Steph Curry on if NBA players are underpaid: “I think because the way the CBA is structured right now, we can’t participate in equity… we are underpaid because you want to be able to participate in that. I know we’re blessed, but I feel like hopefully those rules change sooner or later.”
38 comments
These rich ppl have lost the plot
smh aren’t players getting 50% of basketball related income already? imagine if startups did that. they give out equity by giving employees like 2% of the income, and even then, you have to spend your own money to buy options and take risks.
How much more money does he need? How would a player having equity in a team work? What if they cut him or trade him? Would they have to buy him out? Would the players need to pay money for their equity stake? If so, they can just invest in something else instead. If not, why would they get it for free when they’re already getting paid?
How about some equity for your neighbors in the bay?
SGA just got paid 4 years, $285 million. I think basketball players are fairly compensated.
Steph is really out here talking about equity when guys like kuminga and cam Thomas are debating on taking the qualifying offer now because of how dry free agency is due to this new cba.
Equity seems like the least of the issues of the non superstar/star players.
A lot of dudes potential earnings got hit hard by this new cba. Mainly the non all stars.
Stop funding arenas with taxpayer dollars and actually I agree with steph, but also like rich people problems
You are all eat the rich until it comes to your favorite athlete lmao
NBA megastars are underpaid. Steph & LeBron are responsible for making owners billions. Lacob for instance has made far more out of Steph than he’s made out of Lacob.
However this is not the case for the vast majority of the league. We’ve got guys earning $40+ million a year after 3 years in the league with no playoff wins.
This brother makes 50-60m and year and talking about being underpaid.
Ownership really has the right idea just taking their annual $300 million cheque and then shutting the fuck up, before bullying the players in the CBA. You’re not gonna win a PR battle trying to tell people you’re actually being taken for a ride making over $1 million a week.
They should get RSUs
He’s not necessarily incorrect: on the face of it, the value brought in by the true superstars to their teams is more than what their max salaries will be worth.
BUT – there is no way to address this while trying to maintain equity: both among the playing group, and amongst team – and without that, the league, and thus the individual players, won’t be worth as much as they are now.
Giving a current player an ownership stake in their team is a fucking minefield of anti-competitive issues. Remove max salaries, and/or the salary cap, and the guys at the top will earn more, but 95% of players will be earning less, and most teams won’t have a chance to compete.
Steph has an argument because the warriors were bought for $450 million and are worth close to $9 billion now. And the main reason for that is him. But the owners would never allow is. They would be locked out if the PA ever tried. But everyone shitting on the superstars and stars is disingenuous, because they are the most underpaid players in the league because of salary caps.
PhD in corporate finance here. You either get large, fixed guarantees, or you get smaller guarantees plus higher, variable equity. The players negotiated for the former. I can’t think of a business where a non-owner of the product gets both high fixed compensation and huge equity (CEOs, yes, but that’s one person per company, not the entire employee base).
In no world are they underpaid because they negotiated for high, fixed comp for EVERYONE. Steph would benefit from an equity sharing arrangement, but most players would see their salaries decrease under an equity sharing arrangement.
Steph in GSW and Bron with the Cavs are the 2 players that come to mind when the topic of equity comes up. Steph is the main reason the Warriors are worth so much, and LeBron damn near controlled the economy of Cleveland when he was with the cavs.
You guys are talking underpaid in related to living cost.
He is talking underpaid when the league and owners making even more money when his contract is fixed. His max contract does not go up with the same magnitude as the equity goes up.
It is a bad questioning and bad choice of word of using “underpaid” in this comparison. Just make it straightforward and ask Curry if he should make more than SGA because he brings value to the league and team and SGA brings free throws.
Not every player is a Curry or a Lebron.
The top of the top players are underpaid because of how much actually revenue they bring the entire league. Max salaries imo are just so bad. No one should be subject to maxing out their salary especially when it’s SO AUTOMATIC to give to players. It’s half the reason the hop around to form super teams meta started. Money became secondary because you’re maxed out so now you just find a beast team and make the same money everywhere.
There’s definitely a valid moral and philosophical debate on how much money should an entertainer earn, especially relative to other critical jobs in society
That being said, worker-owned businesses are extremely common and are a way to pay people their actual value. The Warriors are not a $9B dollar company w/o 30
Lebron is underpaid idc how much money he’s making right now. Y’all know what they’re talking about
idk why ppl mad the warriors owners have made billions off of Steph. yet he doesn’t have equity when he is literally the product lol. it doesn’t make sense when the nba is an entertainment business
he’s right, but the optics on saying this aren’t great either
The dude gets paid to bounce the ball and shoot it in a hoop for like $260 million. Then he has sponsorships that push that way higher. I think basketball players do just fine. It’s pro football players that get shafted imo
He wants more than a million dollars a week while I pay for the stadiums they play in?
F the owners while we’re at it.
Time for the fans to go on strike.
The workers want to own the means of production lol.
anyone with a max contract is underpaid by definition. if the salary cap on individual players didnt exist , that player could have negotiated for atleast 1$ more. thus are underpaid.
I believe billionaires spell equity l-o-c-k-o-u-t
Equity in what? The team? And if you get traded? You then have a conflict of interest.
The reality is that guys like Curry and Lebron end up underpaid because of max contracts. And players at their level would probably still be underpaid without max contracts. But you can’t generalize that.
he has a point
I think financially it would make sense to offer players a chance to purchase equity at some valuation but how would it work if they switch teams..
If there’s one sport where players could start their own league, it’s basketball. It’s all about stars in this league. If the top 10 players in the world start their own league and it’s just them playing in a high school gym streamed on an iPhone I’d still watch that over whatever remains of the NBA
NBA mega stars, especially the top 1 percent like LeBron, Steph, or Giannis are clearly underpaid when you look at how much money they bring in compared to what they are allowed to earn under the league’s salary rules.
A great example is Michael Jordan in the 1996–97 season. That year, he was paid about 30 million dollars, while the league salary cap was only 24.3 million. The Bulls went over the cap just to pay him, and even that was still a steal.
Jordan was bringing in billions of dollars in value not just for the Bulls, but for the entire NBA. He boosted global TV ratings, filled up every arena he played in, and sold literal tons of merch, not just shoes. On top of that, his impact on the city of Chicago was huge. So many people traveled there just to see him play that it brought in tens of millions of dollars through hotel stays, restaurants, shopping, and game tickets.
Steph , Lebron, and Durant . They deserve some form of equity beyond their salaries.
The rest of these players, the money is getting ridiculous . Idc, J-Dub and Chet’s contracts are undeserving despite winning a chip. Jaylen Brown as well. They are getting face of the league/ MVP money and are barely top 30 players
I would like to see the “middle class” of the league’s salaries increase and the top players decrease. Top teams are now more reliant on depth and role players like Caruso and less so on their best players. They deserve to make more as they are the players that move the needle now
i couldn’t even finish this nonsense.
it must be tough not being a billionaire, sounds really hard to have merely 200million+
Steph acting like normal workers get a fair share lmao.
He’s right and this should apply to every corporation
I get that the owners are making *even more* money, but all of their asses are orders of magnitude overpaid.
Steph makes more playing 1 game of basketball than my entire family makes in a year.
He makes more in a year than literally everyone in my immediate and extended family out to great aunts and uncles and 1st cousins will make in their entire lives.