Dark Angel (American TV series)

Dark Angel is an American science fiction drama television series that premiered on the Fox network on October 3, 2000. Created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee, it stars Jessica Alba in her breakthrough role. Set in 2019, the series chronicles the life of Max Guevara (Alba), a runaway genetically enhanced supersoldier who escapes from a covert military facility as a child. In a dystopian near-future Seattle, she tries to lead a normal life while eluding capture by government agents and searching for her brothers and sisters scattered in the aftermath of their escape. Dark Angel was the only show produced by the company Cameron/Eglee Productions, and was filmed in Vancouver at Lions Gate Studios.

The high-budget pilot episode marked Cameron's television debut and was heavily promoted by Fox, reaching 17.4 million viewers. The first season, which was shown on Tuesday nights in the U.S., received mainly positive reviews and won several awards, including the People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Drama, and averaged 10.4 million viewers per episode. Alba's portrayal of Max also received mostly positive reviews and several awards. For the second season, the show was moved to the less desirable air time of Friday night and received some criticism for new plot elements. It suffered from a drop in ratings, averaging 6 million viewers per episode, and was canceled.

A series of novels continued the storyline, and a video game adaptation was also released. Dark Angel is considered to have gothic and female empowerment themes; Max followed a long line of strong female characters in Cameron's work, including Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley. Cameron was also influenced by the manga Battle Angel Alita. Dark Angel is considered to be part of a wave of shows in the late 1990s and early 2000s that feature strong female characters, alongside Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess, Alias, and La Femme Nikita.

## Plot

### Season one

In February 2009, a genetically enhanced nine-year-old female supersoldier designated as X5-452 (Geneva Locke) escapes along with eleven others from a secret U.S. government institution code-named Manticore, where they were born, raised, and trained to be soldiers and assassins. On June 1, 2009, months after the twelve X5s' escape, terrorists detonate an electromagnetic pulse weapon in the atmosphere over the U.S., which destroys the vast majority of computer and communication systems, throwing the country into chaos.

Ten years later in 2019, the now 19-year-old X5-452 (Jessica Alba), who calls herself Max Guevara, struggles to search for her Manticore brothers and sisters. In the recovering United States, which is now barely more than a developing country, she tries to live a relatively normal life and evade capture by Manticore, which wishes to recover its lost asset. Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly), an underground cyber-journalist with the alias Eyes Only, attempts to recruit her to help fight corruption in the post-Pulse world. She initially refuses but accepts after Cale is rendered a paraplegic while attempting the assignment for which he was attempting to recruit her. A romantic interest buds between the two. While assisting Cale, Max also makes a living as a bicycle messenger at Jam Pony, a courier company, along with her friends Original Cindy (Valarie Rae Miller), Herbal Thought (Alimi Ballard), and Sketchy (Richard Gunn). Other X5s are periodically introduced, most significantly the unit leader Zack (William Gregory Lee). The Manticore hunt for the escaped X5s is led by Colonel Donald Lydecker (John Savage). Near the end of the season, Lydecker is betrayed by his superior, the even more ruthless Elizabeth Renfro (Nana Visitor), and he defects from Manticore. He aids Max and Zack in an assault on Manticore headquarters. Max is badly wounded and captured. Zack, who has also been captured, commits suicide to provide Max with his heart, as she needs an X5 heart transplant to survive.

### Season two

Cale exposes Manticore to the world. Renfro decides to burn the facility to cover up the evidence and is killed in the process. Aided by Joshua (Kevin Durand), a transgenic with conspicuous canine DNA, Max escapes the facility and frees the other transgenics, including Alec (Jensen Ackles), a fellow X5 and clone of Max's brother Ben (also Jensen Ackles) whom she was forced to kill in the first season, who later joins Jam Pony. When Max is reunited with Cale he immediately becomes ill and almost dies. Max discovers that Manticore has infected her with a virus specifically designed to kill Cale, and the two must avoid all physical contact to keep him alive. Max learns that Joshua was the first transgenic created by Sandeman, Manticore's founder. Over the course of the season, it is revealed that a millennia-old breeding cult has bred their own advanced humans who rival the Manticore-produced transgenics in their abilities. Ames White (Martin Cummins), a government agent tasked with eliminating the freed transgenics, is revealed to be a member of the cult. When a strange message written in Max's genetic code makes an appearance on her skin it is revealed that Sandeman is a renegade from the breeding cult and Ames White is his son. White is still loyal to the cult and hates his father's transgenic creations with a passion. Believing that the special sequences Sandeman buried in Max's DNA are a threat to the breeding cult's plans for the extinction of normal humanity, they attempt to kill her, but she escapes to Terminal City, an abandoned part of Seattle where hundreds of outcast transgenics have been hiding. When the police begin to surround Terminal City Max convinces the other transgenics to stand their ground rather than run. The series ends with the military surrounding Terminal City as the residents raise their newly designed flag from one of the buildings, and wait for a possible invasion.

## Cast and characters

The first season introduced Jessica Alba as the main character Max Guevara (X5-452), a genetically enhanced transgenic super-soldier who escaped from a government facility named Manticore. She works as a bike messenger for the courier company Jam Pony during the day and as a cat burglar at night. Michael Weatherly played Logan Cale, the show's second most prominent character. Cale is a wealthy cyber-journalist and vigilante who operates under the alias Eyes Only. He recruits Max to assist with his campaign against corruption and crime in return for helping her find information on her fellow Manticore escapees. Main roles were given to several of the couriers at Jam Pony, including Valarie Rae Miller as Cynthia "Original Cindy" McEachin, Richard Gunn as Calvin "Sketchy" Theodore, and Alimi Ballard as Herbal Thought. J. C. MacKenzie played Reagan "Normal" Ronald, the company's boss, and Jennifer Blanc played Kendra Maibaum, Max's first roommate, and John Savage played the main antagonist, Col. Donald Lydecker, who is trying to recapture Max and the other Manticore escapees.

The Lydecker character is written out of the series early in the second season, and Herbal Thought and Kendra Maibaum do not appear at all. Season two introduces Kevin Durand as Joshua, an experimental creature from Manticore who has distinct canine facial features. It also brings back Jensen Ackles as Alec McDowell (X5-494), who is an identical twin of Ben (X5-493), one of the original 12 escapees from Manticore, and introduces Ashley Scott as Asha Barlow, a resistance fighter who has a romantic interest in Cale. Martin Cummins portrayed the season's main antagonist Ames White, a National Security Agency agent tasked with destroying the Manticore escapees.

## Production

### Background

Following his success with the film Titanic, director James Cameron teamed up with Charles H. Eglee with whom he had previously worked on projects including Piranha II: The Spawning. The two formed a production company, Cameron/Eglee Productions, and began working on ideas for a television series. They considered several options, including a family drama, before deciding on the idea of Dark Angel. Cameron said they began with the idea that Max would be a genetic construct who "looked normal on the outside but was different on the cellular, genetic level. We explore what that could mean." Cameron was influenced by the manga Battle Angel Alita, which he was originally intending to adapt into a film after completing Dark Angel.

