The coronavirus is wreaking havoc across the sports world. Tournaments and leagues in a variety of sports are being suspended or cancelled as leaders and health officials try to gauge the extend of the illness' spread, and the Golden State Warriors will be impacted, too.
The NBA is grappling with the issue as well. There are a number of considerations with respect to the rest of the season, from playing games without fans in attendance to moving the entire league schedule back into July.
Any decision prohibiting fans from attendance would undoubtedly affect the revenue stream. In turn, that might affect the future salary cap, according to Warriors executives Rick Welts and Bob Myers (via The Athletic's Anthony Slater).
This will have pretty substantial future salary cap implications
-Rick Welts: “Our player compensation system is related on basketball related income. This will affect basketball related income.”
-Bob Myers: “The answer is it will (have an impact). To what degree, we don’t know.” pic.twitter.com/9yukEUgehN— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) March 11, 2020
The Warriors will be the first team to play in an empty arena when they host the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday at the Chase Center.
City officials in San Francisco expressed concern regarding containment and the potential spread of the illness, in turn asking the Warriors to play behind closed doors.
The future salary cap is already in somewhat of a tenuous place. Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey's comments regarding labor protestors in Hong Kong led to pushback from the Chinese government with respect to certain partnerships with the NBA.
While initial estimates suggested the loss in revenue stemming from Morey's comments would not have a major impact on the cap, those numbers are not finalized until the end of the season.
Now that the coronavirus has reared its ugly head and provided added complications, the cap number might indeed look even less friendly next year.
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