N.B.A. Protest Shows Who Calls the Shots in a Superstar Economy

“I’ve never seen a day like that, that tested our entire league,” Lloyd Pierce, the coach of the Atlanta Hawks, said in an interview. “That power is tremendous. The opportunity is tremendous.”

But it also underscored to the players that the economic fallout would land heavily on them. “If we do well, they do well,” Tilman Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets, told CNBC. “And if the league doesn’t do well, none of us do well. And they realize that.”

Like Silicon Valley engineers and Hollywood showrunners, many of today’s N.B.A. players aren’t so easily classified as “labor.” They are often one-man industrial complexes with interests spanning the globe that make them workers and owners. Many players have shoe lines and invest in technology start-ups, sports franchises, media businesses or production companies.

“When I came into this world, it was the basketball business,” Mr. Armstrong said, alluding to an era when at most one player, his former teammate Michael Jordan, had become an industry unto himself. “Suddenly, it’s turned into the business of basketball.”

In some respects, this gives the biggest stars more economic independence from their teams and the league, and therefore more leverage. “LeBron’s brand extends far beyond the court,” said Amira Rose Davis, an expert on sports and labor history at Pennsylvania State University. “If he’s told to shut up and dribble, he turns around and does a three-part documentary.”

Ms. Davis also noted that Kyrie Irving, another star with an independent brand and business interests, was one of the most outspoken in questioning the resumption of the season after the pandemic shut it down in March.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/business/economy/nba-players-strike-labor.html