Did the NBA Commit Suicide Today?

Tuesday

Apr 29, 2014 at 6:10 PMApr 29, 2014 at 8:35 PM

Like many major league sports entities, the NBA monopolizes an entire segment of the sports industrial complex–American major league basketball. And one of the reasons that the monopoly has not been really subject to anti-trust review is because major league sports, for all of its private ownership, have become a quasi public utility, and its hard to find anyone who has standing to really challenge the power of the league. Cities and towns and states bend over backward to provide incentives for these teams to locate in their communities and, while the league takes money from the state with one hand and from private media and intellectual property rights on the other, these leagues don’t have to make their documents public.

Until now. Cause the NBA just gave Don Sterling, with his two billion dollar fortune and a history as one of California’s most successful trial lawyers, a hobby for the rest of his life. In fact, I hope Don Sterling takes the NBA down, and grinds it to dust. And he could very well decide to do that, as any lawsuit he might elect to bring following the NBA witch hunt which reeked of “get the Jew” is likely to force the thus-far covert documents into full public scrutiny. The NBA would have to start by justifying how a private conversation between an owner and his girlfriend with no apparent conduct which affects the games, its sponsorships or its players, permits a private organization to ban an individual from a public arena, or which can force an individual to sell a valuable asset to ensure racial thought purity in the ownership club. Indeed, those in the know and those who claim to have seen the NBA documents, including one owner who worries about the precedent, doubts that the secret NBA docs would be interpreted by a Court to grant the NBA the power it claims. Indeed, if Silver is right and if he does have the power he claims, he has essentially admitted that the NBA owners circle is an illegal cartel. But as the same owner noted, where does the witch hunt end if Silver is correct? You voted for a Democrat? Out you go? You supported Prop 8 in California? You homophobe! Banned for life. Or, hey, lets bend to the pressure of the black players and toss out the old fat white Jew. Which is what this feels like.

I hope Sterling sues the shit out of the NBA, and I hope he runs the NBA through ten years of ruinous litigation. The NBA is an illegal monopoly with too much power and too much ego. If the NBA wants to commit suicide, it just found the means of its own destruction.

Rob Meltzer

Like many major league sports entities, the NBA monopolizes an entire segment of the sports industrial complex–American major league basketball. And one of the reasons that the monopoly has not been really subject to anti-trust review is because major league sports, for all of its private ownership, have become a quasi public utility, and its hard to find anyone who has standing to really challenge the power of the league. Cities and towns and states bend over backward to provide incentives for these teams to locate in their communities and, while the league takes money from the state with one hand and from private media and intellectual property rights on the other, these leagues don’t have to make their documents public.

Until now. Cause the NBA just gave Don Sterling, with his two billion dollar fortune and a history as one of California’s most successful trial lawyers, a hobby for the rest of his life. In fact, I hope Don Sterling takes the NBA down, and grinds it to dust. And he could very well decide to do that, as any lawsuit he might elect to bring following the NBA witch hunt which reeked of “get the Jew” is likely to force the thus-far covert documents into full public scrutiny. The NBA would have to start by justifying how a private conversation between an owner and his girlfriend with no apparent conduct which affects the games, its sponsorships or its players, permits a private organization to ban an individual from a public arena, or which can force an individual to sell a valuable asset to ensure racial thought purity in the ownership club. Indeed, those in the know and those who claim to have seen the NBA documents, including one owner who worries about the precedent, doubts that the secret NBA docs would be interpreted by a Court to grant the NBA the power it claims. Indeed, if Silver is right and if he does have the power he claims, he has essentially admitted that the NBA owners circle is an illegal cartel. But as the same owner noted, where does the witch hunt end if Silver is correct? You voted for a Democrat? Out you go? You supported Prop 8 in California? You homophobe! Banned for life. Or, hey, lets bend to the pressure of the black players and toss out the old fat white Jew. Which is what this feels like.

I hope Sterling sues the shit out of the NBA, and I hope he runs the NBA through ten years of ruinous litigation. The NBA is an illegal monopoly with too much power and too much ego. If the NBA wants to commit suicide, it just found the means of its own destruction.