Are Lockouts Due to Greed?

It’s never about sports, but more the business that is so much more vital. In the last couple of months the sports world has had near tragedies regarding CBAs nearly locking out full seasons for the NFL and NBA. This causes not only the jobs of the players to be out of work, but every other job that is involved in keeping these organizations and stadiums running in their tip top shape. This sports crash, for lack of a better name, couldn’t have happened at a worse time considering what has happened to the world’s economy as of 2008. Many people can be quick to blame the players for the greed and quest for more and more money. Have these people really done their research? A straightforward definition of collective bargaining would be the negotiation between employers and employees attempting to resolve a conflict regarding the conditions of labor. In the sports industry, collective bargaining isn’t partly about money. It is all about money. That factor makes people believe that it is purely the players greed that is causing a lockout, why is that?


 

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According to Larry Coon “The CEWN”, ESPN’s NBA salary cap guru, one example of CBA being purely about the business is Basketball Related Income (BRI). BRI is everything that is in sales in the NBA. This includes tickets, merchandise, etc. Players receive a certain amount of this income. Currently the players of the NBA receive 51.15 percent of BRI. This was changed from its original agreements of previous years of 49 to 51 percent. In the situation regarding BRI and the players, the players are certainly the losers. People that think that BRI is a player scam that just creates more cash flow for players, need to have their heads examined. On the other hand, for the owners it is just the opposite. However, the owners know a ton more about business more than all of the NBA players combined.  “The NBA entered negotiations  looking for a fundamental reset of the NBA's economic system and got it. In addition, players will lose approximately 20 percent of their 2011-12 salaries a result of the games missed due to the lockout.” Another example of this being a business issue is revenue sharing. Revenue sharing is an attempt to make big market teams share their revenue with all of the small market teams. This issue of revenue sharing has nothing to do with the players, but more so the owners. A new plan approximately triples the amount of money that is revenue-shared. Details of this plan are yet to be finalized considering how young the new agreement is. Obviously, this means that the small market teams are the beneficiaries. Teams like the Lakers are the ones who are required to step up to the plate and make the less fortunate teams benefit.

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Teams like the New York Yankees are dealing with a similar problem. Although MLB doesn’t have a salary cap, but the league makes a new rule known as a luxury tax threshold. According to Wikipedia, luxury tax is a surcharge put on the aggregate payroll of a team to the extent to which it exceeds a predetermined guideline level set by the league. This is similar to the rule that the NBA has in effect to help benefit the lower market teams. Currently the New York Yankees have the highest payroll in all of baseball. This threshold will force them to lower their payroll in order to prevent the team from purchasing big names like Alex Rodriguez or CC Sabathia.

Fortunately, MLB came to a CBA last year to avoid a lockout at the end of the 2012 season. But is it more than sports? It is. So many jobs are lost from the closing of just one professional sports stadium. Long story short, CBA is a killer for the economy. TV companies can be in a huge hole from certain advertisements while the endorsers are left in a hole as well with endorsing teams that aren’t even playing.

According to the Bleacher Report, the economic toll on sports has only led up to an increase in every price possible in a sporting event. Food, tickets, parking, you name it the price has skyrocketed. To some up and make a long story short, CBA is not just a matter of how much will certain people be paid. It is also a matter of fairness. What teams will benefit and which ones will purchase their championships. It has been proven however that teams with less money can still find a way to win. And we must approach the question, isn’t paying for players apart of the competition? Isn’t it all apart of the sport? That is not for us to determine.