The NBA is moving away from the term "owner"

[Maroon]

Have no problem with them changing the title from "owner" to something else, because even a perceived problem is still a problem even if other people don't agree. It's like in a marriage: if one of the two of you thinks there is a problem, then there is a problem. I just think the term "governor" is a bit odd to move to, as "president" or "CEO" would make more sense as the person at the head of the team. "Governor" in the corporate world would imply the members of a board of governors rather than a singular person.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

15 hours ago, Solaris said:

The NBA has been majority black for longer than a decade, but suddenly this became an issue this season.

 

Your whole post is a doozy..but what if this had been an issue for a long time, but it's only now players feel empowered to have said something?

 

15 hours ago, Solaris said:

[MOD EDIT]

 

Don't actually, but please show your work.

 

15 hours ago, Solaris said:

 I can understand them being offended by the term, but at the same time, I think every fan would agree that this is not the conversation to be having right now.

 

Then what's the problem?

 

[MJWalker45]

13 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

You don't hear about the "owner" of Staples, the "owner" of PetSmart, etc. (intentionally selected private companies.)  Is it because it's a "franchise" deal? 

 

10 hours ago, the admiral said:

It's always been uneasy when black players end up in situations that have them referring to "my owner." It'd be really bad if they were southerners in seersucker suits; fortunately they're mostly just old Jews with real estate and hedge funds. It happens now and then because I guess you have your coach and your GM and then up the line is the guy who owns the organization. It's a peculiarity of pro sports' outsize ownership roles and the organizational hierarchy/loyalty/etc. In no small business would you call the proprietor "my owner." He'd just be your boss.

 

But this is still some quality Neoliberal Basketball Association stuff. It's funny enough that insisting on calling the ruthless billionaire owners "Executive Managing Chairmen" or whatever doesn't materially change the reality of them owning the teams, but my favorite part is that when people pushed back, the league said "well actually we've already been doing this all along so we really never did anything wrong in the first place." Okay great! Jerry Reinsdorf still sucks no matter what you want to label him.

This is what I don't get, and neither does Stephen Jackson. Are owners so afraid of the idea that players are starting to say owners don't own them, which is quite true, they only own the team and possibly other assets, that they are pretending to be pro-active by changing their title? The fact that this seems to come as the result of a minority team owner shoving Kyle Lowery is even more ridiculous. 

Counterpoint to the original article cited, though at the end it does go to the tangent that the more important thing for the NBA is giving everyone more Lebron, which truth be told, I heard more about him during these playoffs than in the ones he actually played in:

https://www.wtsp.com/article/sports/nba/opinion-nba-teams-considering-dropping-the-term-owner-is-absurd/67-f11ffddc-ce95-42aa-b660-3c9d9f0146e7

 

As for owners in other areas, McDonald's calls the owners of their restaurants franchise owners or franchisees, because they pay franchise fees and after a few years of paying those back, they are allowed to keep more of their profits from that store. That's the model for most businesses that allow each group to come up with their own ethics and standards models as well, like the NBA, NHL and NFL. Yes, there will be certain league requirements they have to follow but the league will not get into the weeds on how much money they can pay coaches, staff and outside resources. They only say how much money can be paid on players, through the institution of salary caps or luxury fees. I also think, how many times do I refer to or think about the person that owns my contract? Unless I'm signing my timesheet for the day, not very much at all. I have my supervisor that I talk to daily but I don't see the owner of my company on a daily basis. That's very much different for sports teams, especially if the owner is intimately involved in the day to day operations. But if I'm introducing him or her to someone visiting the facility am I introducing them as my owner? Nope, I'm introducing them as Mr. or Mrs. Smith, they own Company XYZ. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Principal would work just fine. Or partner, if we're looking for alternatives.

[rmc523]

15 hours ago, neo_prankster said:

So now, what would be a better term than owner?

 

President?
Chairperson?

CEO?

Governor?

 

Many teams already have Presidents/CEOs separate from the owner.

 

[The_Admiral]

Don't call me that word. I don't like things that elevate me above the other people. I'm just like you! Oh, sure, I come later in the day, I get paid a lot more, and I take longer vacations, but I don't like the word "boss."

[O.C.D]

IMO this is emblematic of a larger cultural situation. He who gets to define the terms dictates the discourse. If I have the ability to define what words you can or cant use in a public or professional setting I essentially have gained a bargaining chip in negotiations. If I retain the ability to redefine terms during the discourse ad infinitum I always have the ability to re-frame a negotiation to a position more favorable to me. Because this type of thinking is inherently open ended we end up in situations like-"By birth I am Y so it is immoral for me to object to the concerns of X, because I will never be an X". Most people will take the path of least resistance and people who are willing to be the squeaky wheel understand the power of group dynamics.

 

It's inherently political while getting to use the benefit of positioning itself as an "objective common moral good". As this type of thinking becomes more mainstream it will be used as justification to intact legislation and create legal precedent.

