It’s happening again to America’s sports fans and workers.
On Friday morning, the National Basketball Association owners chose to end the league’s collective bargaining agreement with NBA players, forcing a lockout of the league.
The NBA followed in the footsteps of the National Football League, whose owners have locked out their players for several months now.
What this could ultimately mean for both leagues is the cancellation of games or entire seasons. If that were to happen, then more than just the average sports fan in America would suffer.
It’s difficult for blue-collar sports fans to understand what is truly happening with both leagues and it’s hard to feel bad for the players or the owners on both sides of the numerous and greedy issues plaguing the negotiation process to establish new collective bargaining agreements. After all, it is billionaires squabbling with millionaires over who should get more money. We do not feel badly for either side, as it is easy to tell them to get over it and move on.
Who we do feel bad for is the true sports fans, the small business owners, and non-players, coaches and owners who work for these leagues. They are the people who will truly be hurt while the rich argue about how to get richer.
Restaurant and bar owners wait for fall, winter and early spring as their businesses boom during the NFL and NBA seasons. In Maine, for example, bars’ businesses swell on Sundays while fans flock many local establishments to watch a New England Patriots football game or whatever NFL game happens to be on television. This trickles into Monday nights as restaurant and bar owners have Monday Night Football specials for the fans who watch the game, drink and eat on those 17 Monday nights during the regular football season.
The same is true for basketball fans, some of whom enjoy a few cold beers and a solid meal with friends while watching a Boston Celtics game.
Take away these seasons and one takes away the small business man’s most profitable time of year. That doesn’t seem to be a concern in either league’s CBA battles as profit sharing, salary reduction for players and league rules seem to be the only items that matter to these egregiously rich members of the NFL and NBA.
Why should they care? After all, almost all of them can afford to not get paid. They don’t care if a restaurant or store owner struggles while the NBA or NFL seasons are on hold. The players and owners both can look at their huge bank accounts, travel home in their nice cars to their mansions and not really worry about how to make the next mortgage payment, or how to feed their families without the electricity being shut off.
Both sides need to think of their fans and who truly gets hurt. After all, it is the fans who allow the owners to become billionaires and the players to become millionaires. They buy the overpriced merchandise. They purchase the overpriced ”“ and at times obscenely priced ”“ tickets to watch a live game. They buy the sports packages from their cable or satellite TV providers in order to watch more games.
As fans spend hard-earned money for some sort of escapism from their otherwise challenging lives, the people who are now squabbling always benefit.
The repercussions also ripple into the people who work the concession stands at the stadiums, usher fans to their seats, clean the arenas and depend on the seasons to continue so that they can scrape together enough money to live. Do the owners and players care? Probably not. Why should they? They’re too blind with greed to see that it’s their problem, too.
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Questions? Comments? Contact Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski by calling 282-1535, Ext. 322, or via e-mail at kristenm@journaltribune.com.
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