Finanse wszystkich zespołów NBA

[Gość: Wilt]

Zamieszczam tu ciekawe materiały odnośnie finansów NBA; najpierw krótki
ogólny artykuł, a potem link do szczegółowej analizy finansów wszystkich
drużyn. Można się dowiedzieć wielu ciekawych rzeczy; który klub przynosił
ostatnio najwięcej zysku (z czym wiązało się pozostawanie na stanowisku
pewnego niepopularnego wśród fanów GM), jak sporo kasy mają Lakers (wstydź
się, Buss; jak można wtedy tak skąpić?), czy że Spurs wcale nie mają tak
dużego finansowego pola manewru, jak się powszechnie myśli. Generalnie jednak
obraz NBA wyłania się z tego niewesoły – to liga, w której obecnie bardziej
opłaca się przegrywać niż wygrywać, szczególnie jeśli się jest klubem z
małego rynku. Dlatego 90% tego co mówią GM o wzmocnieniach swoich zespołów,
to niestety zasłona dymna. :-(

Zawołajmy więc razem: PRECZ Z LUXURY TAX!
*
The rich get poorer under NBA luxury tax
BY RICHARD ALM
The Dallas Morning News

(KRT) - In San Antonio, where the Spurs are playing the New Jersey Nets for
the championship this weekend, owner Peter Holt figures his team will make
about $10 million this season.
A new arena and a long run of playoff games boosted revenue. But another key
to the Spurs turning years of red ink to black may lie in the National
Basketball Association's complex web of payments that includes, for the first
time, a luxury tax.
In Dallas, owner Mark Cuban says that the Mavericks, measured on a cash
basis, after taxes, will lose money on a season where they sold out every
game in a 2-year-old arena and went deep into the playoffs before losing to
the Spurs.
"We will lose however much we pay in luxury taxes, which should be about $20
million," he said.
This modern tale of two cities, NBA style, shows the financial contortions
that result from sports' struggles with rising player salaries and the gap in
revenue among franchises.
The NBA's current labor deal, approved in 1999, put into place a structure
that penalizes teams with high payrolls when overall players' salaries and
benefits exceed a certain percentage of the league's basketball revenue.
Once that happens - and, this season, it probably has - the NBA plunges into
a wholesale redistribution that funnels money from the big spenders and
players to the teams with more modest payrolls.
Once in force, this peculiar feature will draw a dividing line between profit
and loss, said University of North Carolina-Greensboro economist Dan
Rosenbaum, an expert on luxury taxes in sports.
"Once you stay below the threshold, you're almost guaranteed a profit,"
Rosenbaum said. "If you're above it, there's a very good chance you're going
to lose money."
Luxury taxes are a late addition to the sports landscape. Major league
baseball wrangled a steeper luxury tax in the new labor accord reached last
year. A luxury tax might be coming in the National Hockey League.
"The reason leagues do it is because it's an effective way to keep teams from
spending so much on salaries," Rosenbaum said.
The NBA's luxury-tax threshold won't be determined until the books are closed
next month.
Here's how it works: Nobody pays a luxury tax until total salaries and
benefits exceed 61 percent of NBA revenue. The threshold wasn't reached in
the 2001-02 season, but most in the NBA assume it will be reached this year.
Franchises with payrolls over the threshold pay $1 for every $1 above the
limit. The dividing line will be somewhere north of $51 million - but it
could be higher, Rosenbaum said.
And that's where Mr. Cuban's $20 million comes in. The Mavericks' payroll is
slightly more than $70 million, Rosenbaum said.
The Spurs' payroll is at about $53 million, a figure that Holt says will be
within the luxury-tax threshold.
"The tax is working," he told Bloomberg News. "Without it, I couldn't be in
business right now. I would have had to move out of San Antonio, and I could
never had kept [star] Tim Duncan."
High payrolls also trigger a transfer of money from players back to owners.
Once pay exceeds 55 percent of NBA revenue, the players put 10 percent of
their earnings into an escrow account for later distribution to owners.
For the 2001-02 season, the escrow amounted to $153 million, with all but $22
million going into owners' pockets.
Most of the luxury tax and escrow money flows to teams below the tax
threshold. According to Rosenbaum's estimates, the payments could make a
bottom-line difference of $15 million to $20 million for those teams.
The overall result will be a stunning shift in the financial fortunes of NBA
teams.
Without the luxury tax in 2001-02, the 15 highest-spending teams had a profit
of $125 million, just about equal to the $122 million for the 14 lowest-
spending teams.
Using Rosenbaum's projections for this year, the 15 highest-spending teams
would lose about $60 million, while the 14 lowest-spending teams would see
profits rise to about $290 million.
With so much money at stake, the NBA's system of payments could give some
teams a path to profit without expanding the business and keep other teams
from spending extra money that might improve their chances of winning.
"This isn't a completely crazy system," Rosenbaum said, "but the NBA is
probably overdoing it and creating a lot of perverse economic incentives."

***

Link:

www.realgm.com/src_feature_article.php?articleid=8