It's Always Management Exploiting Workers, Even in the NBA

It's not how much the workers earn; it's what the workers earn in relation to how much the owners suck up for doing nothing.

 

Dave Zirin at The Nation:

This is all nonsense. If we want to understand why the hideous Harden trade took place, we need to understand the politics and priorities of today's NBA. We need to understand that the Thunder are small-market by choice because small-markets can mean big profits. It's a business model, not a tragic geographical handicap.

First, we need to remember how the Thunder came into existence in 2008 because in this case, past has certainly proven to be prologue. In full collusion with David Stern, Clay Bennett bought the Seattle Supersonics in 2006 and moved them to his hometown of Oklahoma City. Stern recruited Bennett, a former member of the NBA's Board of Governors, to make this move. Why would David Stern, the man they call “Money’, choose to move a team from the 14th largest television market to the 45th? Why would he move a team to a place with ½ the per capita income? Simply, put, it’s because Oklahoma City offered hundreds of millions in corporate welfare and public revenue while Seattle did not. Using Seattle as an object lesson for any other fan base that would dare tell Stern not to feed at the public trough, was a bonus. As Bennett gushed to Stern in a private email,  "You are just one of my favorite people on earth." It’s a love built on a passion for corporate welfare, a love so great that the NBA chose to think small.

The move to a  "small market" has meant the best of both worlds for the swelling pockets of Clay Bennett. It has provided him with a publicly subsidized money-making machine - $35 million in profits last year according to ESPN -  while also creating the illusion of scarcity. Pressure to spend can be deflected, as Presti did, onto the need for  "sustainability" while prying eyes are dissuaded by anti-trust protections: protections that outrageously exist even with the infusion of public money. The blame then gets deflected onto Harden for not taking less money to stay in Oklahoma City. I have never understood how sports writers can turn so much bile on players for trying to maximize their incredibly narrow earning windows while owners, who have inherited - or in Bennett’s case, married  -generational wealth, are exempt from the same criticisms. Last year's Stern engineered lockout, it should now be clear, wasn't about small-market competitive balance, but extracting wealth from the players and redistibuting it into the bank accounts of ownership.

While Harden is slammed and Presti cries the tears of the crocodile,  Bennett gets to be the Bain Capital of owners: harvesting teams for profits and then throwing away their dried husks when profit margins are under any kind of threat. David Stern will retire in February 2014, but his legacy will be felt for decades to come and it’s a legacy that has cultivated a coterie of owners that put fans and communities last. The Harden trade is just a symptom of the disease.

It's the mindset behind the Wall Street demanding that children of unemployed workers be denied food stamps so financial industry gamblers.can keep their billionaire-dollar bonuses.

It's the mindset behind Walmart demanding taxpayers support their low-wage workers with welfare benefits while destroying the unions that would ensure good wages and benefits at no taxpayer expense.

It's the mindset behind all the obscenely wealthy parasites sneering "moocher" at poverty-wage workers.

It's unDemocratic and unAmerican to treat workers as a burden instead of the foundation of our economy - whether they are janitors or All-Stars.