The owners insist the league is in a financial crisis. They insist that they are "losing" millions. Here's the problem with their assessment. The players know the league is a great commodity. It finally had a noteworthy increase in revenue last season! The players understand that teams will encounter cost issues during a recession, but will likely increase in value, especially after the next TV deal. The players do not get a cent of the earnings when an owner sells a team, but they are now expected to help said owner recover short term losses, on some economic principle. Ridiculous.

Basically, the owners want to address the issue of short term losses by paying the players less when they SHOULD be using a combination of salaries (the players have already offered to come down several % points) and wholesale profit sharing models to create a more stable league. The fact is, competitive balance has never been the issue here. Neither has profit sharing. The owners have no creative ideas. They're not interested in 'bargaining'. They say they're 'losing' money, but--I'm sorry--a record breaking purchase of a team doesn't exactly back up their claim. What do you think?