Wolf Blitzer on breakdown of NBA negotiations

The NBA has cancelled the first 2 weeks of the NBA season due to inability to come to agreement with the players union.

Excerpt from Wolf Blitzer's excellent post about the current NBA stalemate.  Read the whole post here.

I don’t feel badly for the players or the owners at all.

At a time of severe economic hardship around the country with very high unemployment, I can’t worry about players who make $700,000 a year or $7 million a year. These are enormous salaries.

There are tens of millions of people around the country who are simply struggling to put food on the table.

The owners are very wealthy and I can’t feel sorry for them even though the NBA says 22 of the 30 teams in the league lose money.

But I do feel sorry for the fans, many of whom will simply get fed up with the NBA and will turn to college basketball and other sports for their entertainment.

And I feel especially sad when I think of all the hard-working employees who work at the arenas or in nearby neighborhoods; people who sell popcorn or beer at the stadiums; people who work at the restaurants and bars. These people can’t afford to lose a season, especially during these tough economic times. Thousands of them are about to lose their jobs.

These are the people I worry most about.

It’s simply ridiculous that the owners and the players can’t figure out a fair way to split $4 billion in revenue and play ball.