Risky Business: Professional Sports Labor Strikes

Risky Business: Professional Sports Labor Strikes

Every professional sport has a players association and a commissioner’s office that is partnered up with the team owners. The players association and the commissioners’ office have a contractual agreement with each other, and the owners. These agreements run out every some odd years (each one is different). When the contracts run out the PA (Players association) and the owners, and commissioner have to come up with a new contract agreement. Sometimes it is difficult for the two sides to agree on a contract because of certain things each side wants, which in turn ,can lead to a lockout by the owners.

The past few months have been full of lockouts in the sports world. The NFL just got their season underway about a month late because of the lockout and only missed one preseason game. The NBA is still in a lockout as we speak and have been for around 3 months, with no end in sight. Tomorrow, November Second was supposed to be the opening day of the season… well that has been delayed, and commissioner David Stern has already said they will miss the whole month of November because the two side cannot come to an agreement, and if they do not come to one soon, he said they will not be playing by Christmas. That would be devastating because the Christmas Day games are some of the most popular games all season. The National Hockey League lost a whole season because of a lockout a few years ago.

The NFL finally came to an agreement after missing just one preseason game. However, they could have come to an agreement sooner. The owner of the New England Patriots Robert Craft’s wife passed away the week before the lockout ended. Which made it very hard for Mr. Kraft to continue in the negotiation process. However the players association said that Mr. Kraft was extremely influential in getting a deal done, and that without him there was no chance of this happening.

There are many things that cause a lockout. There are also many important things that both sides have to agree on. The players want longer or shorter seasons, more money, better retirement plans, and better health care and pension plans. The owners want to save money and find a way to bring in more fans. For example the NBA just had one of its most popular seasons in recent history and had huge fan bases. However, About.com reported that the NBA says that “22 of the 30 NBA teams are losing money” The PA says that the estimation is false and that less teams than that are losing money. This means that even though the season may have been extremely successful they still did not put enough butts in seats for the games. As days pass, sources continue to say that the sides are nowhere near reaching an agreement and that the whole season could be lost.

The NFL on the other hand found a way to resolve the issue, the causes of their lockout were the owners wanting to lengthen