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Lockout!!!

Guaranteed contracts are not given in the NFL for the most part because the injury factor is so high. In the NBA, although there is some risk of injuries the chance is much lower than in football. Baseball has an even less chance for serious injury and thus they even have longer guaranteed contracts. Why the NBA has ANY guaranteed contracts is beyond me! NBA players have the worst reputations for off court shenanigans, work ethic, and dangerous leisure behavior than any other professional league! Heck, 3/4 fourths of the NBA probably still packs! They've got "posse's" they hang out with that have been incarcerated more than once! And besides all that.....everybody in town knows they take plays, quarters and whole games off when they feel like it!
 
All unionized workforces are an attempt to limit market forces, by design. Doesn't mean they are necessarily bad, it just is what it is. In an industry like professional sports the business models are necessarily different than say GM or Walmart. The services produced are specialized, there is a high barrier to entry in the market, there is a limited market with a more or less known demand curve. The individual entities (the teams) are not in business competition with each other, they are in it together. If the smaller teams fail, the bigger teams do not win. That is opposite of any true free market. And it isn't really like basketball is competing with baseball or football, although in a way they do compete, but more for advertising and media dollars than for fans. As the NBA or baseballs lockout shows, not many fans cross the line and add really much larger numbers of fans to the other sports. They are not true substitute goods. But in a free market generally the bigger players win when smaller players lose (fewer mom-and-pop corner grocery stores = larger revenues for Walmart). So really the free-market assessments of the NBA are not valid.

But I think the reason fans are more supportive of the owners generally is because we are emotional creatures. The owners have done not much beyond painting this as a business move. The players have done a poor job painting it as anything more than a greed grab. Even though we know that in the end the players are giving up money, when you hear someone who makes $5 million per year complain about agreeing to a deal that guarantees them fewer millions and claiming they are taking food out of their family's mouths, when overall unemployment is so incredibly high, alienates the average fan. I guess bottom line is whiny spoiled multi-millionaires that most fans probably secretly believe really never earned the money playing a "game" are less sympathetic characters than owners trying to run a profitable business that drives so many other jobs. At least that is likely the perception that many fans have.
 
Here's a link explaining the latest on the negotiations:

https://bleacherreport.com/tb/bc9na

And here's the main point for those of you who don't want to read the whole article:

Bottom line, if the attorneys can find a compromise on the key issues — division of revenues, structure for the salary cap and exceptions, etc… — then the union will be reformed (and the lawsuits dropped), the “B list” issues (draft age restrictions, drug testing, and the like) will be hammered out and the deal will be voted on by both sides. Games would start in a month.
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LogGrad98 said:
All unionized workforces are an attempt to limit market forces, by design.
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Equalize, not limit. In an ecomony where the largest employer has less than 50 people, unions aren't needed. When employers gain the power through size to artificially depress wages, unions restore the balance.
 
One Brow said:
Equalize, not limit. In an ecomony where the largest employer has less than 50 people, unions aren't needed. When employers gain the power through size to artificially depress wages, unions restore the balance.
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And or gouge the consumer or company they work for. Don't you just love the UAW?
 
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