Why are the owners wrong for not wanting 18 of their franchises to lose money? We can blame the owners of those teams for handing out huge stupid contracts (And I really do) but in the end it has to be fixed or the league will lose franchises which in turn equals less revenue, less jobs for players and no big TV conract.
This is why this lock-out makes me so mad. The owners were stupid and the players are greedy and have lost touch with reality.
They're wrong because the solution to a problem they created shouldn't be to force someone else to solve it for them. They sure as hell shouldn't be looking to that solution for the second time in eight years. It's time for the owners to look at trying something other than taking money away from players.
The problem isn't how much is being spent on players, it's mostly who's spending it. Owner's need to take responsibility for their poor decisions. Also, either there's not enough revenue sharing, or the payroll range is too narrow. The owners need to address one or the other.
The top owners will likely lose around $300M if we lose the whole season. If instead they were to take half of that to help the teams that are struggling, we could get through this season. Then the next season, between the combination of revenue growth and lower salary commitments on existing contracts the player's share is lowered without requiring a rollback or escrow. Do that for a few years, and the share eventually gets down to a number the owners are more comfortable with. Combine that with increased revenue sharing or a wider range, and telling dumb owners there will be no more bailouts, and maybe we'll get the right teams spending the money and we won't need another lockout for the next CBA.
But what the owners want is to beat down the players again, the top teams will lose their $300M, the other teams will still lose just as much or more than they would playing the season, the fans lose, the league loses future revenue, and even if the owners get what they want the same thing is likely to happen again in the future, because it reinforces the owner's mentality that they can correct any stupidity on their part by taking back from the players.