Kobe Bryant’s Comments On NBA TV Deal, Owners Are Well Thought Out

By Matt Johnson @mattytheole on October 15, 2014

Kobe Bryant took a rather radical step during an interview at the Los Angeles Lakers‘ practice Tuesday afternoon. In fact, it wouldn’t surprising if the assembled media left Bryant’s chat with a sense of relative astonishment.

One of the NBA‘s most marketable and wealthy superstars had just taken the league to task regarding finances. Specifically, Bryant called out the league on its new television deal worth in upwards of $24 billion over a nine-year period.

“You have a TV deal that comes out and you look at it being up almost a billion dollars (more) than the previous one and this is coming off the back of a lockout (in 2011) in which the (salary) cap—it’s not a hard cap, but it’s pretty close to a hard cap,” said Bryant. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens in this next labor agreement, because my understanding is this TV deal kicks in in the last year of this current agreement. So I’m sure they’ll try to lock us out again (in 2017) and harden the cap even more.”

Rarely are NBA players driven to call out ownership. When billionaire owners are responsible for signing checks for their athletes, it only makes sense for players to keep quiet about their bosses and finances. After all, why antagonize a group of people upon whom you rely or a paycheck?

Bryant is one of the lucky ones, afforded the chance to speak on such matters due to his status as an NBA icon. Where he may have raised a few more eyebrows was with this statement: “I think as players, you’ve kind of got to hold your ground a little bit and not be afraid of what the public perception is. Instead, you try to educate the public a little bit and understand it’s not about complaining about how much you’re making, because that’s ridiculous. We are overpaid, but so are the owners. And you have to fight for what your market value is.”

With one set of spoken words, Bryant acknowledged what most common folk already believe: NBA players are overpaid. The same argument could be made of professional athletes around the globe. After all, for the majority of humanity, sports only offer the opportunity for a respite from the grind of daily life. At the end of the day, sports are an entertainment venture. And the common person wants simply to be entertained when all is said and done.

Where Bryant really hits a home run is not only in admitting the owners and players are indeed overpaid, but in combining it with the concept of market share. For years, players and owners have argued over millions of dollars the way average folks might disagree over whether they prefer waffles or cereal for breakfast. Seldom has either side admitted that the overall financial structure is indeed grossly inflated while engaging in such debates.

For his part, Bryant not only admitted it, but he appealed to the common sense of it all. Of course NBA players are overpaid. In fact, one could argue they’ve been overpaid for almost four decades. So are NFL, MLB and NHL players, but that’s not really Bryant’s point. Rather, the 16-time All-Star simply wants some equality between owners and players. And in this regard, he’s not really that different from the average working man.

Many will still see Bryant as being greedy. When the average working person struggles day-to-day, it’s only natural for that individual to roll their eyes at another highly-paid celebrity discussing the supposed difficulties of their financial situation. It seems highly likely that Bryant realizes this, hence his comments on public perception.

The bottom line is that Bryant has a point. While the players are faced with a limit to their earnings, no matter who much it may be, owners are continuing to stack up huge profits, all of which will make for an interesting CBA the next time around.

Essentially, Bryant successfully articulated the very point that so many others have danced around. Namely, there is a huge discrepancy between what employers and employees rake in each year. If that sounds familiar, it should. He’s basically summed up the current economic plight of an entire nation. With a few words, Bryant said it better than just about anyone else could. Now we’ll see if anybody was truly listening.

Matt Johnson is a sports writer for www.rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter at mattytheole or “like” him on Facebook.