Dark Angel would be the first and only work by Cameron/Eglee Productions. Max followed a long line of strong female characters in Cameron's work, including Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley. Cameron said "it's a win/win situation" as "women respond to characters who appear strong and capable" and young male audiences "want to see girls kick ass". Later they decided to set the series in a post-social collapse world, saying that the hysteria surrounding Y2K served as inspiration; in the series, an electromagnetic pulse previously destroyed every computer in the United States. Working titles for the series included "Experimental Girl" and "Maximum Girl". The project marked Cameron's television debut; he worked mainly as a writer and executive producer for the series.

### Casting and filming

More than a thousand young actresses were considered for the part of Max. Cameron started reviewing audition tapes when the field had been narrowed down to twenty or thirty applicants. He was initially not impressed with Alba's audition tape, saying "she had her head down, she was reading out of the script ... she didn't present herself all that well. But there was something about the way she read the script that copped an attitude that I liked." Cameron continually reviewed the audition tapes but kept coming back to Alba's, eventually deciding that he needed to meet her. Alba was hired for the role before the script was written. Eglee said: "We had the benefit of being able to write a script kind of backward, we were writing for this actress, with her cadences and her rhythms and her sensibilities and her attitude and her slang." To train for the role, Alba spent a year doing martial arts and gymnastics and riding motorcycles.

The two-hour premiere episode cost up to \$10 million to produce, and Cameron reportedly "brought the pilot in on time and on budget". Subsequent episodes had a considerably smaller budget. Fox spent heavily on the promotional campaign for the premiere, paying for theatrical trailers, billboards, and guerilla marketing. Cameron took a "very basic view" of the show's chance of success, saying: "If it flies, it flies. If it doesn't, it doesn't ... If people connect with it, which I hope they will, fine. If we don't find an audience, we deserve to be off the air. It's that simple." Eglee admitted the series had been "routinely over budget" in the first season, and feared that this would be a factor in whether or not the show was renewed for a second season, though Cameron downplayed these concerns.

Fox "just barely" renewed the series for a second season. The budget for episodes in season two was \$1.3 million each. After the intended director of the final episode did not work out, Cameron decided to step in and fill the position. He did this partially for the experience but also to show the network the potential for a third season. It was his first experience directing a TV drama.

The producers were initially told a third season had been approved, but two days later Fox informed them that the series had been canceled.

> They called us on Saturday and told us we were on schedule and we'd been picked up. We got together Saturday night and celebrated. Sunday goes by, and Monday morning we get a call saying, "No, you're not on the schedule! It's been changed." I've never heard of that happening. But then, I'd never been around television. ... We were supposed to be on a plane on Monday to go to the [network] upfront in New York on Tuesday. They called us that day and told us not to go! I was pissed!

Dark Angel was set in Seattle, and filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia at Lions Gate Studios. Other filming locations included the Vancouver Art Gallery, as well as Buntzen Lake and Riverview Hospital, also in British Columbia.

### Unproduced season

In the DVD commentary for "Freak Nation", the series finale, Charles H. Eglee explained what had been planned for season three. The intention was to bring together the storylines of seasons one ("Manticore") and two ("Breeding Cult") and reveal the mythology of Dark Angel. The season would reveal that thousands of years ago, Earth passed through a comet's tail which deposited viral material that killed 97% of the human race. The breeding cult preserved the survivors' genetic immunity so that when the comet returned, only members of the cult would survive. Sandeman, a cult member, and Max's creator betrayed the cult and decided to give this genetic immunity to the rest of humanity through Max, who would be the savior of the human race. There were multiple ideas on how to spread Max's immunity, including an air burst that would disperse the antibody through the atmosphere, or attaching the immunity to a common cold virus (Eglee detailed how a scene would show Original Cindy sneezing as part of the beginning of the immunity spread). This storyline is expanded upon in the final Dark Angel novel After the Dark though when the comet returns nobody falls ill, and it is believed that the cult simply had a false prediction.

### Broadcast history

The first season premiered in the United States on Tuesday, October 3, 2000, from 9:00 pm until 11:00 pm. Fox had to obtain agreements from its affiliates to broadcast past 10:00 pm, as most of them air local news programs at this time. In subsequent weeks the show aired from 9:00 pm till 10:00 pm Tuesdays. During its first season, the show was preempted on several occasions, including by the 2000 World Series, the Billboard Music Awards and coverage of the presidential election. The frequent preemptions became a running joke on the set. Dark Angel's scheduled air time put it in direct competition with Angel on The WB. Critics debated which of the similarly named shows would dominate the time-slot. Jonathon Storm from Philadelphia Media Network believed that Dark Angel would prove victorious, while Brad Adgate, a research director at Horizon Media, predicted that Dark Angel would only initially take the lead in the ratings, as Angel's strong fanbase would prevail in the long run. Brad Turrell, executive vice-president of Network Communication for the WB conceded that the heavy promotion for Dark Angel would give it higher initial ratings at first but believed that as Angel was a "better show" it would not be affected long-term. Concerned that there might be confusion between the two shows, the WB took out a full page ad in TV Guide, which read "There is only ONE. David Boreanaz is ANGEL." Angel won the time slot when Fox moved the broadcast time of Dark Angel to 8:00 pm on Fridays for its second season, where it preceded the new series Pasadena.

The final episode of the series aired on May 3, 2002, as a special 90-minute episode. Dark Angel has been syndicated on Syfy and the El Rey Network in the United States and on E4 and the Horror Channel in the UK.

### Music

The score for the Dark Angel pilot was composed and conducted by Joel McNeely. The pilot score track "Bicycle Ride" was used in the end credits for the duration of the series. The pilot score was released in full as part of the original publicity press kit, titled Dark Angel: Complete Score from the Dark Angel Pilot. The 37-track CD was for promotional use only and not for resale. McNeely returned to score the entire series, making frequent use of "grumbling timpani rolls, bass drum beats and shrill brass and violin crescendos that familiarly sketch the action arcs of the narrative." Traditional orchestral elements are integrated with innovative electronic sounds and female vocals to create a sense of Max's "otherworldliness", "haunting wind chimes, pseudo-Orientalist refrains and extenuated high-pitched eerie sounds" evoke Max's super-human abilities, and "driving hip hop bass beats with heavy percussive effects [and] high-pitched feedback and reverberation" convey Max's struggles with violence and her memories of Manticore. The theme song for the series was composed by Chuck D and Gary G-Wiz. Both McNeely and G-Wiz cited Dark Angel as an opportunity to push sonic boundaries; G-Wiz stated that Eglee and music supervisor Randy Gerston kept calling him and telling him to make the theme song "crazier". McNeely said scoring the series was "like the difference between jazz and classical music. I'm a jazz player, so Dark Angel is as free form and as weird as we want to get."

A soundtrack album consisting of hip hop and R&B songs was released on April 23, 2002, through Artemis Records. Eglee explained that he and Cameron began with the idea that they could do a "hip hop youth ensemble thing", noting that "hip hop had become the dominant influence in the country [and] in the world" and that they saw an opportunity to give the future of Dark Angel the soundtrack of contemporary American popular culture. In the soundtrack's liner notes, Eglee writes:

> Reminiscent of another time and place ... that part of the Bronx in the late 1970s known as Fort Apache: a place that for white America, defined lack and limitation, violence and hopelessness. What white Americans couldn't see or hear then was the beautiful thing being birthed there, which, years later, would come to be known as Hip Hop. ... This album remembers the foundations of Hip Hop as it contemplates its future.

