Bates said:
I don't really get your thoughts here Nik? If the League say they need 50/50 to be succesful what point would there be in having any conversation about proposals that start at 56 or 57 percent and MAY get to 50 over the life of the agreement?
Well, ignoring the specifics for a second, it seems to me that the league's position is, essentially, "We want a deal with X, Y and Z and unless we get all three then any proposals of yours aren't worth talking about."
Now, I'm a stubborn person myself, so I can't really even say that taking a position like that is necessarily unreasonable. In the abstract, that may be a position that a side could very well take in a negotiation honestly and legitimately. That said, if X, Y and Z are all fundamental economic issues then you can't very well turn around, after having declared them all to be sacrosanct, and say "Boy, the other side isn't giving us anything to work with."
With that said, I recognize that there's a level of intransigence on both sides and so when you ask "What's point in meeting?" if certain things aren't discussed my reaction is two-fold. One, I think that one side simply staking out that position of intransigence doesn't necessarily render it off-limits for any future discussion and two, and more importantly, I
don't think there's a point in the two sides meeting right now. One of the things I've said in this thread pretty consistently, I think I say it on the first page, is that I don't think that this is going to be a deal that gets done because of negotiations. I think this is a deal that will get done when the real world pressures of the situation forces somebodies, probably the players, hands and gets them to buckle on something they're being stubborn about.
Now, the reason that I think the players are being more reasonable here is that while, as I've said, I think they're being fairly stubborn on some issues at the very least I get the sense of give and take from them. There are things they've proposed that would be worse for them in the new deal than there was in the last one along with things that would be better. I've said it before but I have not seen evidence of one single, genuine concession from the owners that would tangibly benefit players.
Now, as to the specifics, the PA's proposals, which are clearly designed to eventually reach a 50/50 revenue split aren't close right now to what the owners want to accept. I know that. That's the gulf right now. My point, to busta anyways, is that it's not legitimate to say that those proposals aren't using the idea of a 50/50 revenue split as a starting point. That doesn't mean they're palatable necessarily but they're clearly working off that idea.
