Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Labor pains

With all the attention this week on the Super Bowl, a much, much bigger issue looms for the NFL.

The most popular sport in the country very well could be heading down a path to ruin in the months following Sunday’s game.

The league’s owners and the Players Union, seemingly, are light years apart on a labor deal, and if one is not reached by early March, the 2010 season will be played with no salary cap. Furthermore, the possibility exists that there may be no 2011 season.

In short, this means that everything that’s wrong with Major League Baseball soon could be what’s wrong with the National Football League.

In baseball, small-market teams have almost no shot to compete. Even when they draft and develop talented young players, sooner or later, said players command a price that the likes of the Royals and Pirates simply cannot afford. Hence, they are traded or sign big free-agent deals with the Red Sox, Yankees, Mets or Phillies.

The prospect of such a trend in the NFL is frightening.

The salary cap is part of what makes the NFL great. It creates parity, so the phrase “any given Sunday” carries some weight. With no cap, teams like the Cowboys and Redskins will assume the roles of the Yankees and Red Sox, spending millions and millions more than they’re competition and, presumably, giving themselves a leg up on the rest of the league.

This cannot happen. If it does, the game that so many love will be ruined for most of us.
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2 comments:

Scott Barrett said...

Remember last week, when I wrote that blog about Tim Tebow and that ad involving abortion? And I said that nobody is stoping the women's groups from also running an ad? The same theory applies here.

You're worried because you're a community-based team that's owned by shareholders. That's not the fault of the other owners. Nobody is stopping the Packers from spending a ton of money for the biggest free agents, but because the shareholders don't want to lose money, they'll refuse to spend. The revenue coming in won't match what they dole out.

The Patriots have Robert Kraft, who is willing to spend money on free agents, and the Patiots will again have a monster season.

And the same goes for baseball. I don't want to hear whining from KC and Pittsburgh. They CAN spend that money if they want. But they won't, beacuse the owners want to MAKE money.

The owner of the Clippers is still pulling in a crapload of money, even though his team is the laughing stock of sports. Why should he change?

February 2, 2010 at 5:31 PM
Anonymous said...

no cap or not....there WON'T be much player movement this year because nobody knows what the rules are going to be once this gets settled. Football won't become baseball,you're comparing apples and oranges....

February 7, 2010 at 12:53 AM

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