Randy Gerston said that because of the near future setting of the series, he avoided any major hit songs as these would not sound futuristic. This gave them the opportunity to discover new talent instead. The album features predominately female hip hop and neo soul artists whose lyrics typically "focus on the expression of female agency and power – particularly with regard to sexuality." It peaked at No. 50 on the Top Independent Albums chart. Jason Birchmeier of AllMusic gave the soundtrack three out of five stars. He noted the lack of major artists on the album and commented that it "seems to be a female-orientated soundtrack, perhaps because of the show's female lead character". Birchmeier said many of the songs were "quite impressive" and that it "exceeds your expectations for a television show soundtrack".

## Themes

Dark Angel is considered to be in the cyberpunk genre. Writing in Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture, Lorna Jowett considered Dark Angel to be a "hybrid of science fiction, Gothic, and action" which incorporated forms and themes from all three genres. Jowett compared Dark Angel to the Gothic novel Frankenstein, saying that Max's genetic engineering makes her a "postmodern Frankenstein's monster, blurring boundaries between human and monster". Kathleen McConnell in Gothic Studies also compared Max's unconventional conception to Frankenstein's monster, and cited several other Gothic themes in the series. She states that Max fits the model of a Gothic heroine who "ostensibly appear[s] to be conforming to their accepted role within the patriarchy but who actually subvert the father's power at every possible occasion." In her book Post-feminist Impasses in Popular Heroine Television, Alison Horbury theorizes that Dark Angel, along with the shows Alias, La Femme Nikita, and Dollhouse have themes of abduction, physical and symbolic rape, motherlessness, and the discovery of a sister.

Several academics have considered Dark Angel to be part of a wave of shows in the late 90s and early 2000s including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess, and La Femme Nikita that feature strong female characters. Writing in Science Fiction Film & Television, Clarice Butkus noted Max has been considered to be a "distinctly millennial post-third-wave feminist warrior. She also felt that Max's relationship and dialogue with Original Cindy, an African American lesbian, conveyed female empowerment. For example, Cindy encourages Max not to feel guilt over her sexual behaviour and instead to embrace a traditionally masculine approach to sex. McConnell and Jowett also cited Max as an example of female empowerment; Jowett considered Max to be the "usual postmodern, postfeminist representation of the female action hero with [at least] a reversal or [at most] a mixture of traditional gender traits."

Butkus stated that Dark Angel repeatedly paid homage to the film Blade Runner. Lydecker, the "flawed antagonist" of Dark Angel is said to be a transposition of Deckard, the "flawed hero" of Blade Runner. Alec McDowell/X5-494's love interest is named Rachel, believed to be a reference to the replicant Rachael, though in Dark Angel it is McDowell and not Rachel who is bio-engineered. His flashbacks of this traumatic relationship use piano music similar to that used in Blade Runner to denote memories and a desire for former times. Alec's genetic memory enhancements enable him, with only a few hours practice, to play a detailed piano piece by Frédéric Chopin, the composer originally scripted for the scene in Blade Runner where Rachael inexplicably finds herself able to play the piano; both characters are considered to be pre-programmed by state forces to master superhuman skills.

## Reception and legacy

Initial reaction to the series and Max's character was mostly positive, with favorable reviews in Rolling Stone and Time. Hal Boedeker of the Orlando Sentinel said: "Television's newest warrior woman possesses skills worthy of Catwoman, Xena, Emma Peel, and Wonder Woman." Howard Rosenberg said: "If pouty faces and sexy walks could destroy, the highly arresting Max would be wiping out the entire planet." However Joyce Millman said Max was "little more than lips and ass" and considered the series to be an expensive Britney Spears music video. People ran a negative review of the Pilot episode in October 2000, though in December they listed Alba's portrayal of Max as among the "breakthrough" performances of 2000.

The first episode was behind only CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as the most watched new show of the week, albeit in a week with fewer new shows because of the presidential debate coverage. Fox chose to debut Dark Angel instead of airing the first presidential debate, a move which TV analyst Marc Berman praised, saying: "The people who watch the debates aren't the people who'll tune into Dark Angel anyway", though he predicted that the premiere's high ratings would not hold up as the show competed against more varied competition in subsequent weeks. It was the tenth most popular show overall that week, attracting 17.4 million viewers. The first season averaged 10.4 million viewers per episode, ranking number 59 for the 2000–01 season. Cameron said he did not know if the broadcast time change for the second season would have a positive or negative effect on the show's ratings, though R. D. Heldenfels of the Sun Journal noted the poor ratings of Friday night television, especially the low viewing rates among 18 to 24-year-olds, the age-group that Dark Angel was most popular with. The new time slot saw a ratings drop; for the second season Dark Angel averaged 6 million viewers, ranking number 114 for the 2001–02 season in the Nielsen ratings.

Commenting on the release of the second season, Cynthia Fuchs of PopMatters said the first season of Dark Angel was one of the "few straight-up successes, a ratings hit among the coveted 'youth' demographic." She praised the series but clarified: "I'm not getting carried away: Jim Cameron is not going to be making revolutionary art anytime soon." Michael Sauter of Entertainment Weekly gave the first season a B+ and spoke highly of Alba, saying that "for a while [she was] TV's hottest kick-butt heroine". Elka Karl of Common Sense Media gave the entire series 3 out of 5 stars, saying: "While the dialogue sometimes falls flat, overall the show is well-scripted and well acted, and Alba does an excellent job of carrying the series. Dark Angel isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is compelling television that teen sci-fi fans will enjoy." While praising the first season, Randy Dankievitch of TVOvermind labelled the second season "silly", criticizing "dumb stories" like Max's dream episode "Boo", the virus that prevents Logan and Max having physical contact, and the various half-animal Manticore experiments that are revealed.

Writing in his book The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television, John Kenneth Muir said it was necessary for Cameron to set Dark Angel in the future because the prosperity of the U.S. in 2000 "offered little possibility for crime, squalor and other societal problems". While criticizing certain plot elements in the second season as contributing to the show's downfall, Muir said that larger factors in ratings dropping were the September 11 attacks, the Enron scandal, and the depletion of the U.S. government's surplus, which changed Dark Angel's "futuristic vision of recession in a Third-World America" from an interesting, far-fetched premise to a "depressing reminder that things could still get worse".

In 2004, Max was ranked number 17 on TV Guide's list of the 25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends, and in 2012, Dave Golder of GamesRadar ranked her number 49 on his list of the 100 sexiest women in sci-fi. In 2009, AfterEllen ranked Original Cindy number 6 on their list of the Top 11 Lesbian/Bi Sidekicks. In 2015, Kayti Burt of Den of Geek included Dark Angel at the top of her list of "10 Sci-Fi Shows That Don't Get Enough Love". In 2016, it was recognized that Dark Angel was the first American television series to feature an openly transgender actress playing a transgender character. In the season one episode "Out", transgender actress Jessica Crockett portrayed "Louise", a young woman on a date with Normal.

