We might be on the brink of an historic blackout period in professional sports, the likes of which might take fans and the leagues themselves years to recover from.
With the NFL’s work stoppage already in place, another in the NBA looming and attendance down across the board in baseball, we are likely headed toward an era of apathy and resentment toward pro sports that is unmatched in modern history.
What the major sports have in common is that they always have underestimated the intelligence of their fans and have overestimated our loyalty to their product. Ironically, the only thing that brought baseball fans back to the game after its last work stoppage was the home run era, and the fallout from that juice-sprayed generation is largely responsible for the current state of fan indifference.
Past work stoppages have shown that we’re a “forgive-but-don’t-forget” type bunch that eventually will gravitate back toward the games we love, but not before we take a good, long hiatus to lick our wounds and pout about it. That’s human nature, and it’s our right.
However, the old adage about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts applies to the potential upcoming overlap of work stoppages. While a lockout or strike is never good for the specific sport involved, if you put a couple of them in a blender, the resulting cocktail might taste just nasty enough to take a sports-loving but sometimes cynical fan base and turn them into a group of people who just decide, by and large, that they have something better to do with their time.
What bothers me the most is the general sentiment among the parties involved that the average fan “just doesn’t get it.” They believe that Joe the Sports Viewer sees them as a bunch of spoiled prima donnas fighting over untold riches, a fraction of which Joe will never see in his lifetime. While they marginally empathize with that stance, they mostly believe that we’re the naïve ones who don’t understand their issues.
My feeling is, we do understand, we just don’t care, and the latter is exacerbated every time you tell me just how dumb I am. Get real. This is because, to borrow a portion of a better-known phrase, I have seen the average sports fan, and he is us.
I’d be willing to venture that about 90 percent of society at large could qualify as “average” sports fans, after you deduct the 5 percent that will never care about sports and the 5 percent that makes a living from sports, either as an athlete, coach, media member or any number of related careers. My math could be off a little on either side, but the example still fits.
What’s left – the majority -- range from die-hards who are willing to travel and spend serious amounts of money to follow their teams, to others who might not watch a game if it were the only option on TV, but still check the standings occasionally to see how their hometown team is faring.
These people aren’t idiots. With the 24/7 coverage of the labor issues dominating the radio talk shows and sports TV programming, who doesn’t have at least a basic understanding of the labor issues in sports?
As far as the NFL is concerned, I believe players should have guaranteed contracts, better long-term health coverage and a bit looser salary cap. I also believe that, so long as your monthly check clears and you agreed to the amount a long time ago, what the owner has in his bank account is none of your business.
When the NBA lockout in 1998 ended, the league was widely praised for an agreement that allowed players to make ludicrous amounts of money, but stopped short of the bank-breaking sums that threatened to bankrupt the league. Guaranteed contracts and a flexible cap also were highlights of the deal. Now, NBA owners want a strict salary cap and non-guaranteed contracts.
In other words, the NBA wants to become the NFL, and vice versa. While they take their sweet time figuring out how to fit into each other shoes, they had better be careful that their long-neglected, “uninformed” fan bases don’t walk away for good.
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