Nets lose 25 million


The Nets continue to lose money. That is probably why they are working towards relocating to Brooklyn, New York, but these continued loses really have to have NBA owners worried. The Nets play in the biggest market in the country and yet they continue to lose money. Their payroll is a little north of 56 million dollars, so they are not paying big luxury taxes. Yet they are still losing money left and right.

Sports Business Journal is reporting that Forest City Enterprises, the company that owns nearly 25% of the Nets, lost 12.5 million dollars in the first half of 2009. Since this company is responsible for 51% of the team’s expenses we can safely double that to the 25 million dollar figure. For the same period in 2008 Forest City reported a 14.4 million dollar loss on its Nets property.

In the 2008-09 season the Nets drew in 15,148 fans. That was only good enough to rank 25th out of the 30 NBA teams. So why the Nets will cry foul and they have a small point here, this is really about winning, and inspiring the fans to come out and spend their hard earned money.

The Nets will say that the NBA needs revenue sharing where road team get a cut of the gate, much like the system in the NFL. However the Nets were only able to draw 17,586 average fans for their 41 road games in 2008-09. So why should they get revenue sharing?

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