teams have a minimum supporting populace then revenue share amongst all teams.


Then make the owners of the Suns sell.

Oh and make sure your star player isn't a high multiple of all the other players' salaries combined.

Then make the owners of the Suns sell

mrmyxolodian: tldr.

Word Count: 1,331

American education working as intended.

If you cut the owners out by having the union own the teams, revenue-sharing means all teams would have about twice the payroll budget they have now. The league can afford to put a team in McCool Junction, Nebraska, if the league wants. There's plenty of money.

A team in a small market just can't compete with LA, etc, on its own. But it wouldn't need to. Nowadays, the owners need the players a hundred times more than the players need the owners. Fark the owners.

STOP F*CKING TRYING TO IMPLEMENT RELEGATION/PROMOTION. IT IS A STUPID SYSTEM.

You people realize that the only league in the world that results in less championship disparity than the NBA is the EPL, which uses relegation/promotion.

TheShavingofOccam123: Constrict the number of teams until all teams have a minimum supporting populace then revenue share amongst all teams.


Then make the owners of the Suns sell.

Oh and make sure your star player isn't a high multiple of all the other players' salaries combined.

Then make the owners of the Suns sell

You. I like you.

As for the article, why the hell are we so damn obsessed with being the international system here? Americans won't buy into a 2nd or 3rd tier team strongly enough to make it work. Well, it may work in the NFL but not in other sports.

N B Wha?

While the whole relegation/demotion things always looks "interesting" for leagues in the U.S., you can't really do that here. I'm not sure really how it works with the European leagues, but, my guess is that they don't really have any teams in those leagues that play in markets the size of ". Either that, or TV revenues really doesn't matter as much there. Or, people just love soccer so much, they will watch any soccer. Because, I can guarantee that ESPN & TNT aren't paying what they pay now for the NBA with the possibility (slim as it might be) that eventually Chicago and Miami could fall from the "Top" level league and be replaced by Fort Wayne and Erie.

At best, you could do what he is proposing with the existing NBA.... add two more teams and split it into the "Premiere 16" and the "Second" level league.
In each league, you play 5 games against every other team, with 1 game on a neutral site so there isn't a home/away disparity... that is a 75 game season. Each level then has it's own 8-team playoff. With the kicker being an additional round for the "Second Level" league, where the 2nd level league champ plays the worst team from the Premiere level in a 5 game series to determine who ends up in the Premiere league the next season.

Again though, sports ratings in leagues other than the NFL in the U.S. are heavily driven by market size.... so, the prospects of the "Top Level" league being devoid of NY, Chicago and LA are not appealing to the networks. And to U.S. fans, if you divide a league up like that, you've basically consigned the teams in the 2nd league to being seen as a "minor" league, whether true or not... yes, with a chance every year to maybe get back into the "top level", but, in the mean time, that "image" means the attendances nose dive while they are in the 2nd league, while the salaries don't go down.