Knicks Reappear for Christmas

Manhattan will be the site of the first game of the 2011-2012 NBA season. Madison Square Garden has been improved, and, perhaps before the opening game on Christmas Day, the Knicks might improve themselves as well.

2011 - 2012 NBA Season Starts in Manhattan

After the NBA owners locked out the NBA players, delayed the season, and demanded that the players accept reduced pay, the players and the owners reached a tentative agreement last week that results in reduced pay for players but which is much better for the players than what the NBA owners had been demanding.

The tentative agreement paves the way for teams to start practicing on December 9th and for the first regular season games to occur on December 25th. The season would have 66 games instead of the usual 82.

The Knicks are currently scheduled to play in the first game of the season. They would host the Boston Celtics at Madison Square Garden.

Perhaps every season should begin at MSG, and perhaps every season should have 66 games. Each game would mean more. Players would be less exhausted and banged up for the playoff, and the greatest city in the world would kick things off. This season could be a great model for a more permanent approach to the NBA scheduling challenges.

Irrespective of what happens in future seasons, the start of the 2011 - 2012 NBA season will help the NYC economy. In September, we discussed the potential economic harm that could be visited upon the NYC metro area by a cancellation of the 2011 - 2012 NBA season. By agreeing to have a 66-game season, the players and the owners will allow our area to avoid the economic losses that a cancelled season would have represented.

A cancellation of the 2011-2012 season carries major risks for our local economy. The travel industry will lose hotel revenue; restaurants will be harmed. Food vendors, sporting goods vendors who sell replica jerseys, and the cable channels that broadcast the games will lose revenues; advertising spending will decline.

It is likely that the Knicks and Nets are teams that are profitable. If they are, a cancelled season also eliminates the profits of two major local businesses.

In these difficult times, a cancelled NBA season is the last thing we need.

Thankfully, our Christmas gifts this year include a Knicks-Celtics showdown in Manhattan.

Madison Square Garden Upgrade

Madison Square Garden is in the midst of a $1 billion upgrade. MSG's owners call it a "transformation".

The upgrade will be complete before the 2012-2013 season (during the summer of 2012, the upgrade will be completed), and the fan experience will be amongst the best in the NBA (the NHL's NY Rangers will also play in Madison Square Garden's upgraded facility; Rangers fans will also have the best-in-class facility to enjoy).

The end of the NBA lockout gives Knicks fans a chance to enjoy the Knicks in the much improved MSG facility starting on December 25, 2011. A double Christmas present: the Knicks and the upgraded MSG. This will be a very special Christmas for Knicks fans, but it might be even more special if the Knicks' team is improved.

Chris Paul and the Future of the Knicks

The Knicks have added Stoudemire and Anthony in recent years, and, in the 2010 - 2011 season, they earned entrance to the post-season for the first time in a decade.

Now, former NBA Rookie of the Year and four time All-Star Chris Paul, who will be a free agent at the end of the upcoming NBA season, is being discussed as a potential addition to the Knicks. If Chris Paul is added, the Knicks will have three bona fide superstars on their roster, and they will be ready to make a run at an NBA Championship.

There is a chance that Paul could join the Knicks before the December 25th opening of the NBA season. That would be a triple Christmas present: The Knicks, the upgraded MSG, and the chance compete for an NBA Championship.

NBA Lockout Could Hurt NYC Economically

The National Basketball Association's (NBA) team owners have locked out the NBA players and cancelled the first several games of the 2011-2012 preseason. As regular season games become vulnerable to cancellation, the economy of NYC and of the United States may be harmed.

The Lockout

The owners of NBA teams started the lockout in early July as collective bargaining talks broke down. Team owners have stated that twenty-two of the thirty NBA teams lose money and that the losses total more than $300 million. There has been no attempt by the owners to prove that there are indeed twenty-two teams losing more than $300 million, and the owners have refused to reveal any of their financial results to the players or to the players' union. The lockout is created entirely by the owners, and is not a "strike" in which the players would refuse to continue working under the terms of the previous collective bargaining agreement (CBA). In the lockout, the players are forbidden from practicing or playing as a team by the owners, who refuse to continue operating under the previous agreement.

Malcolm Gladwell has argued that NBA owners are not generally behaving like business owners but instead are enjoying the psychic benefits of owning high profile entertainment assets. He reminds us that the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball refused to have any Black players until long after Black players were present on all other teams and that their choice to remain all-white cost them a large amount of money. Because the owner of the Red Sox enjoyed the psychic benefits of enforcing his dogma of white racial superiority, he was willing to lose millions of dollars. His love of racism was greater than his love of (or need for) additional profits.

In the current NBA lockout, though the owners have not opened up their books, the players have offered to reduce their share of NBA revenue from 57% to 54.3%, a reduction that would cause more than one-half of one billion dollars to be shifted from the players to the owners over the next five years. The owners have rejected that suggested reduction and demanded a reduction to less than 50% of revenue. Such a dramatic reduction has no chance of being agreed to by the players. The stalemate has caused some preseason games to be cancelled. Soon, early season regular season games will be cancelled, and then, we'll face the potential cancellation of the entire season.

With most teams claiming to lose money, the NBA owners may prefer not to play the upcoming season rather than to play the season and absorb the losses.

If the season is not played, the fans will lose out, and the economies of both NYC and the United States might be harmed in the process.

Economic Impact

Every NBA team is scheduled to play 41 home games in the 2011-2012 season. Cancelling those games will affect the venues where the games are played and the cities of the NBA teams more generally.

Here in NYC, we have two NBA teams in the metropolitan area. The New York Knicks play their games in Manhattan, and the New Jersey Nets play their games in Newark, NJ (the Nets will play all of their home games in Brooklyn starting with the 2012-2013).

A cancellation of the 2011-2012 season carries major risks for our local economy. The travel industry will lose hotel revenue; restaurants will be harmed. Food vendors, sporting goods vendors who sell replica jerseys, and the cable channels that broadcast the games will lose revenues; advertising spending will decline.

It is likely that the Knicks and Nets are teams that are profitable. If they are, a cancelled season also eliminates the profits of two major local businesses.

In these difficult times, a cancelled NBA season is the last thing we need. Perhaps Gladwell can appreciate that beyond the economic challenges that a cancelled season would cause, there is psychic damage that the owners will cause all of us if they deny us basketball this year.