You have to hand it to Mason Plumee who has average 6 rebounds and less than 10 points a game in his career. He is going to make in his career 74 million at the end of his new contract. How the league has changed when it comes to salaries. Five year contracts for 195 million being handed out. Hard to see how the league can sustain these salaries at this rate. Product took a hit in viewer ship this year.
Took a hit in tv ratings, but valuations of teams go higher every year. I think the salaries will only go higher after this covid nightmare ends.
Given that up until this season (because of COVID), salaries were based on a percentage of revenue, I don't see why the salaries would go down. Unless we think TV contracts are going to go down. In the world of DVR and Netflix, live sporting events are one of the few things networks can count on to get eyes on their channel at a specific time.
coming into this season, Plumlee had grossed 47M in 7 NBA seasons. That's less than 7M a year. He's also a solid, if flawed player. Teams can find roles for a player like Plumlee.
I'm pretty sure they sustain it by making over 8 billion in revenue in a non-COVID year and climbing. I think they (meaning the owners) sustain it buy the 6 billion a year and climbing in added combined valuation to the franchises that they don't have to split in any way with the players. So after the player's get their cut which is the biggest cost that's 12 billion dollars yearly that the league gets to play with to try and turn a profit. Including increases in franchise values, no owner has lost money in this league in decades. The players are underpaid and even if they got what they deserved, the league would still have a sustainable business model.
Viewership was down because of competing with baseball and football though right? Plus random fans didn't tune in (including some here) simply because there were no fans in the stands. I think the league will survive.
Salaries are set at 50% of revenue. So if there are too many plumlee contracts players lose escrow money to owners on each paycheck.
Baseball seems to be suffering more than basketball. Cleveland tried to trade Brad Hand for basically anything and couldn't find a partner. Hand has been an all-star closer and was 16 for 16 on save opportunities in the shortened season. He was scheduled to make $10 million this coming year. When they couldn't trade him, they placed him on waivers and no one claimed him.
