Sportstalk and the NFL Labor Dispute: Keep It Stupid, Simple?
I can’t count how often I’ve heard national and local radio sportstalk jockeys offer the following wisdom: “The fans want their pro football on Sunday. They couldn’t care less about the millionaires fighting with the billionaires about dividing the NFL pie between the players and the owners.”
It’s not just the assumption that “the fans” are willfully ignorant; it seems the networks, which are generally subservient to the National Football League, want to make sure we stay that way. “Keep it stupid, simple” seems to be the operating principle. How much does the “average” fan making maybe $50,000 a year care whether the superstar quarterback pulls down 5 or 10 or 15 million?
If that were really the question, there would be little for most of us to care about. But shouldn’t that fan, who likely faces all kinds of dangerous conditions on his or her own job, feel something in common with the player who’s likely to wind up half-crippled or worse?
As the owners have pulled the plug on scheduled post-Super Bowl negotiating sessions, filed unfair labor practice complaints over the players’ union’s (NFLPA) potential tactical decertification, and let it be known that a lockout is likely in early March, the sports media “blackout” of the fundamental issues in the dispute badly needs lifting.
One central issue is the owners’ drive for an 18-game regular season. Fans are told this is for our benefit, replacing two meaningless pre-season exhibitions (for which full price is charged for tickets) with “games that count”—that is, two more regular-season games.
This speedup is part of a broader trend in professional sports, including internationally, where elite soccer players now play close to 100 matches a year in some cases, in their league, cup, and international competitions. The baseball season (162 games) and hockey and basketball regular seasons (82 games each), plus the ever-expanding playoffs, push players to the point where injury and physical breakdown become inevitable.
In the NFL, the schedule keeps expanding. Currently it’s 16 games plus three or four playoff games, compared to 12 games plus the single-round championship game when I was a kid.
SUPPORT LABOR NOTES
BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR
Give $10 a month or more and get our "Fight the Boss, Build the Union" T-shirt.
But expanding football’s schedule may well be the worst idea among all sports. It’s not just that the injuries will pile up, especially in the latter part of the season. It’s also that the intensity of players’ physical and mental preparation for each game simply cannot be sustained for 18 games. Even “the fan who just wants football” should figure out that the quality of the NFL product—which during the regular season is already often rather poor—will inevitably deteriorate. Not that the TV networks who broadcast the games will advertise the fact…
Little remarked on, too, is the effect of a potential lockout on workers off the field. According to American Rights at Work, an NFL lockout would cascade, affecting stadium, hotel, and bar and restaurant workers—an estimated 150,000 jobs in all.
It’s natural that the owners see this as the moment not only to enhance their share of the NFL’s “revenue stream”—the term seems appropriate for a league that often acts like its own government!—but to crush the players’ union outright. When governors in major industrial states like Wisconsin and Ohio are declaring open war on their employees, what better time for the NFL’s billionaires to follow the example?
While conventional wisdom holds that the March lockout is probable, it’s also possible that the league will declare a bargaining impasse, try to unilaterally implement its “last best offer,” and dare the union to strike under the threat of rookies and replacement players crossing the lines.
As of March 4, there was a 24-hour extension of the existing agreement.
When the NFLPA purchased Super Bowl advertising time to publicize its cause, the league intervened to prevent the union’s message from being aired. The union missed golden opportunities at both the Super Bowl and the previous week’s Pro Bowl, when the players could have massed on the field for a show of solidarity before the coin toss. The owners went berserk when the players made that gesture following the 1987 strike, and it had a surprising impact on public perception of player demands.
The union has a strong case for keeping the season its current length, but getting it into the public means overcoming the syndrome that’s dominating not only our sports media but our society’s entire political discussion, from the wars to the budget to climate change: “Keep it stupid.”