The 2007 film Hitman re-used footage of Max and other Manticore children in training from Dark Angel. It was used to portray the Hitman protagonist Agent 47, a cloned assassin who, like the Manticore children, has a barcode on the back of his head.

### Accolades

In its first season Dark Angel won the Favorite Television New Dramatic Series award at the 27th People's Choice Awards, and was nominated for Best Television by the International Horror Guild Awards. The production team was nominated for the Excellence in Production Design Award by the Art Directors Guild. Editor Stephen Mark won Best Edited Motion Picture for Commercial Television at the Eddie Awards for the pilot episode, and the pilot was also nominated for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for the 53rd Primetime Emmy Awards and "Best Visual Effects: Dramatic Series" by the Leo Awards.

Jessica Alba won Best Actress on Television at the 27th Saturn Awards, Breakout Star of the Year at the TV Guide Awards, Outstanding Actress in a New Television Series at the ALMA Awards, and Choice Actress at the 2001 Teen Choice Awards. She also received nominations for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for the 58th Golden Globe Awards and Best Performance in a TV Drama Series – Leading Young Actress for the 22nd Young Artist Awards.

Dark Angel was nominated for fewer awards in its second season. It was nominated for Choice Drama/Action Adventure for the 2002 Teen Choice Awards, where Alba was also nominated for Choice Actress, Drama. Alba was also nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Television Series for the ALMA Awards. At the Leo Awards the episode "Boo" received a nomination for Best Visual Effects: Dramatic Series, and David Geddes won Best Cinematography: Dramatic Series for the episode "Two".

## Home media

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released seasons 1 and 2 of Dark Angel on DVD in region 1 (R1), as well as a dual-coded region 2 and 4 (R2/4) set in 2003, as six-disc sets packaged in cardboard sleeves containing three DVD cases each of two discs. Season 1 was released in R2/4 in February and R1 in May, and season 2 was released in R2/4 in June and R1 in October.

The R1 releases contain several special features, including four episodes with optional commentary in each season, bloopers, deleted scenes, and featurettes. The R2/4 releases contain no commentaries and fewer other special features, but the episodes are presented in anamorphic widescreen, while R1 releases are fullscreen. Adam Tyner of DVD Talk gave the R1 first season three out of five stars for audio and video, and three and a half stars for special features. Shannon Nutt of DVD Talk gave the R1 second season three stars out of five for audio and video, and two and a half stars for extras, stating: "it appears [to have] a decent number of features, but then you discover the length of each one and really feel short-changed by Fox". She also noted the episode's commentary was mainly by writers and producers, and did not feature James Cameron or any of the actors.

Both seasons were re-released in R1 on June 5, 2007, with slim packaging consisting of one plastic case containing all six discs (which were unchanged in content and cosmetics).

## Related media

A video game of the same name based on the series was developed by Radical Entertainment, published by Sierra Entertainment and released for PlayStation 2 on November 18, 2002, and later on Xbox. Alba and Weatherly voiced their respective characters in the game. Development of the game started before the series was cancelled, and the game was met with mixed to negative reception upon release. Brett Todd of GameSpot gave the game 3.8 out of 10, saying: "Although it's impossible to say whether or not the developers' morale was affected by the cancellation of the series, this third-person action adventure plays like it was cranked out to fulfill a contract" and concluded "the development of this game probably should have been cancelled at the same time as the television series". Duke Ferris from Game Revolution gave the game a 'D+', saying that while fans of Dark Angel would enjoy it as it "mirrors an episode of the show almost exactly", anybody else was likely to find it boring.

Three original novels written by Max Allan Collins expand upon the Dark Angel television series, with two picking up directly where the series ended, and another serving as a prequel. A companion book, Dark Angel: The Eyes Only Dossier, was written by D.A. Stern.

- Dark Angel: Before the Dawn (2002) is a prequel to the television series, detailing Max's life after her escape from Manticore in 2009. After witnessing footage taken in Seattle of a man she believes to be one of her X5 siblings, Max moves from Los Angeles to Seattle, meeting Original Cindy and Kendra on the way, before finding employment at Jam Pony. Max eventually discovers the man in the footage is her brother Seth, who unbeknown to her has been working for Logan as a personal agent. Shortly after being reunited with him at the Space Needle, Seth, who has been injured, commits suicide by falling from it to avoid being captured by Lydecker. Max begins returning to the Space Needle to think and "to be with Seth".
- Dark Angel: Skin Game (2003) immediately follows the events of "Freak Nation", the final episode of season two, describing days in May 2021. Skin Game focuses on a killer terrorizing the streets of Seattle and the growing suspicion and evidence that the killer could be transgenic. As the killings escalate, the U.S. Army and National Guard prepare themselves for an invasion of Terminal City. Max uncovers that the killer is a shapeshifting transgenic named Kelpy, though he has been unwillingly given a drug by Ames White that is causing his psychosis. When Max reveals this information to the public through Eyes Only, Ames White goes into hiding, and the invasion of Terminal City is called off. When Kelpy takes on Logan's form he is killed by the virus Max carries which was designed to kill Logan.
- Dark Angel: After the Dark (2003) follows Skin Game. It is revealed that Max's virus is gone, the most likely explanation being that when the virus killed Kelpy it went dormant as it believed its mission to kill Logan was accomplished. However, Logan and Max's relationship is thrown into turmoil when he reveals that he inadvertently caused Seth's death by sending him on an assignment. Just as Max is ready to forgive him, Logan is kidnapped by Ames White and the breeding cult, who are preparing for the coming of a comet they believe will destroy everyone except cult-members and transgenics through depositing viral material into Earth's atmosphere. They are trying to kill Max as they believe she possesses a genetic code that will save ordinary humans from the comet's viral material. With the aid of a team of transgenics, Max eventually rescues Logan and destroys the headquarters of the breeding cult; Joshua kills Ames White. When the comet arrives, nobody falls ill, and it is believed the cult's prediction was false. Max finds Lydecker in a prison cell at the cult's headquarters. He promises to help her find her mother if she saves him, and she agrees. The book ends with Logan and Max finally consummating their relationship.

The companion book, Dark Angel: The Eyes Only Dossier, begins with a letter written by Logan Cale during the stand-off at Terminal City. It is addressed to Detective Matt Sung, a recurring character from the series who aides Logan, instructing him that the package he is sending him contains documents pertaining to the four most critical Eyes Only investigations. If he is killed by the potential invasion of Terminal City, Logan wants Sung to carry on the investigations. The rest of the book contains the documents relating to the four investigations.

US science fiction drama television series

2000s American LGBT-related drama television series

2000s American science fiction television series

Fox Broadcasting Company original programming

Television series about genetic engineering

Television series by 20th Century Fox Television

Television shows adapted into video games


2011 NBA lockout

The 2011 NBA lockout was the fourth and most recent lockout in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Team owners began the work stoppage upon expiration of the 2005 collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The 161-day lockout began on July 1, 2011 and ended on December 8, 2011. It delayed the start of the 2011–12 regular season from November to December, and it reduced the regular season from 82 to 66 games. The previous lockout in 1998–99 had shortened the season to 50 games. During the lockout, teams could not trade, sign, or contact players. Players additionally did not have access to NBA team facilities, trainers, or staff.

