Talking Sports
Although we are a month removed from the Superbowl, the NFL is still dominating the sports world. The collective bargaining agreement between the players association and the owners is due to expire, and no extension has been signed. The heart of the issue is the players want more money.
Under the current CBA, teams split the revenue from ticket sales and television. That money is split evenly and applied to player salaries. Each team has a limit, called a "salary cap", they can spend on those salaries to keep the league competitive. But teams have found ways of making money without having to share it with the rest of the league, like parking fees and naming rights for the stadiums. The players are asking for a bigger piece of the pie to get some of that money. That is the hangup.
Seems to me they should be able to fairly split up the billions of dollars the NFL bring in every year in a way where everyone can make money. I have no sympathy for multi-million dollar athletes crying poverty. Sure, they are the ones who break their backs putting on the show, but it's the owners who put up the cash to fund the league. They take the risk with their money, and they deserve to profit from it. You play a game for a living and get to retire when you're 35 and I have to fund it. Shuddup! Just another example of how labor unions are destroying this country.
The other big story in the sports world is the World Baseball Classic. Unless you are a diehard baseball fan, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, so I will explain. Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud "The Devil" Selig has this grand vision of baseball being a global sport. So he dreamed up this tournament that would host teams from all the nations of the world. The problem is that MLB owners aren't too thrilled with their multi-million dollar assets going off to play in a preseason tournment with no meaning.
If the thought of your favorite player getting hurt in spring training bothers you, let me tell you don't worry. The WBC won't be around for long. Americans won't care. Sure, it will be big in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Japan, and Venezuela. But those countries won't fund it. America has to fund it. In order to do that, there has to be interest. And unless the American team does extremely well and wins it in the first year, America isn't going to care. Americans don't like international sporting events unless we win and dominate. I enter the television ratings on the winter olympics as exhibit A. Give the WBC two years. Two years of losing money and big named pitchers throwing out their arms and this whole thing will go away.
Under the current CBA, teams split the revenue from ticket sales and television. That money is split evenly and applied to player salaries. Each team has a limit, called a "salary cap", they can spend on those salaries to keep the league competitive. But teams have found ways of making money without having to share it with the rest of the league, like parking fees and naming rights for the stadiums. The players are asking for a bigger piece of the pie to get some of that money. That is the hangup.
Seems to me they should be able to fairly split up the billions of dollars the NFL bring in every year in a way where everyone can make money. I have no sympathy for multi-million dollar athletes crying poverty. Sure, they are the ones who break their backs putting on the show, but it's the owners who put up the cash to fund the league. They take the risk with their money, and they deserve to profit from it. You play a game for a living and get to retire when you're 35 and I have to fund it. Shuddup! Just another example of how labor unions are destroying this country.
The other big story in the sports world is the World Baseball Classic. Unless you are a diehard baseball fan, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, so I will explain. Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud "The Devil" Selig has this grand vision of baseball being a global sport. So he dreamed up this tournament that would host teams from all the nations of the world. The problem is that MLB owners aren't too thrilled with their multi-million dollar assets going off to play in a preseason tournment with no meaning.
If the thought of your favorite player getting hurt in spring training bothers you, let me tell you don't worry. The WBC won't be around for long. Americans won't care. Sure, it will be big in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Japan, and Venezuela. But those countries won't fund it. America has to fund it. In order to do that, there has to be interest. And unless the American team does extremely well and wins it in the first year, America isn't going to care. Americans don't like international sporting events unless we win and dominate. I enter the television ratings on the winter olympics as exhibit A. Give the WBC two years. Two years of losing money and big named pitchers throwing out their arms and this whole thing will go away.
posted by Mike at 10:39 AM
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