I believe everyone has the right to negotiate fair wages and employers also have the right to discuss revenues and changes that need to be made in order to be profitable. When it comes down to it, our businesses foremost need to be profitable before employees can start making sensible arguments towards fair wages. Everyone has their own point of view on the NBA Lockout and labour disputs, unions, etc, but it all comes down to one thing, profits. A business will not succeed being in the red at the end of a fiscal year, and that is why this years NBA lockout is not only ridiculous, but it’s a huge hit to the U.S. economy as well.

First I need to point out that there are 7 teams in the NBA that are the only major league sports team in their city. Oklahoma, San Antonio, Portland, Orlando, Utah, and Sacramento all share this commonality. To gain some perspective on how different they really are from the rest of the 23 teams in the league the Portland Trail Blazers formed a study (complied by Forbes), which showed the 23 other teams created a net loss of value in their market of 11 million dollars from 2009-2010. This is not surprising with the economic downturn the U.S. had over this time. On the other hand the other 7 teams combined for a +64 million value in that same stretch. Obviously being the only major league sports team in your city is going to create an enormous value to your city. The hard part to swallow is the devastating amount of job losses and economic value the NBA lockout has caused and may cause even further if the season is cancelled. More… →