NEW YORK - The National Basketball Association's decision to lockout players has come at a bad time with the National Football League already embrioled in a labor dispute, according to a marketing and crisis management expert.

NBA Commissioner David Stern declared a lockout after their collective bargaining agreement with players expired at midnight on Thursday, saying the salary system in the $4 billion league had to be changed to keep team owners from losing money. The ongoing NFL lockout started in March after club owners and players could not agree on how to divide $9 billion in revenues.

"Nobody in the public is receptive to a fight between millionaires and billionaires," Ronn Torossian, CEO of 5WPR, a New York public relations firm specialising in crisis management, told Reuters on Friday.