Negotiations between the owners, led by league commissioner David Stern, and the players, headed by director Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher of the labor union National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), began in early 2011 and continued through November. The main issues dividing both sides were the division of revenue, the structure of the salary cap and luxury tax. Owners proposed to reduce the players' share of basketball related income (BRI) from 57% to 47%, but the players countered with 53% of BRI. Owners wanted to implement a hard salary cap and a harsher luxury tax, hoping to increase competition among teams, whereas players wanted to keep the current soft salary cap structure intact.

As both sides failed to reach an agreement, the NBA canceled the preseason and all games through December. On November 14, the players dissolved the union, allowing them to file antitrust lawsuits against the league. On November 26, both sides reached a tentative agreement to end the lockout. The new CBA calls for a revenue split of 49-to-51.2% and a flexible salary cap structure with harsher luxury tax. After the tentative deal was reached, owners allowed players to have voluntary workouts at team sites starting December 1. After the deal was ratified on December 8, training camps, trades, and free agency began the next day. During the lockout, some players signed contracts to play in other countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, with most of them having the option to return upon the lockout's conclusion. The lockout also affected the economy outside the league due largely to cities that had teams in the league losing revenue generated by games as well as television networks that broadcast the league losing ratings and advertisement revenue due to games not being played.

## Chronology

- July 1, 2011: The lockout begins.
- September 23, 2011: The NBA canceled training camp, which was to begin October 3, and the first week of preseason games, which were to run October 9 through 15.
- October 4, 2011: The NBA canceled the remainder of the preseason.
- October 10, 2011: The first two weeks of the regular season canceled.
- October 18, 2011: All games through November 30 canceled.
- November 14, 2011: The NBPA dissolves labor union into a trade association.
- November 15, 2011: The NBA canceled all games through December 15. Players filed antitrust lawsuits against the NBA in Chicago and New Mexico federal courts.
- November 26, 2011: The NBA owners and players reached a tentative agreement to end the lockout.
- December 1, 2011: The NBPA re-formed as a union.
- December 8, 2011: The new CBA is ratified, officially ending the lockout.
- December 25, 2011: NBA season begins.

## Background

After the previous lockout, which shortened the 1998–99 season from 82 to 50 games, a six-year deal between the owners, led by commissioner David Stern, and the players, led by director Billy Hunter and president Patrick Ewing of the labor union National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), was reached. As the CBA was set to expire on June 30, 2005, the two sides began to negotiate in early 2005. There were several issues obstructing the new agreement, which included adding an age limit for rookies, toughening the existing drug-testing program and limiting the length of long-term contracts. However, negotiations went smoothly and the two sides were able to reach a deal in June 2005, avoiding the lockout. That deal guaranteed players 57 percent of basketball-related income (BRI) and lasted for six years, until June 30, 2011. A year after signing the deal, eight owners signed a petition requesting Stern address the disparity between small-market and large-market teams. They wrote that "the hard truth is that our current economic system works only for larger-market teams and a few teams that have extraordinary success ...The rest of us are looking at significant and unacceptable annual financial losses."

Derek Fisher succeeded Ewing as NBPA president in 2006. In early 2011, negotiations on a new CBA began. The league claimed that it was losing \$300 million a year (22 out of 30 teams were losing money last season) and proposed to reduce 40% of players' salary (about \$800 million) and institute a hard salary cap (at \$45 million per team) as opposed to a soft cap (at \$58 million) currently in use. The union disputed those figures and steadfastly opposed those changes. Hunter said that he was advising players to prepare for a lockout. In May 2011, the NBPA filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), accusing the league of negotiating in bad faith by failing to provide critical financial data to the union and repeatedly threatening to lock out players. The NBA quickly rejected the complaint, saying that the league complies fully with federal labor laws. The union also considered the option of decertification, which allows players to file an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA.

With time winding down, negotiations continued in May and June. On the salary cap, the owners, in their newest proposal, call for a system called the "flex cap" that limits payroll at \$62 million but penalizes teams if the teams payroll exceeds the league's average payroll of that season. The union argued that it is still a hard cap because the ceiling would kick in eventually. On salary reduction, players offered to cut \$500 million over the next five years (their share of BRI would be reduced from 57 to 54.3 percent). The owners instead proposed to cut \$2 billion over the next 10 years.

As a last-ditch effort to avert a lockout, owners and players met again on June 30, 2011, to negotiate, but both sides failed to reach a resolution on key issues like salary cap and BRI splits. Both Stern and Hunter said that the two sides remained far apart. The owners demanded a larger share, claiming that they were losing money. The players, on the other hand, were willing to make concessions, but they refused to completely cave in to owners' demands. Negotiations broke off, and the CBA expired at midnight.

## Lockout

### Initial months

The lockout was officially started by the owners on July 1, 2011, during which teams could not trade, sign, or contact players, and players could not access NBA team facilities, trainers, or staffs. Negotiations resumed at an August 1 bargaining session, but it fell apart after three hours. On August 2, 2011, the NBA filed two unfair labor practice claims against the NBPA, one at the NLRB and another at a federal district court in New York. The league accused the players of being uncooperative in negotiations by threatening to dissolve their union and file antitrust lawsuits. Hunter, in a statement released by the union, called the lawsuits "without merit" and that the union would seek to dismiss it in court. On August 4, Hunter said that he thought the entire 2011–12 season would likely be canceled.

The NBPA and the owners returned to negotiate again on August 31 with a sense of urgency. No specifics were disclosed although both sides hoped to meet again soon. "Everyone loses if we don't reach an agreement, that's something that I think has always been understood," said union president Derek Fisher. "I will say we are not apart in terms of an agreed urgency on getting a deal done," said NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver.

The union and owners met again on September 13 but the negotiation soon collapsed. The salary cap structure remained the main source of disagreement. Owners wanted to create a hard cap for team payroll. The union wanted to keep the current structure intact, referring to it as a "blood issue". Players were willing to cut salary only if owners agree to compromise on the salary cap. But owners were unwilling to concede, saying that there must be a system in place that allows all teams to compete. Five of the sports agents—Arn Tellem, Bill Duffy, Mark Bartelstein, Jeff Schwartz, and Dan Fegan—who represent one-third of NBA players spoke with each other about decertifying the union. They believed owners have most of the leverage in negotiation and viewed decertification as a way for players to take control. Hunter said however that players had not considered decertification at this point.

On September 15, Fisher sent an email to 400-plus players asking for unity. In the email, he said that recent meetings were "effective". He suggested that the failure of having a deal was not due to disagreement between players and owners, but due to disagreement among owners. Fisher also used the opportunity to counter agents' suggestion of disbanding the union, saying that they were not making "a drastic move that leaves players without a union". According to sources, there was indeed disagreement among the owners. Some thought players' proposal of taking 52% of BRI was fair, and were willing to compromise on things like tying players' future earnings to NBA's future revenue growth and maintaining current salary level. Cavaliers' Dan Gilbert and Suns' Robert Sarver were among the hardliners who oppose the deal while Knicks' James Dolan and the Lakers' Jerry Buss were among the group in favor of it. Stern denied that there was a rift among owners the following day, saying, "I don't know what the basis of Derek's belief is."

### Cancellations

On September 23, 2011, the NBA canceled training camp, which was to begin October 3, and the first week of preseason games, which were to run October 9 through 15. The incident marked only the second time in league history that games had been lost to a labor stoppage. Both the owners and the union had planned to meet on September 30 in New York and pledged to continue through the weekends if progress was being made. A source close to the situation leaked to ESPN that Stern planned to threaten the cancellation of the season if no deal was made, but the union saw this as a scare tactic and not a serious threat. Commentators speculated that Stern wanted to put pressure on the players and prevent negotiation from dragging through the fall. The meeting on September 30 was tense as Dwyane Wade reportedly yelled at Stern after he pointed his finger at Wade. The players nearly stormed out, but they remained in the meeting only after Hunter asked them to. Stern also backed down from his earlier threat that he would cancel the season if there was no deal.

On October 4, the NBA canceled the remainder of the preseason. Stern said the league would lose \$200 million by canceling the preseason, and warned that the first two weeks of the season would be in jeopardy if no deal was reached by October 10. The players proposed that they receive 53% of BRI, while the owners countered with 47%. The two sides then discussed a 50–50 split of BRI, with the owners offering the players 49% of BRI with incentives that would raise the value to 51%. The players countered by asking for 51%, which would increase to 53 percent using those same incentives. It was rejected by the owners. Attempts for the sides to meet on October 7 failed. The union said the NBA demanded a 50–50 revenue split prior to the meeting, while the league refuted making any such demands. After talks on October 9 and 10, the two sides were unable to reach a deal and Stern subsequently canceled the first two weeks of regular-season games, which were originally scheduled to begin on November 1. BRI remained the main issue, but other differences included luxury tax, player contract length, and the mid-level exception. The owners proposed a \$2 tax for every \$1 that a team spent above the tax threshold for player salaries. The tax would rise to as high as \$4 for every \$1 above the limit for teams that were repeat offenders. The previous CBA in comparison called for a \$1 tax for every \$1 over the limit. The players refused to accept a hard salary cap, which they felt the more punitive luxury taxes would effectively create. Stern said the owners felt a harsher luxury tax would make the league more competitive. Wade countered that a small-market team like the San Antonio Spurs had won multiple championships. Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College, said that "the statistical correlation between payroll and win percentage is practically nonexistent" in the NBA. ESPN concluded that a team's draft efficiency accounted for 34% of its winning percentage in the past decade, while payroll showed only a 7% correlation. The New York Times noted that a fairer system was needed for the small-market teams, but the league's popularity historically relied on predictably successful teams with multiple superstars.

NBPA leaders met with around 30 players on October 14 and stressed unity. Washington Wizards player JaVale McGee left the meeting early and told reporters there were some players "saying that they're ready to fold", but the majority was united. McGee later denied mentioning that players were ready to fold, but his comment was recorded by reporters. Fisher said McGee had "no ability to make that statement" based on the limited time he spent at the meeting.

Owners and players met again on October 18–20 for 30 hours of talks over three days. They met before a federal mediator, George Cohen—the director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Cohen tried unsuccessfully to resolve the 2011 NFL lockout. At the conclusion of the meetings, the sides remained split on the revenue split and the structure of the salary cap. The league proposed a 50–50 split of BRI, and the players proposed a range that would allow them as low as 50% of BRI to a maximum of 53%, depending on the league's revenues. Gilbert told the players to trust that the salary cap issues could be resolved if they accepted the 50–50 proposal. Hunter responded, "I can't trust your gut. I got to trust my own gut." Silver and San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt told reporters that the players refused to negotiate after the 50–50 proposal. Fisher told the press "that you guys were lied to" by the owners. Hunter said the owners told them, "Take it or leave it." Cohen decided that there was "no useful purpose" to continue mediation. Tentative agreements were reached on smaller issues, allowing a one-time exemption for teams to waive players without counting against the salary cap, granting teams an annual exemption to waive players and prorate the impact to the salary cap over multiple years, and a mid-level exception of \$5 million.

Hunter characterized the small-market owners as being inflexible in negotiation. However, The New York Times wrote that the views of individual owners "cannot be easily categorized by market size, revenue, personal wealth or championship aspirations". Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, whose team was in the fifth-largest market and had one of the highest payrolls, and Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen, the 23rd-wealthiest person in America, were as interested as small-market owners in changing the economy of the NBA in an effort to increase competition. While owners of profitable teams like Buss and Dolan were willing to accept modest changes to the CBA, they remained united with the small-market teams based on concerns for the league's long-term health.

Despite the earlier cancellation announcement, the players and the league hoped that a full 82-game schedule could be salvaged if a deal was reached in time. On October 28, Stern announced the cancellation of all games through November 30 after negotiations regarding division of revenue ended without an agreement. He said that Hunter was unwilling "to go a penny below 52%" on BRI, while Hunter stated, "We made a lot of concessions, but unfortunately at this time it's not enough." Stern indicated that an 82-game season was no longer possible. He added that tentative agreement was reached for maximum contract lengths of five years for players staying with their teams or four years when signing with another team.

Reports of division among players and owners surfaced. Jason Whitlock of Foxsports.com wrote that Fisher was privately working with Stern on the 50–50 split and that Hunter confronted Fisher about the issue. Fisher and Stern denied a private meeting took place. In a letter to the players, Fisher called the reports "absurd" and demanded "a retraction for the libelous and defamatory stories" through his attorneys. Hunter said his "relationship with Derek [was] very good. There was no confrontation". Fisher, as union president, was not empowered to make unilateral decisions for the union. While Fisher believed a 50–50 deal could be considered, Hunter maintained that the owners should never "make the same or more than the players". Miami Heat owner Micky Arison, one of the owners willing to settle with players, responded to a fan complaining about greedy owners and players on Twitter, saying that "You are barking at the wrong owner." He was fined \$500,000 by Stern, five times larger than any previous amount against an owner for publicly commenting on the labor situation. Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis and Charlotte Bobcats owner Michael Jordan had been previously fined \$100,000 each for public comments on the lockout. Leonsis had commented about the owners' desire for a hard salary cap, while Jordan told an Australian newspaper that the league's business model was "broken", citing the owners' desire for revenue sharing. A group of 10 to 14 hardline owners, led by Jordan, wanted to cap the players' share of BRI at 50% and as low as 47. During the labor dispute in 1998, then-player Jordan told Washington Wizards then-owner Abe Pollin, "If you can't make a profit, you should sell your team." Whitlock called Jordan a "sellout" wanting "current players to pay for his incompetence". He cited Jordan's executive decisions to draft disappointing players Kwame Brown and Adam Morrison.

In early November, about 50 players renewed talks of union decertification if the union went lower than 52.5% of BRI or agreed to additional restrictions on contracts, salary-cap exceptions, or free agency. Decertifying would require that 30% of the union—about 130 players—sign a petition, allowing an election under the auspices of the NLRB by all NBPA members to decertify with a simple majority. The NLRB traditionally did not consider a decertification petition while a charge was pending, such as the NBPA's unfair labor practice charges filed in August.

The owners and players union met on November 6, and they were joined again by federal mediator Cohen. The players proposed that they receive 51% of BRI, with a 1% portion taken out for retired players. The owners offered a "band" that would pay the players 49 to 51%, depending on revenue growth. Jeff Kessler, the union's attorney, said the league's proposal was really 50.2% and called the possibility of reaching 51% an "illusion". The league also proposed restrictions for teams that pay the luxury tax, banning them from sign and trade deals and limiting their use of the mid-level exception. They also proposed a "repeater tax" for teams that exceed the tax threshold thrice in a five-year span. Stern issued an ultimatum, giving the players until November 9 to accept the deal before it was lowered to 47% BRI and a flex salary cap.

On November 15, the NBA canceled all games through December 15.

### Dissolving the union

The union rejected the offer on November 9 and asked for another bargaining session. The two sides met again as the deadline passed. After two days of negotiation, the owners put forth a revised final offer and said that they were done bargaining. If accepted by the players, Stern hoped to start a 72-game season in mid December. On November 14, the union rejected the last offer and dissolved the union. The NBPA was converted into a trade association, enabling the players as individual employees to participate in a class action antitrust lawsuit against the league, calling the lockout an illegal group boycott. Attorney David Boies, who represented the NFL owners in their 2011 lockout, agreed to represent the players and join Keesler, who also represented the players in the NFL lockout. On November 15, one group of NBA players (including Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Kawhi Leonard, and Leon Powe) filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA in a California federal court, while another (including Anthony Tolliver, Ben Gordon, Caron Butler and Derrick Williams) filed their own suit against the NBA in a Minnesota federal court. November 15 was also the day players were to receive their first paychecks if the season was played.

On November 21, the California lawsuit was dropped in order to merge with the Minnesota lawsuit. Boies hoped that the move would speed up the process, since the courts would likely merge the suits as they were similar complaints seeking the same outcome.

### Settlement

On November 23, the league and the players agreed to resume negotiating on November 25. On November 26, after 15 hours of talks, a tentative deal was reached. The NBPA re-formed as a union on December 1, receiving support from over 300 players, exceeding the requirement for at least 260 signatures. Signature cards were sent to the roughly 440 players on rosters at the end of the previous season, as well as to the 60 rookies drafted in 2011 and to players who signed at least two 10-day contracts. The re-formation enabled further negotiations with the league on secondary issues such as the age limit for the NBA draft and rules on players being sent to and recalled from the NBA D-League. The players and owners concluded their voting on the deal on December 8, when the deal was ratified, and the lockout ended after 161 days. The owners approved the deal by a 25–5 vote, while 86% of the more than 200 players who voted approved the deal. The Miami Heat's Micky Arison and the Dallas Mavericks' Mark Cuban were the two owners who publicly disclosed that they voted against the new CBA.

The players would receive 51.2% of BRI in 2011–12, with a 49-to-51 band in subsequent years. Teams were allowed a one-time amnesty exemption to waive one player and remove him from the team's salary cap. The player could be claimed off waivers by the highest bidder; the waiving team would be responsible for the remaining salary without it counting against their cap. In a rule dubbed the "Derrick Rose Rule" after the 2011 NBA Most Valuable Player Award winner, a player finishing his rookie contract could be re-signed at up to 30% of his team's salary cap—an increase from the previous CBA's 25%—if he was either a two-time All-Star starter, twice voted All-NBA Team, or won an MVP award. The maximum salary for a player otherwise would remain unchanged at 25, 30, or 35% of the salary cap, depending on the player's years of service.

### Racial comments

Bryant Gumbel on his HBO Real Sports show in October likened Stern's role in the lockout to a "modern plantation overseer, treating NBA men as if they were his boys ... keeping the hired hands in their place". The NBA owners were predominantly white, while the players were mostly black. ESPN noted that William C. Rhoden in his book \$40 Million Slaves had earlier dealt with the topic of players as "slaves" in spite of earning millions of dollars. Stern dismissed Gumbel's comments as "an occupational hazard" of being the NBA commissioner. In early November, NBPA attorney Jeffrey L. Kessler criticized the owners' "take it or leave it" bargaining approach: "instead of treating the players like partners, they're treating them like plantation workers." Hall of Famer Magic Johnson called the comments "ridiculous" and defended Stern's record of promoting black people and players. ESPN The Magazine said that the NBPA did not condone Kessler's statements, and they had intentionally avoided getting involved with Gumbel's earlier remarks. Kessler later apologized for his comments.

### Impact

The revised season schedule with 16 fewer regular-season games and a reduced pre-season caused an estimated loss of \$400 million for both the team owners and the players . According to CNBC, the average player lost \$220,000 after the first missed paycheck on November 15. However, each player did receive \$100,000 from the NBA to compensate for salaries falling below the 57% BRI level in 2010–11. As of October 25, an estimated 400 NBA jobs were lost due to layoffs and attrition since the lockout—around 200 in the league office and another 200 among the 30 teams. As the lockout dragged on toward the holiday season, many NBA arenas workers felt the effect. Many of them worked part-time in order to supplement their income or to simply pay bills and they were unable to recover lost wages that resulted from cancelled games.

## Players' alternatives

### Going overseas

The players union encouraged players to find work overseas, hoping owners would offer better deals if they saw players having more options. Josh Childress, who played for Greek team Olympiacos before returning to the NBA in 2010, said he would not consider playing overseas during the lockout. He cited concerns with reliability of getting paid, differences in coaching styles, and lower standards of business travel compared to the NBA. The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) announced on July 29 that it would allow players under NBA contracts to play overseas, provided that the contracts they signed had opt-out clauses that allowed players to return once the work stoppage ended. Stern said the league would allow players to play overseas, but he warned that it could divide the union and possibly jeopardize players' contracts if they were seriously injured. Most leagues permitted the signing of locked-out NBA players with the option of opting out; the Chinese Basketball Association, however, only allowed its clubs to sign foreign free agents who could play for at least the entire season. Chinese nationals were exempt from this rule; this allowed Yi Jianlian to return to the NBA upon the end of the lockout.

More than 90 players decided to sign with foreign teams during the lockout. The New York Times called the migration of players overseas "one of the most overblown stories of the lockout" with a majority of those signing being "rookies, middling veterans and fringe players". Deron Williams was the only 2011 All-Star going overseas, signing a one-year contract for \$5 million to play for Beşiktaş of the Turkish Basketball League. Former first overall draft pick Kenyon Martin, a free agent, signed a one-year contract with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association that would make him the highest paid player in the league's history at \$500,000 a month. Unlike players who signed more lucrative contracts overseas, three-time NBA champion Tony Parker opted to play for the minimum wage of \$2,000 per month with ASVEL Basket, the French team he partly owned. Parker joined several foreign players, such as Leandro Barbosa, Boris Diaw, Rudy Fernández, Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur, who opted to play in their home countries until the lockout ended.

An NBA player playing in Europe could earn as little as \$50,000–\$75,000 per month, while the average NBA annual salary was \$5.8 million with the minimum around \$500,000. The large contracts signed by Williams and Martin were extreme exceptions. In October after the cancellation of regular season games, it was not anticipated that many additional NBA players would be signed overseas; leagues had started playing, their rosters were full, and new players could disrupt the teams.

### Other alternatives

Many players opted to stay in the United States instead. The New York Times speculated that many Americans would have found it hard to leave and change their lifestyle. Some played in local pick-up games, while others ranging from stars like Kevin Durant to players like Dorell Wright played in the more organized exhibition tournaments such as the Drew League in Los Angeles, the Melo League located in Baltimore, and the Goodman League in Washington, D.C. An exhibition game between two of the leagues was played on August 20, 2011, with the Goodman League defeating the Drew League, 135–134. Drew commissioner Dino Smiley said such pro–am games during the NBA off-season were not new, but that "the lockout has taken these games to a new level". A tournament of NBA-only players was held in September in Las Vegas, Nevada, featuring eight teams with seven to eight players each. Named the Impact Basketball Competitive Training Series, the league was dubbed by The New York Times as the "Lockout League".

Training camp was not expected to be long if there ended up being a season. Some players organized workouts for their teams to build team chemistry. The NBPA announced it was setting up workout centers in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Houston and possibly Miami for players to work out at the union's expense.

The continuing lockout in October and the canceled preseason allowed Renaldo Balkman, José Juan Barea, and Carlos Arroyo to play for Puerto Rico in the Pan American Games that month. Puerto Rico won the gold medal.

## Outside impact

### Olympics

Although the 2012 Olympic men's basketball tournament was then more than a year away, qualifying tournaments in all five of FIBA's continental zones were to be held in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2011 (the traditional basketball offseason throughout the world). The lockout resulted in the suspension of an agreement between the NBA and FIBA by which the NBA would take on most of the costs for insuring the value of its players' contracts in the event they were injured during international competition. As a result, national federations that wish to have NBA players on their squads must now provide full coverage instead of supplemental insurance.

These costs are surprisingly high—one agent who represents an unnamed NBA player set to earn \$10 million in the 2010–11 season said the player had received a \$400,000 quote to insure his contract for his national team's FIBA qualifier. The Spanish Basketball Federation said that insuring all the NBA players on its national team for EuroBasket 2011, which doubles as the European Olympic qualifiers, could cost as much as \$5.67 million. Basketball Australia announced that Andrew Bogut would not be available for the 2011 FIBA Oceania Championship; his agent indicated that the final deal-breaker was when insurers stated that they would not insure his remaining \$39 million in NBA salary unless pre-existing elbow, wrist, and back injuries were excluded from the policy.

The French, Russian, and Argentine federations were able to insure their NBA players, and several other federations were also expected to be able to do so. Over 30 NBA players participated in EuroBasket 2011, while Ben Gordon and Marcin Gortat opted out due to insurance concerns.

### Other sports

A couple of weeks before the NBA season was originally scheduled to start, Reuters and Bloomberg Businessweek speculated on the prospect of increased interest in the National Hockey League (NHL) among NBA fans. The NHL had experienced steady growth since the 2005–06 season after their own lockout canceled the league's 2004–05 season. They again opened the 2011–12 season in early October to record crowds. Businessweek wrote, "Just maybe, the NBA's sketchy situation is already having a positive effect on the NHL." However several NHL teams (nearly half of which do not have an NBA team in their market) had no plans to market directly to NBA fans during the lockout.

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), in its inaugural college football season, drew 40,000 fans to its games in September. The San Antonio Business Journal speculated on UTSA's opportunities to grow its fan base with the canceled NBA games in San Antonio.

Boston Herald speculated that NCAA college basketball would have higher television ratings and attendance during the lockout. However, Sporting News noted that "there was no obvious boost in popularity in the college game" during the previous lockout when college basketball attendance increased by an average of 21 people per game.

### NBA cities

Mayors from 14 NBA cities wrote an open letter to NBA commissioner David Stern and NBPA chief Billy Hunter, requesting that they end the lockout based on "the perspective [of city] residents and the negative impact a canceled season might have on them, our cities, and our local economies". Time noted that arena workers would be affected by the cancellation of games. However, separate studies by University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Lake Forest College found no historic significant effect to the economies of cities with sports franchises affected by work stoppages. Explanations included consumer shifting of spending on sporting events to other forms of entertainment, reduced local government spending on crowd and traffic control, and higher productivity by the general workforce without the distraction of games.

### Other businesses

It was estimated that a complete lockout had cost an upwards of \$1 billion in lost television advertisement revenue. The lockout had dealt a sizable blow to the current licensed product market which was estimated at \$2.7 billion, and had created a big loss in television ratings for networks that cover NBA games such as the regional sports networks, TNT, and ESPN.

## Rescheduled season

The NBA revised the schedule to play two preseason games and a 66-game regular season schedule per team rather than the standard seven preseason games and an 82-game regular season schedule. Teams were allowed to contact players' agents on November 30. Players could begin working out voluntarily at team facilities with trainers on December 1, but coaches and general managers were not allowed to observe the workouts nor could any drills be conducted. NBA teams began talking to free agents on December 5, 2011 at 10 a.m. EST. Training camps and free agency started on December 9 with the regular season beginning on Christmas Day with five games, two more than the original schedule. ESPN/ABC analyst Jeff Van Gundy said about the NBA opening on Christmas Day: "It's a different opening day than has ever happened in the past and Christmas Day games have always been a big day for the NBA. This unique situation combined with the unveiling of a championship banner for the Mavericks in a finals rematch, and then to see the Lakers and the debut of Mike Brown as head coach, those things are all going to be very compelling."

The league built a new schedule from scratch based on available arena dates. In October, the league had allowed arenas in Los Angeles and Chicago to reassign NBA dates for other events. The number of games between conferences was affected as was the case in the 1999 lockout, when each team played only five or six interconference games in a 50-game schedule. Normally, each team plays teams in the other conference twice each. Teams played 48 conference games and 18 non-conference games in a 66-game schedule, compared to 52 conference games and 30 non-conference games in a normal 82-game season. Teams played on average two more games per month and also played three-consecutive games at least once in the season. In total, the league had 42 sets of back-to-back-to-back games, with 11 teams playing two such sets. The three-game set, or "triple", had not occurred since the shortened 1999 season, which featured 64 triples and sloppier play due to tired players. Before that, the last occurrence was two decades earlier. During the season, there were 29 occasions when teams played five games in six days.

With fewer off days during the season, the level of play was lower due to fatigue, and some older players rested to avoid burnout and recuperate from injuries. When the San Antonio Spurs rested Tim Duncan for a game in March at the end of a back-to-back-to-back, coach Gregg Popovich submitted the description of Duncan's absence as "Old". Nonetheless, some players still sustained injuries. In the 2012 playoffs, the Chicago Bulls were eliminated after losing Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah to injuries, and the New York Knicks lost to the Miami Heat while losing Baron Davis and Iman Shumpert to knee injuries. The Heat were not immune, losing Chris Bosh for most of the playoffs en route to their NBA championship. Stern initially said there was no connection between the injuries and the 66-game schedule compressed into 124 days; however, he backed off those comments a week later, saying more research was needed.

## See also

- Suspension of the 2019-20 NBA season

Fourth lockout in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA)

National Basketball Association labor disputes