So, the NFL players have been "locked out". Just a quick question for you rabid NFL fans.....who cares? Certainly not Tom "Carnival" Brady, who apparently was "locked out" so effectively that he ended up in Brazil. This "strike" (because that's the word we use to describe stuff like this) causes me angst only from the standpoint of not knowing which side is less right.
There are so many issues on the table here, dissecting any one of them leaves so much uncovered that it isn't worth going into. Do I feel really awful about players who wind up in long term medical care because of multiple brain injuries? You betchya. Do I think the owners are money-grubbing cartel-ists? Yep. Do I think the season is already too long? Yep. Do I think players make too much money---er, no, not as long as the market can stand it.
What IS silly though is this statement by the player's union (well, former player's union) rep: "I will tell you this: Any business where two partners don't trust each other, any business where one party says, 'You need to do X, Y and Z because I told you,' is a business that is not only not run well, it is a business that can never be as successful as it can be," Smith said. The NFL players and the owners are NOT partners. Owners are owners and players are labor. Pure and simple. Whether in the auto industry or the NFL, a business cannot long prosper which forgets that labor and capital are different and ultimately have different interests, some of which are antithetical.
I'm sure there are plenty of lost souls whose fall and winter will be made even more desolate without the chance to put on their Steeler jersey on a Sunday before they go to the Giant, or the inconsolable folks who thought to drown their loss of collective bargaining rights in beer, brats, and foam cheese headware, or those who will no longer be able to cheer on animal abusers. But I will be none the worse for a football season lost to history.
I'd love to see a full-season lockout/strike/work-stoppage/etc., really.
ReplyDeleteRah Rah Ree
Kick 'em in the knee
Rah rah ras
kick 'em in the other knee
yay College Football!
Your last paragraph is quite the snooty condemnation of football fans. Not all of us paint our faces and put a hunk of cheese on our head, but we still hate the idea of a fall and winter without pro football and all its rituals.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the Cheerleaders Union in all of this? I mean those hardworking, severely underpaid professionals are on the job through every play AND every time out/commercial break and half time while the players lounge about and pat each others' bums or adjust their cups...oh wait a minute, that's right, once the players started donning earrings during the game, they doffed their cups.
ReplyDeleteI'm with CW on this one. Let 'em strike, I couldn't give the last hair on a mange-suffering rat's ass about even the very best among them and I actually wish such mange upon the worst of them.
They rank just slightly above NBA players and way above Hollywood actors as far as I'm concerned. Plus, with a good number of them having voted for Obama, it'll be turnabout when they join the ranks of the unemployed AND get taxed at the wealthiest Americans rate.
Sally--when are you going to accept that I am just plain snooty?
ReplyDeleteYou know Mudge--the owners are dirty too. Their little socialistic cartel (can you say, "spreading the wealth") does not survive close conservative scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteMore importantly Sally---what do you make of Brady's dance moves?
ReplyDeleteI can't get past the ponytail.
ReplyDelete“But I also think that for an industry that’s making $9 billion a year in revenue, they can figure out how to divide it up in a sensible way and be true to their fans, who are the ones who obviously allow for all the money that they’re making. So my expectation and hope is, is that they will resolve it without me intervening, because it turns out I’ve got a lot of other stuff to do.”
ReplyDeleteI love how the President said "divide it up in a sensible way" and added, "without me intervening". Sounds almost capitalistic of him.
Last time I checked, the owners weren't going on strike. But if they were, that poor mangey rat would still lack Mudge's concern about the final follicle on his rear quadrant.
ReplyDeletePoor little rat being dragged into this mess by a bunch of spoiled whiney humans...
This comment will never make it on ESPN because they don't want to hear this but...They are ALL over paid, over idolized, over greedy btards. I am simply over it and hope you are too. I am over having to take out a mortgage to take a kid to a ball game. I am over paying 5 times as much as something is worth at the game and I am waaaay tired of the inane way they hype these games as though each one is earth shaking in it's importance. As if each player is some kind of warrior struggling against immeasurable odds.
ReplyDeleteALL of our PROFESSIONAL sports have become PROFESSIONAL Wrestling to me. The attitudes, the personalities. Where is the sport in all that? We watch hockey for the fights, we watch football for the Terrell Owens tantrums and we watch NASCAR for the wrecks.
I have a thought... Let's quit watching, revenue will fall, and the greedy btards that have stolen our sports (basketball, football, baseball...) will move on to ruining something else.
I hope there is no NFL season. I hope there is no NBA or Baseball season. Instead of watching, lets take the kids out to a field and show them what sports used to be like. Teamwork, fun, exercise... Let's get out of the front of the TV and go play.