Can We Get a Few More Lockouts?

The lockout – what is it and why is it plaguing our most popular sporting leagues? When you couple the state of our current economy, along with the middle-class having to tread water for almost three years now, you find at the very least, a jumping-off point in explaining some sort of half-concocted answer.

People also seem to confuse these lockouts with what they mistakenly are most related to by the average fan – a strike.  Pump your brakes.  A strike is when the players gather in mutiny.  A lockout is when the owner has had enough.  Know the distinction.  They are absolute polar opposites.

Collective bargaining agreements are the middle ground between unions and owners.  When they expire, the status quo is lost and the current state of play needs to be reassessed.  The current popular belief of the fans, unfortunately for the players, sides with the owners.  You poll the average fan and they will, without question, respond with the stance that yes, in fact, players as a whole in professional sport are being paid way too much.

The NFL is much closer to a resolution than the NBA, not only because they have had the opportunity to deliberate in mediation much longer than their hardwood counterpart has, but also because of the fact that they are asking for much less.  In the previous CBA, NFL players weren’t even offered guaranteed contracts.

What that means?  Well, in layman’s terms – if you were a dispensable NFL player and you happened to get devastatingly injured in the midst of navigating the most injury-ridden sport in the world, you were guaranteed no monetary relief from that point forward after you were injured, and more times than not, your contract would have then become null and void.  You were then left to fend for yourself out on the street, jobless and without a marketable skill even close to the level of what you most recently were able to dispense.

This travesty within the NFL system is the very basis of what the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) is fighting for against the owners, for the sake of its players and for the sake of their union.  Another vital arguing point is how much of a bigger piece of the pie the owners want from the players.  In the previous CBA, the players were allotted over 50% of all revenue.  The players are now struggling to hold onto only 48% of the cake.

The owners contend that all is well within the realm of the current condition as far as guaranteed contracts are concerned, and if that weren’t enough, they also want a little bit more from the players – for instance, an 18-game season.  The current debating positions within the NFL’s potential new CBA forum are as follows:

-A rookie wage scale will be included but is still being ‘tweaked’.
-The 18-game season will be designated only as a ‘negotiable item’ with the players and is not mandated.
-A new 16-game Thursday night schedule will start in 2012 as a source for new revenue.
-Significantly increased pension funding and improved health care for retired players.
-A built in mechanism that requires teams to spend close to 100% the salary cap.
-Four-years needed for unrestricted free agency (franchise tag would remain).

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The state of the NBA is in much more of a dire and completely ugly condition.  The basic fact lies within the concept that, not just superstars, but even the most average of players are making incredibly too much in relation to the state of the market.  For instance, a backup-center, or 7th man at best, Nick Collison of the Oklahoma City Thunder, was due to make $13 million next season. Read that again.  Ridiculous and utterly inexplicable, right?  The owners of NBA teams have much more of a leg to stand on than do the owners of NFL franchises.

The simple premise of the NBA’s lockout situation is that there is also has a major issue with the dividing of overall league revenue. But unlike with the NFL’s players and owners, who most experts project will resolve their differences before the start of the upcoming season, the NBA could face a much longer and more painful work stoppage. The two sides remain deeply divided over what percentage of revenue the players should receive, whether teams should have a hard cap on payrolls, which would allow for more parody within the league’s competition, and also how owners should share their money percentage-wise.

“We may not see movement until it gets close to the end of the year,” said Marc Ganis, president and founder of the Chicago-based sports consulting firm SportsCorp. “Players have been so well paid for so long, they can hold out for longer than most of the other sports. NBA players don’t have the same [financial] issues as NFL players, who are very eager to get back on the field.”

“This one is likely to be a long lockout. It could be half a season; it potentially could be a whole season.”

Players such as Kobe Bryant are promoting a form of barnstorming in a relaying of propaganda amongst the players. The players are rallying around the idea that going overseas to play next season could be just as beneficial as an NBA season to a player, both in terms of skill-development as well as wallet-stretching. America isn’t the only place where large amounts of dispensable cash lies to compensate elite entertainment ability.  If the players don’t get anywhere with the owners before the next season is set to begin in October, this idea is undoubtedly more than a realistic premise.

Watch out for Kobe taking over China, Dirk relocating to Germany, Pau coming home to Spain, or “The Heatles” trying their defeated hand at invading either Greece or Turkey. The NBA could potentially fall on its own sword, as Commissioner David Stern has worked tirelessly over the past decade-plus to expand the game globally. That same global expansion campaign could very well be what ultimately gives the players some hand over the owners and prevents a 2011-2012 season.  Ironic?

We as Americans need to realize that we are now, in this day in age, not the only NBA fans on this spinning globe.  This serves as a nice little wake-up call for not only us as fans, but NBA ownership as well – an alarm clock that yes, these players are paid handsomely, but in a worldly sense, almost rightfully so in terms of the new global market.  Our domestic market, unfortunately today, pales in comparison to the rest of the major nations around the world.

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All of this NFL and NBA complication being considered, the consensus of the menial will be a believed transparency of a plain and simple case of ‘billionares fighting millionares.’  To most unseasoned, this is nothing more than a mirage of an unfathomable conundrum that could very easily be solved, right?  This unfortunately is not the case.

Instead, it needs to be realized that these types of dilemmas are precisely what our capitalistic system ultimately creates.  Hopefully in the end, a sense of forthright judgment can slam these cans of worms back in their tin, sealed for years and years to come with a new CBA for both leagues, that are a realistic compromise for both sides of the table. And hopefully for the sake of us fans, two forms of debatable wrongs can eventually make a right.

It pains me to say it, but I wouldn’t hold out for that to happen any time soon.  When big money business slams up against a struggling marketplace, its going to take more than a little while for that kind of car wreck to be pieced back together.

Then again, I wouldn’t put your jerseys in storage just yet.  Keep them hanging on the rack.  We’ll be back.