Things are good for the Warriors franchise right now. Behind an incredible series from Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and company, Golden State is one win from claiming the NBA title and becoming the first team in league history to run through the playoffs 16-0.
Could there possibly be a downside to sweeping the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals? Not really. Well, unless you care about the ownership’s pocketbooks.
In that case, yes—they could actually lose quite a bit of money. In total, they’d lose somewhere from $12-22 million, according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, who did some complicated calculations to arrive at these numbers that you can read here.
A Game 5 in Oakland would yield about $12 million for the Warriors’ ownership, while hosting Games 5 and 7 would yield more than $22 million.
Warriors executives have insisted, of course, that they’d rather just win the series as quickly as possible. The title is the ultimate goal. But $22 million is nothing to sneeze at.
Game 4 tips at 9 p.m. on ABC. It’s either a win-win or lose-lose, depending on how you look at it, for Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber: either win the the NBA title immediately or earn $12 million.
