Collective Bargaining is Not a Spectator Sport
BY SAMUEL KLEIN
Nobody likes a lockout. Not the fans, not the players, not the owners, and not the countless workers and members of the media who rely on professional athletic events taking place as scheduled. So why are there so many lockouts, and why do they last so long?
The numbers stack up quickly. Together, the incumbent commissioners of the four primary professional sports leagues in the United States have had five strikes or lockouts occur on their watches. While strikes are initiated by players, lockouts begin with team owners. Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL, is on top in the standings with three partially or wholly incomplete seasons in his 21-year tenure; recently retired NBA commissioner David Stern topped that with four under his leadership.
In general, unions go on strike in the United States relatively frequently. But each strike represents a different union’s fight for just compensation, whether teachers, transit workers, or industrial laborers. Once a strike is over, regardless of who can be said to have “won,” the matter is generally considered settled for a long time within that particular industry. After the fact, not everyone is happy, but both the employees and bosses are back making money and contributing to the economy. After labor strikes in professional sports, these factors tend to hold true just as they do in other enterprises. So why are there so many athletic labor disputes every decade, sometimes within the same league? What makes professional players’ associations and sports leagues so different from other unions and industries?
To begin with, athletic labor negotiations are more heavily leveraged by public opinion than those of other businesses. Unlike in most other industries, the athletes’ egos and the publicity of the situation are substantial factors in negotiations. Sure, the entire country is affected by air traffic controllers (who famously went on strike in 1981) and UPS employees (who did the same in 1997), and both of those strikes were well followed by the American public. But neither of those groups have recognizable faces who are directly involved and who can sway popular opinion. Larry Fitzgerald, a prolific receiver for the Arizona Cardinals, took to Twitter to express his impatience with the 2011 NFL lockout. Franchise quarterbacks Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady released a statement to the AP voicing their concern which made for great quotes on radio and television shows covering the strike. These are names even casual fans are familiar with, names people try to draft in their fantasy leagues, and names they respect. These players obviously cannot be replaced by athletes willing to accept less, and the public knows these players have a personal interest in resolving the strike. Research shows that the public opinion has a substantial effect on ordinary strikes, and that effect is only magnified when many of the affected parties are so well-known in the public sphere.
In the world of professional sports, the negotiations are much more balanced than in other fields. Professional athletes in the four big leagues (the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB) are still able to live day-to-day without worrying about putting food on the table and saving for retirement. In the NFL, the least anyone on a roster can be paid is $420,000 annually. The other three leagues all have even higher base salaries. With the possible exception of rookies, financial concerns are not as immediate during these strikes as in other less lucrative occupations. Consequently, the players are not so easily forced out of their demands.
Professional sports labor negotiations are more level and have higher stakes for more people, and thus tend to resolve quickly. But the final factor in determining why they last so long doesn’t concern the public, but rather the impermanent nature of being an athlete. In professional sports associations, the labor force is transient: on average, careers in the four big leagues range from 3.5 to 5.6 years. Because the athletes on each team in a league are constantly changing from year to year, labor settlements may not seem reasonable just a few years after they come into effect. Additionally, when one league adjusts its free agent policy or revenue allocation model, players in another league may want to follow suit. In short, the ever-changing landscape of the players and their unions weakens the effect of the compromise in the long-term. This leads to more disputes, more lockouts, and more short-term solutions.
At the end of the day, collective bargaining negotiations often reach for single percentage points at the expense of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue for all parties. But when you pit two sides that both love winning against one another, it’s not going to end without a fight—and you can be sure there will always be a rematch.