Postby Kyle » Tue Nov 29, 2011 7:15 pm
The NFL players had more of an argument to me. The owners wanted them to play more games and still take more money from them and give up nothing in return. Nearly half the NFL players make the league minimum, which I think is about $200,000 now. That's pretty good money but not something you can live the rest of your life off, especially with the average NFL career lasting about 4-5 years. Most players don't make the kind of money Peyton and Eli Manning make. With 53 players on an NFL roster there's only so much money to go around. If it wasn't for the union, and free agency, some players probably wouldn't make $100,000 a year.
The NBA players have a harder time getting sympathy from me. They took the owners to the woodshed on the last labor deal. While not every NBA player is making million upon millions of dollars either, if you get any significant playing time at all in the NBA, you probably make at least $1 million a year. I never really have understood why they were upset over this new labor agreement.
But the truth is, in both league's cases, it was the OWNERS, not the players, who called for the work stoppages. That should not be ignored.
The people who I really felt bad for were the stadium employees, especially in the NBA which actually missed games. I read about Rudy Gay's charity game recently. Due to the lockout he couldn't have his game at the FedEx Forum in Memphis, because NBA players couldn't use NBA facilities, so he had it at a place on the south of the city but still reasonably close by. Grizzlies employees were forbidden from even working the game. If Rudy Gay wanted to help them out, he couldn't do it. I hope they had other jobs.
I don't understand where you got the idea professional sports have ruined the American economy though. They could all agree to get paid minimum wage and it wouldn't make a dent in fixing our economy. Besides, why aren't you getting on movie stars, singers, celebrities, etc. who get even more money than most athletes do (at least, the big ones do)?