NBAWeird But True

The NBA Lockout Is Hurting A Business You Might Not Have Thought Of

by Glenn Davis | 11:51 am, November 23rd, 2011

The (understandable) hand-wringing over the NBA lockout can take on a few different forms. There’s the most agreed-upon form – the “not having the NBA around sucks” lament – but there are also debates. You know, like “Who should we be madder at?” and “Who should we feel most sorry for?” And while the answer to the latter is usually (and rightly) the arena workers who depend on having NBA games to work for their livelihood, plenty of business that benefit from an in-full-swing NBA are on the downswing too. You know, places like bars close to arenas, hotels, and…escort services. It’s true. Writes CNBC’s Darren Rovell:

A 30 percent [revenue] decline seems to be the magic number, even for Henry, who runs an escort service in New York that he says charges between $400 and $4,000 an hour, depending on the woman.

Henry says he takes between 65 and 80 percent of the total cut to match the players and other high-profile fans, who are with the client an average of four hours.

“There are replacements but they aren’t as consistent and not nearly as high paying,” Henry said.

A few things here. One: $4,000 an hour. Wow. Two, while $400 is generally considered a tidy sum for an hour on a job, we have to wonder if Henry’s $400 class feels insulted at all. Also, “an average of four hours” is actually longer than we would have guessed, considering the services being rendered. And a 65 to 80 percent cut for Henry? If the line of work were more, you know, legal, we’d say his workers could use a union.

As it is, just one more piece of evidence that the NBA lockout has few winners – only the owners, whenever it ends, and the owners of the other businesses normal NBA customers will spend their money on instead. Some of those lockout victims might be more sympathetic than others, of course, but that doesn’t mean anyone’s coming out of this unscathed. Sure, it sounds goofy to say “The NBA lockout is hurting escorts, but – well, it actually is doing that. And even Henry and his escorts deserve to know: we feel your pain, people. We feel your pain.

[Pro Basketball Talk]

Photo via Shutterstock, by CRM

Anonymous

Escorts? What about the strippers in strip clubs where they show NBA games pretty much every major night of the week? Don’t forget the strippers. Naughty girls in strip clubs need love too!

At least what they do is legal.

Stories like this are really good showing that even if most could care less about the NBA, the loss of their games really are critical to incomes whether legal or illegal. And you gotta love that Ronald Reagan as well because when he was pitching trickle down economics, this is a classic case of how low you can trickle down with economics with businesses hurting from the loss of NBA games.

Sad but true.
Red Rover

Now, if only they would only shut down football, baseball, golf, ping-pong and the rest of these mind numbing “ball” games….or just put the damn things on a special channel where sports haters would not have to see them. I’m all for strippers, hookers and the rest of the business that depend on sports to make a living.
Anonymous

Did the reporter CNBC”s Darren Rovell have someone investigate this “Henry” dude to see if he is real?? reporters have made up stories and won Pulitzer prizes.
Infamousg

Do you not know what a legitimate escort service is? He’s not running a whore house, but there are guys who have a ton of cash and want beautiful women by them, no matter what city they are in. Its like buying a date, not prostitution.