NBA Set to Cancel Games

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.)