NBA Owners May Let CBA Lapse After 2010-2011 Season

The sky is not falling on the NBA, commissioner David Stern said yesterday while making reassuring comments about the league’s economic prospects during his annual preseason conference call with the media.

“If you are alive in this world and you have access to that ancient form of communication - the newspaper, which I do and I have - you can’t help reading the headlines with what’s going on,” Stern said. ” … So if you’re having a business discussion, you just have to understand what’s going on in the world around you, and we did that. That said, the owners were remarking upon the strength of the sports business and the value that it provides.”

Stern spoke after giving his annual preseason address to team owners at the Board of Governors meeting in Manhattan, which he described as “on balance, a very upbeat report.” He predicted flat attendance for this season and slightly better gate revenue, citing a plan to stem potential losses from lower season-ticket renewals with a league-wide program of 1,000 or more seats at NBA games selling for $10 or less. Sponsorship renewals for the 2008-09 season were strong, Stern said, adding: “We’re pretty optimistic that this will be a season that will be better in our industry than it will be in some other industries.”

But one team executive told Newsday yesterday that owners are worried about the economic downturn and might be inclined to let the current collective-bargaining agreement with the NBA Players Association lapse after the 2010-11 season rather than extend it one more year.

That executive said only “five to seven” NBA teams are profitable and raised the possibility of a lockout in 2011 if teams face more strain than Stern predicted. “You’re going to have owners pushing for a better deal,” said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “This is one of the years the NBA is worried that overall revenues may be a little bit down.”

A Forbes magazine analysis last December showed that 20 of the 30 NBA teams were making a profit. Stern estimated yesterday that a more accurate figure is about half, and said the league’s ongoing system for monitoring teams’ debt obligations has revealed nothing alarming.

“With respect to what my teams are going to do in three years to incite or not incite labor unrest, you have to give me a pass,” Stern said. ” … We know that when you go into collective bargaining, you’re going to look for ways to improve it to make our game more competitive, to make our teams more competitive, to keep our game growing. But I think it’s premature for me to speculate now.”

Referees now will be able to use replays not simply to determine if a quarter-ending shot should have counted, but also whether it was a two-pointer or three-pointer. Replay also can be used to determine if a shooting foul occurred on such a play.

Stern scoffed at the notion of European teams poaching more NBA talent after the offseason signing of several second-tier players, including the Hawks’ Josh Childress, who signed a three-year, $20-million deal with Greek power Olympiakos. Stern noted that with Euro teams often playing in arenas with fewer than 10,000 fans, “the economic model does not exist that would support such contracts. And we don’t mind the competition.”

- Ken Berger, Newsday