 

and on a side note; if you believe race relations are at an all time low I think you should look back at the past 100 years in America and compare that to 2019.

[neo_prankster]

14 hours ago, rams80 said:

I'm willing to bet that what lies under the surface here is memories of the people like Donald Sterling pulled, which might also be prompting the push.

 

Yep. Definitely Sterling.

[floydnimrod]

I thought the term Franchisee might work, but then the term "Atlanta Hawks franchisee" makes it seem like there's multiple Atlanta Hawks organizations running around, when maybe we should get the first one in working order (unnecessary dig at the Hawks, Yeah!). But now I think "Team shareholder" works the best. It's flows somewhat well and I can easily hear Mike Breen saying it during it.

 

I've always thought the term "minority owner" rather than "minority team owner" sounded a little off. (My friend and I have been writing a pilot for the past few years and we've had this strange phrasing included in an episode).

 

Also, major props to everyone for having almost two pages of a discussion around a current event, and not one person used the word "narrative". It's the little things.

[rmc523]

My opinion:

 

Someone paid tens, hundreds of millions of dollars to buy a team.  The team is theirs.  They own the team.  They don't own the players; they don't own the staff.  They may own the rights to said players as athletes within the league's parameters, but they don't own the player.  If that's what the big deal is about and people can't see the difference between that, I'm sorry, that's ridiculous.  I don't know why everyone's so offended by everything these days.  And that's not to say there aren't situations where criticism/complaint/"uproar" is warranted and changes are necessary, but to not call someone that paid for a team the owner seems stupid to me.

[rmc523]

How about "guy that pays the bills/salaries"?   lol

[WJMorris3]

MLS already uses "Investor/Operating Partner", I think.

[MJWalker45]

1 hour ago, willmorris said:

MLS already uses "Investor/Operating Partner", I think.

That only happened last year when they tried to say that MLS does not franchises, but instead a single entity organization run by independent investors that agree to the rules of MLS. Mainly to try to skate around Ohio laws that identify sports teams as franchises.

[WJMorris3]

Just now, MJWalker45 said:

That only happened last year when they tried to say that MLS does not franchises, but instead a single entity organization run by independent investors that agree to the rules of MLS. Mainly to try to skate around Ohio laws that identify sports teams as franchises.

I coulda sworn that was before the Modell Law nonsense.

[MJWalker45]

Just now, willmorris said:

I coulda sworn that was before the Modell Law nonsense.

Folks made a point of pointing out when AP changed it in his social media accounts. There may have been another owner that already did that prior though. 

[Red Wolf]

Chick-fil-A, which is an organization that we can fortunately avoid any political discussion about because of its clear apolitical-ness, uses operators for its various store owners. If we're creating master list of such things to prove that nobody actually cares about what the owners call themselves or what they're told to think about calling themselves by their overlords.

[BBTV]

23 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

Not really? Like Vet said...race relations are at an all-time low in case you haven't noticed.

 

Point of clarification - I said race relations "are at their lowest point in a looooong time", not "all-time low".

 

Granted, dismissing the current state of affairs by comparing it to past eras is kinda like telling someone that broke their arm to stop complaining because someone else broke both their arms.  It still hurts!

[sky1324]

This seems like a simple PR move, and while it's definitely not something that I would call a pressing issue, it's clearly been on Silver's mind long enough to warrant a change. And at the end of the day: this doesn't affect the fans, it doesn't really affect the players (they'll probably still refer to the owner as such), but it's still a move made with the players in mind. This isn't even a "ban" of the word owner, it's just Silver trying to reduce the use of the word internally. This is such a non-issue that it's the ones who are getting worked up about this that are ridiculous. You can still can the owner the owner, but internally, i.e. literally not affecting you in any way, the NBA won't refer to franchise owners as owners, rather as maybe partners, or governors. 

 

You complain about everyone being "way to sensitive" and "overreact to everything", but I honestly believe almost 90+% of people that know about this think "huh, ok", then move on with their lives. Besides, when will this ever apply to you? I don't know anyone here's financial lives, but I assume that all of us are not NBA team-owning rich. As such, why do you care? You are the one getting offended here. I repeat, you are the one getting offended here.

[Cosmic]

I would just always staple the word "team" in front of "owner". It's simple, it's backwards compatible with people who are used to "owner", and it still avoids a lot of the context that makes it sound like super rich white men actually own less rich young black men.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

4 minutes ago, QueenCitySwarm said:

You complain about everyone being "way to sensitive" and "overreact to everything", but I honestly believe almost 90+% of people that know about this think "huh, ok", then move on with their lives. Besides, when will this ever apply to you? I don't know anyone here's financial lives, but I assume that all of us are not NBA team-owning rich. As such, why do you care? You are the one getting offended here. I repeat, you are the one getting offended here.

 

There are a whole lot of snowflakes who complain about other people they think are snowflakes. We need a term for it.