monarch said:
Another reason why the NBA means poop to me. Gotta be PC here or I'll get shot, but who is running the show here? The players or the league?
SEE YA!
If you hate the company you work for, you could quit and sign on with a competitor whenever you like. You can't do this in professional sports because it can hurt the competitive balance of the league. This is completely out of sync with all capitalistic principles and therefore you can't think of sports as a normal industry. Based on their contractual configuration, the answer to your question is "both". Both the owners and the players run the league. Most sports owners aren't these wise businessmen you envision. Their product sells because of talent. If you removed the top 10% of nba talent, nobody would watch the league at all.
I'm kind of jealous the players get to work in an industry where they have so much input/power. In most industries, the talent that actually makes the product move has little voice while unconnected MBA jackasses make crap up.