Deal
Well, they did it. The NFL avoided - for six years - the fate that MLB and the NHL allowed themselves to suffer. There will be labour peace, ownership peace, and fan peace. Team owners found a way to agree to cut up their lucrative pie in a way that made all of them happy - or at least happy enough to sign on the dotted line. And what more happiness is there in life?
The NFL has succeeded in supplanting all other sports as King of America. They've done it largely through the money deals they cut on the heels of their labour struggles in the 1980's - two work stoppages which rightly scared them into a salary cap and free agency.
You have to wonder about the players, though. They make less money than their counterparts in baseball and basketball (and probably NASCAR, but we're talking athletics here, not mechanics), and their contracts carry far less guaranteed money. Plus, their careers are far shorter due to the nearly inhuman brutality of the sport. So where is their big break in the new deal? Couldn't union president Gene Upshaw have shaken the Commish down for a few more mil in his quest to preserve the league?
NFL players are far more regimented than players in any other sport. That's part of their success - they must be team-oriented, or they simply won't succeed. Look at WR Terrell Owens. He is a prancing me-first prima donna. Because he is nearly uncoachable and his team-mates despise him for his selfishness and toxic personality, he was let go by his team mid-season. And they were right to do it. And it was great to see such a loathsome narcissist get a measure of comeuppance.
But… in what other sport have you ever seen a guy - a star player - get cut because he was an uncoachable jerk? Allen Iverson? Barry Bonds? These guys get guaranteed contracts and outlast their coaches. Not in the NFL.
Which is probably a good thing, but when you measure the price NFL players pay in mileage on their bodies to the money they get, you would think their union might have fought a bit harder for them.
But hey, even the low guy on the depth chart is going to make more in a year than I will in a decade, so screw them anyway. The only important part in the equation is the fan base. They (we) are the suckers buying the tickets and the tee shirts. Without us, these guys would have to work for a living. Any work stoppage would have had us saying "gosh, the Jays are looking mighty good this year."
Sports is like the first and best reality TV show. And like that benighted genre, there's always another one on the next channel.
The NFL has succeeded in supplanting all other sports as King of America. They've done it largely through the money deals they cut on the heels of their labour struggles in the 1980's - two work stoppages which rightly scared them into a salary cap and free agency.
You have to wonder about the players, though. They make less money than their counterparts in baseball and basketball (and probably NASCAR, but we're talking athletics here, not mechanics), and their contracts carry far less guaranteed money. Plus, their careers are far shorter due to the nearly inhuman brutality of the sport. So where is their big break in the new deal? Couldn't union president Gene Upshaw have shaken the Commish down for a few more mil in his quest to preserve the league?
NFL players are far more regimented than players in any other sport. That's part of their success - they must be team-oriented, or they simply won't succeed. Look at WR Terrell Owens. He is a prancing me-first prima donna. Because he is nearly uncoachable and his team-mates despise him for his selfishness and toxic personality, he was let go by his team mid-season. And they were right to do it. And it was great to see such a loathsome narcissist get a measure of comeuppance.
But… in what other sport have you ever seen a guy - a star player - get cut because he was an uncoachable jerk? Allen Iverson? Barry Bonds? These guys get guaranteed contracts and outlast their coaches. Not in the NFL.
Which is probably a good thing, but when you measure the price NFL players pay in mileage on their bodies to the money they get, you would think their union might have fought a bit harder for them.
But hey, even the low guy on the depth chart is going to make more in a year than I will in a decade, so screw them anyway. The only important part in the equation is the fan base. They (we) are the suckers buying the tickets and the tee shirts. Without us, these guys would have to work for a living. Any work stoppage would have had us saying "gosh, the Jays are looking mighty good this year."
Sports is like the first and best reality TV show. And like that benighted genre, there's always another one on the next channel.
posted by fiduciary at 8:32 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home