If there is an NFL season this year, regular or shortened, I'll watch it. The lockout has shown that the game is owned, run, and played by greedy sonsabitches. This also just in, the world is round. The fact that both sides of this battle are playing for greed is nothing new and hasn't chased off fans before. If the greed gets in the way of a whole season, then the NFL will have issues. If that happens, it will lose its top spot in the American sports world.
The owners and players don't see it as a game. It is now a job, a business. We, the fans, see the game. We don't play it professionally, we don't recover from injuries with the help of some of the best rehabilitation/physical therapy centers in the world. We don't get paid and we don't work our asses off all week to be displayed one day to millions of screaming drunkards.
We don't jostle people around like chess pieces trying to provide the best product to our target markets. We don't hire masterminds to run our products and manage our chess pieces. We don't pay hundreds of people to go watch college games not for the enjoyment but to evaluate future chess pieces.
The game is no longer a game to those paying and making money from it. They don't just go out and have fun. They can't have an off day and say "there's always next time." If a player doesn't play their balls off every down of every drive of every game, we lose respect for them. If they are injured we call them a wimp. Have you ever sprained your ankle? You're not supposed to go to work/class the next day and keep it elevated. You're not supposed to walk on it for at least 24 hours. Most football players sprain an ankle, knee, wrist, elbow, etc. and they're taped up and on the field the next drive or at the very least the next quarter (unless they're quarterbacks, the soccer players of the NFL). They take an injury that would make us take a sick day and are back on the field within 15 minutes of game play!
Owners can't show a losing team year after year after year and expect to be successful in the business. Think about running a small business. If, say, a local restaurant served food that didn't meet with customers expectations for three years, would it even last three years? When was the last time you saw an NFL franchise contraction? In 1952 the original Dallas Texans folded due to financial hardship and a 1-11 record where it saw its lone win before a whopping crowd of 3,000. (This crowd, by the way, was smaller than the crowd for the high school game played earlier on the same field). The NFL continually brings a quality product to their markets. If your local team sucks it up for a year, there is always the draft, free agency, the trade deadline, and front office changes to "bring in new blood." The owners spend hundreds of millions to bring this product to the people. They just happen to make hundreds of millions, if not billions in the process, unlike the money hemorrhaging NBA.
The point is that the owners are trying to get the best product for their money. They are trying to present this best product to the fans for their money. The product just happens to be the talents of human beings. If this were a lockout or strike for any industry other than professional sports, then we'd look at it with the clarity of business and product. We'd probably still think that both sides are greedy or that one is an evil corporation but it wouldn't have the stigma of thinking of human beings as product. We also don't really feel sorry for the players (product) because unlike slavery, indentured servitude, or servants, many of these guys are millionaires and could stay that way if they were smart with money and realized that the average career lasts about four years. The league minimum salary for rookies in 2007 was $285,000. Players receive mandatory raises in the minimum salary for each year of experience. It is hard to pity someone making in their first year what a teacher will make in 8-10.
Greed didn't keep me from watching the game before, the only way it will keep me from watching now is if there isn't a game to watch. Then, I'll just watch college football like everyone else, where the players just get paid less (See Reggie Bush, Cam Newton, etc.)
No comments:
Post a Comment