Make this T-Shirt, Bulls

I have been informed that, due to certain trademark laws, I cannot produce this shirt myself. That is why I pass it along to the Chicago Bulls and the NBA. Make this shirt, preferably screen-printed, red and white on black 50/50 poly-cotton blends, and I will buy it.  If you don't, I may just make it myself.

Until next week,
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Jonathan Rozen

Salary Structure for the NBA's next CBA

The NBA and the Players Union are currently negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement. I’d like some input.

In the current CBA, there is a salary cap. This cap is set every year based on the revenue generated the year before. Players contracts are limited to a set percentage of this salary cap. However, players still sign contracts with dollar amounts.

This worked out fine until recently. Like home values, the salary cap had never gone down until two years ago. When it did, those set dollar figures made building a team near impossible. These massive contracts were taking up a far larger percentage of the salary cap than anyone intended.

For the next CBA, I recommend that all contracts be set as a percentage the salary cap, not a dollar amount based on the cap of the season in which the contract was signed. Call them Salary Cap Points.

Instead of getting 8% or 10.5% raises on their previous year’s salary, players can receive more Salary Cap Points. After all, when revenue shrinks for the league, shouldn’t its players share the burden?

Until next week,
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Jonathan Rozen

ESPN 4 Women

I do not care about women's sports. There is no sense in hiding it. I don’t care who wins, and I’ll change the channel when their highlights interrupt SportsCenter.

I am not the only one. Remotes are grabbed across the country every time the day’s WNBA scores promise to consume the next five minutes of ESPN’s bottom line.

It spits in the face of the purpose of television: to attract an audience and sell access to advertisers. After all, ad money pays for everything. Fans of women’s sports cannot possibly be the same fans those advertisers are targeting with beer ads. The women's sports fan market is ignored and lost, but there is an opportunity to fix it and, more importantly, profit from it. If this niche market can be isolated, more targeted ads can be sold at a premium.

That’s why this week’s free idea is for ESPN. Give women’s sports their own network. ESPN 4 Women. Separate but equal may have an ugly history, but this time it means ka ching.

Until next week,
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Jonathan Rozen