While some might on the general principle of seeing any rich guy getting fined or losing money think this welcome, as it happens, when you look into the particulars of it, it really isn't.
What happened is that Miami Heat owner, Micky Arison, made a few comments on Twitter that the league considered too revealing.
The fine was the largest levied against an individual and the reason given is that Arison violated the league's censure in speaking publicly about the lockout.
So what did Arison say? The offending comments were only two and the two offending comments were awfully brief and cursory. Twitter, of course, is a brief and cursory medium-you're limited to only 140 characters in a tweet, including spaces, punctuation, etc., and Arison's two comments were nowhere near the limit.
His first comment was, "You're barking at the wrong owner"-34 total characters, and his second comment was, "LOL" only three characters. Of course the beauty of Twitter is that if you use it properly you can say a lot in a few characters and Arison's two small quips reveal a lot about the current lockout.
Now the context of "You're barking at the wrong owner" came in response to someone who posted this missive at him, "“How does it feel to be a part of ruining the best game in the world? NBA owners/players don’t give a damn about fans … Fans provide all the money you’re fighting over … you greedy pigs.”
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Aj.3xLacw1ogwKalwqQhn4S8vLYF?slug=aw-wojnarowski_nba_micky_arison_fine_103111
So now with a little context it becomes clearer why his short reply caused such a stir-effectively he's confirming that he is one of a group more moderate owners who don't think the owners need to keep players locked out to achieve concessions. The league, led by commissioner David Stern want it to be believed that the owners form a united front.
Arison's second comment-"LOL"-is in response to someone who asked what " he thought about eccentric Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling...."
The moderate owners are to be sure mostly from big city markets. So that is a large part of the divide. The important thing is that the owners are divided into about three distinct camps.
http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/view/313412-are-nba-owners-divided
This is what's tough about this as in many labor disputes-where do your sympathies lie? I actually find a lot of fans who-as if often the case-seems to blame the players overall more.
For a recent article that seems to suggest that the NBA is winning the public perception battle http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Akr_4RGYfS7_yOqKOHLwqTXTjdIF?slug=aw-wojnarowski_nba_labor_stars_union_101711
Of course who is the most sympathetic? The small market owners who are driving this train will tell you they can't compete with the big owners for a deal. After all it's easier for the large owners to make money under the current system, they will argue.
For the most part I tend to side with the players. I think so many fans tend to blame them as the players are in the minds of many fans supposed to be "playing a kid's game" so they shouldn't care about the money. This is an unrealistic attitude, and the players like any workers have a right to fight a deal to cut their pay and prospects in exchange for nothing, basically.
As to the larger market owners, I guess in this dispute I'm with them against the smaller market owners. It's funny how sports seems to be the one industry, that owners want communism.
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