The New Jersey Nets just made a lot more money.
The soon-to-be Brooklyn team (they move for the start of the 2012 season) will double its annual intake to $20 million a season as part of a 10-year extension that will keep the Nets on the YES network until 2032, reports the Sports Business Journal. This was a settlement to a dispute about the team’s television deal.
This deal had seem some rough patches to get to this point, with the Nets walking away from the table back in February and an arbitrator being brought in, but eventually they reached a settlement.
Now, let’s throw out the lockout spin (because everything must have a lockout spin):
Right now no money from local television deals is shared between owners. The Nets doubling their rights follows in the footsteps of the Celtics, Warriors and Lakers all striking new television deals worth a lot more money. The players will tell you that much more robust revenue sharing is needed if small market teams are going to be profitable.
The owners’ last official offer to the players tried to decouple the salary cap from league and team revenues. This is why. The owners know that television and other revenue is going to go up in the next decade and they want to keep salaries flat so that revenue goes into their pockets and doesn’t have to be shared with players. The union will fight hard to stop that from happening, they want revenue and the cap to move together.
