After winning each of the first two games of the 2017 NBA Finals by double digits, the Golden State Warriors are just two wins from reclaiming the NBA championship, which they lost last season in infamous fashion.
And with the next two games in Cleveland, the Warriors may have played their last game at Oracle Arena. Taking care of business in as few games as possible would obviously be welcome news for the Warriors players, but it might not be as welcomed by the folks on the business side of things.
That's because sweeping the Cavaliers would cost the Warriors all sorts of money. Tens of millions of dollars, in fact. Via ESPN:
Team executives have said in the past that they'd rather win than think about the money they're leaving on the table by not taking a series longer. But the money is hardly something to sneeze at.
In fact, a Game 5 in Oakland alone comes close to paying Steph Curry's salary for the entire 2016-17 season: $12.1 million. All told, sweeping the series in Cleveland and not returning twice to the Bay Area, as the Warriors did last year for Games 5 and 7, would cost the Warriors' ownership group more than $22 million.
For all the talk about superteams ruining the NBA from a competitive standpoint, it turns out they're also ruining their own bottom line.
