The National Basketball Players Association board of representatives voted Thursday night to approve a plan for a Dec. 22 start to the season that includes a reduced 72-game schedule, clearing the way for the league and union to finalize details on the 2020-21 season, the NBPA announced.
The NBPA’s board of player representatives voted to approve the pre-Christmas start on a conference call with NBPA executive director Michele Roberts, sources said. The NBA and NBPA are planning to discuss the opening of free agency as quickly as possible after the Nov. 18 NBA draft to accommodate player movement with such a short window to the opening of training camps on Dec. 1, sources said.
In a statement, the NBPA said: “Additional details remain to be negotiated and the NBPA is confident that the parties will reach agreement on these remaining issues relevant to the upcoming season.”
The league and players are still negotiating financial terms of an amended collective bargaining agreement, and those talks are expected to extend into next week, sources said. Once a formal agreement is reached, the league will lift a moratorium and reopen the league for business on trades prior to the draft.
The league believes that a Dec. 22 start that includes Christmas Day games on television and allows for a 72-game schedule that finishes before the Summer Olympics in July is worth between $500 million and $1 billion in short- and long-term revenues to the league and the players, sources said.
The NBA and NBPA have discussed significant rises in the escrow withholding on players’ salaries to account for the severe losses in league revenue during the coronavirus pandemic. The sides are working toward spreading out the players’ losses over multiple seasons so the players don’t take such a substantial financial hit in one year.
The NBA has pushed to Friday a deadline that keeps open the option of terminating the collective bargaining agreement, which would essentially blow up the league’s financial structure that allows for a 50-50 split of basketball-related income (BRI) under the provisions of the CBA. Because of the pandemic’s triggering a force majeure clause in the CBA, both sides have the option of serving notice of 45 days on terminating the agreement, sources said.
The NBA and NBPA split the BRI, and the league recently told teams that 40% of that revenue could be lost without gate receipts this season, sources said. The NBA’s basketball-related income was down $1.5 billion last season, according to data provided to teams and obtained by ESPN.
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