Junk Food Nation, as the summer goes on, I’ll be talking more and more about the NFL – just natural since that’ll be on everyone’s mind. But I wanted to get in this little commentary about the NBA. The current lockout has been going on since July 1, 2011. Apparently the league and the NBA Player’s Association got together to meet and negotiate on August 1, but they are still no where close to even agreeing on what the issues actually are. Not productive.

I made a bet with my co-worker Hershey that this lockout is going nowhere and will be the longest lockout this league has ever seen, and may end up in a season cancellation. Buh Bye NBA.  Why I believe this lockout will kill basketball:

1) This lockout is way different than the NFL lockout. In the NFL lockout, there was no doubt that the league was making money – the NFL ratings were at an all-time high and sold-out stadium after sold-out stadiums were hard to hide. The owners were raking it in, and the players knew it. In fact, when the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement expired, the NFLPA wasn’t even pushing for a new deal, asking for more money – they were happy keeping things the same!

The NBA, however, is a different story. In 1989, the league claimed it was losing money, and needed to take money back from the players. At that time, 15 of 29 teams reported losses.  About half the league – not a small number, but certainly workable within certain revenue sharing limits.

In 2011, 22 of 30 NBA teams reported losses in revenue. That’s almost 75% of the league. And I’m sorry, even with extreme revenue sharing schemes, 1/4 of the league cannot pay for the other three-quarters of the league! In the NFL, the issue was how to split up the already existing profits. In the NBA, there IS no money – the owners know the current structure cannot stand.

More after the jump. Today’s junk food comes from my friend Marybeth: Burger King French Toast Flavored Snacks!

The Money Shot

Burger King is a very popular fast food chain – and they started manufacturing packaged snacks a while ago. Put out by the Inventure Group, these snacks are made by the same company that does TGIFriday’s snack line.  At first glance, the bag is designed to look like an oversize cardboard french fry cup that french toast sticks usually come in when you order them inside a BK locale. Nothing fancy – BK is showing you what the snack looks like right up front. Still, French Toast flavored snacks? What the hell are these be like??

Marybeth indicated the gas station attendant who sold these to her told her “Those are addictive!” Yikes. I don’t think that’s all that attendant was addicted to.

Red and Yellow

I feel like BK’s logo has changed for the worst over the years.  It used to look like this. It looked like, well, a hamburger. Now, the logo looks like Pacman or something. It’s so circular and aerodynamic.

If it was my way, these would be different

You know, BK, if I had it my way these would be real french toast sticks, not fake ones.

But I don’t want to wake up with the King

Interesting – BK propaganda on the back of a BK packaged junk food product. Hypin’ the Croissan’wich. 50 years of perfection? Really?

French Toast snacks sounds…wrong

Honestly, does ANYONE walk around, having come from a meal where syrup and cinnamon sugar was plentiful, and think, “Need…more..syrup – I KNOW I’LL BUY BK FRENCH TOAST FLAVORED SNACKS!” It’s a stretch.

Looks like actual BK French Toast Sticks!

Opening the bag, you have to give BK credit – each chip (is that what they are?) looked EXACTLY like a french toast stick. It was kind of eerie. Golden brown and smelling sweet, these sticks definitely looked appealing.

Sprinkled with cinnamon sugar

See that rippling on the surface? It looks like the constricted toasted surface of a stick of bread that was soaked in egg and then fried in butter. MMMMM. Time for a taste!

Deep fried Cheeto-like Crunch

UMMMM….yeah. The chip was light and fluffy.  Instant maple syrup flavor, tapering off into the corn snack crunch. Did it taste like a french toast stick dipped in syrup?  Sure…if the stick was made of Cheetos.

Yep, this tasted like a sweet Cheeto; Cheetos-like consistency, with a caramel maple syrup taste. Maybe a better comparison is caramel corn?  I don’t know if I like that Cheetos comparison, but now that its in my head I can’t get rid of it.

Was it addictive? It kind of was – the whole taste was kind of quirky, like when you eat kettle corn. Feels savory sweet – although, in this instance, more sweet than anything else.

Honestly? I probably could see myself eating a whole bag of these, if I wasn’t so distracted by the Cheetos comparison. Middle of the road rating, BK. This junk food was aight.

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More on the death of the NBA:

2) The owners can’t agree on a common goal, and neither can the players.  Among the owners, as previously mentioned, the eight teams that made money KNOW that any revenue sharing is going to be attacking their profits specifically, and they’re gonna feel ganged up on. So you can guarantee that no agreement and no end to the lockout will occur until the owners have a united front, and they haven’t even BEGUN talking about that yet.

Among the players, you have some of the superstars saying eff this, I’m going to play in Europe, feeling like they have the leverage against the owners. But you have other stars and, mostly, NON-star NBA athletes who have NO offers to play in Europe. What about them? They don’t have the same kind of leverage nor do they have anything else they can rely on (endorsements, etc.) You think Joel Przybilla wants any part of this lockout? Nosirree – he needs his 700K a year. So the NBPA has internal conflict too. This agreement isn’t getting done anytime soon.

What do you think? Post in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter! @junkfoodguy

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy