LOS ANGELES—When professional sports hit major labor roadblocks and a league decides that a lockout is the answer, a lot of people suffer in the process, including a plethora of small and medium-sized businesses. In addition to the obvious victims, such as hotels, restaurants, concession workers, sports memorabilia marketers, ticket brokers and others, more peripheral businesses are impacted as well. Escorts, for instance.
According to Darren Rovell, who writes the Small Business column for CNBC, “A 30 percent 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.”
Henry told Rovell that other clients can fill in for the missing NBA business, but it just isn’t the same.
"There are replacements but they aren't as consistent and not nearly as high paying," Henry said.
High paying when they’re getting paid, that is.
