The rest of the NBA preseason is officially canceled, and the first two weeks of the regular season will be as well if players and owners can’t work out a deal by Monday, Commissioner David Stern announced yesterday, after negotiations to end the league’s lockout fell apart. Players' union president Derek Fisher said there was a “very large gap” between them, with the main sticking point being revenue sharing. The players, who currently earn 57% of revenues, are willing to take a cut to 53%, but the owners want more, the Wall Street Journal explains.
The owners, who had been demanding that players take 47%, yesterday offered a 50-50 split, but the players balked. “Our guys have indicated a willingness to lose games,” union chief Billy Hunter said. “It may be a month, it may be two months—your guess is as good as ours.” Should NBA fans panic? Bill Plaschke of the LA Times isn’t, reasoning that only die-hard fans pay attention before February anyway. “The league might be missing games, but we’re not,” he quips. (More NBA lockout stories.)