Posted on 02/20/2011 6:36:39 PM PST by Harley
Why is the looming NFL strike different from all other strikes? Well, first, it's not a strike, it's a lockout. Or at least it will be on March 4, when the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the National Football League and the player's union expires and the owners padlock the gates.
Apparently most sportswriters are rusty when it comes to covering sports labor issues - or perhaps they were never taught that much in the first place - so they don't know the difference. There's a big difference, and even some veteran sportswriters don't seem to know it.
Here's the Daily News' Gary Myers, one of the best football writers around, back on January 28: "[NFLPA DeMaurice] Smith needs to keep about 2,000 players in check, while [NFL Commissioner] Roger Goodell only has to worry about 32 owners."
Myers doesn't seem to understand that this actually gives a big edge to Smith: he can communicate with all the players through the press while Goodell must constantly be making calls to and answering calls from his employers - which is what the NFL owners are.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.villagevoice.com ...
Olberman is a good example. Rush said sports writers are very lib. The ones in Boston made Ted Williams life hell.
Sports talk radio out here in Columbia SC is very sad for what little I have listened to it.
There are all these 30s+ guys on there just hyping any and every high school ball player plus rattling every piddly stat they have on the kids since they could apparently walk.
I lost my interest in sports in the early 80s when I turned 12 or so. Staring at sports lost all appeal.
When I was at the PBS network here in SC, the last couple of years there, the sports wackos became dominant. It was really a couple of good ole boy managers that pushed the milktoast president around. They were also the guys who made the big bucks doing the network stuff and played gatekeepers to make sure things and people stayed idealogically pure.
For a couple of years using a production truck that wasn’t meant for sports, tying up everyone just about every weekend all over the state for all kinds of crazy hours on the same money plus crying about giving comp. time, and demoralizing the hell out of everyone else, ETV sports went on and on. I shudder to think about how much money was spent. I left out the part where some friends were hired on freelance basis to direct and do graphics. No one on staff was good enough.
I did very little sports mainly as a protest to being blatantly screwed on promotion since my overseer was chief sports wacko. He almost got himself and the agency sued by me on veteran’s discrimination but that is another story.
Since Nikki is really talking about shutting down that relic, most people here in SC won’t miss it. I hate to see the 99.4% of good people still left there get hurt. Seeing 6 or so overpaid management trouble-making crybabies out on the street helps a little. Of course they will be last to go, everyone else will be sacrificed first.
If/when it goes, I can see USC taking over that property, most likely knock the building (which I helped build) and expand Williams Bryce stadiums parking offering premium spaces at probably really absurd costs.
I can tell other stories of massive waste there that would be endless Dilbert fodder.
+1
Yes I agree. Someone I spoke to said parking at Dallas stadium is like $50 a game. “4 yard stop they dance for seemingly an entire minute.” LOL! Too true.
I dumped TV over a year. I went to a Super Bowl party and one of the first commercials was the Pepsi one where the white female jogger gets hit in the temple with a 12 ounce soda can and the black couple runs away after the assault.
Somehow seeing young woman knocked off a park bench after being hit in the temple does not make me laugh. Sick.
They especially don't like the people who often treat them the way they deserve to be treated -- like dirt.
They're vindictive as hell -- and think nothing of turning their dislike into a weapon against the player.
Barry Bonds was, for example, one of the three best hitters in major league history (steroids or no). I doubt he'll make the Hall of Fame until after he dies, because the sportswriters will hold his disrespect for them against him.
I really enjoy pro football, I could care less if they go on strike!
WE HAVE BIGGER FISH TO FRY.
I would think The Messiah could only hold out a few days before sticking his nose in this. DeMaurice Smith is one of Obama’s thugs.
Who's going to flinch first? Billionaire owners or millionaire ballplayers who live a pretty high lifestyle and need lots of cash flow to keep it up. When the money faucet is turned off they'll have to live in the back seats of their Bentley's. Guys like Minnesota Vikings lineman Bryant McKinnie who spent $100,000 at an NBA kickoff party in Hollywood on Thursday. Idiot.
You know what is somewhat sad - a lot of players end up broke after they retire. Some of them before they retire. Some of them can get hurt after the first year and their career is over.
The owners are probably worse than the players. Almost all of them have been able to do whatever they have wanted since high school.
There are some guys out there to admire but the last one was Kurt Warner. What a story. What a man.
I never listen to it but they always have these dumb sports cliches that often end up in corporate America or business speak like “stepping up to the plate.” I mean great it is entertainment but laymen trying to analyze it - just silly.
Well sports turned me off with a high school coach who was a jerk. His daughter ended up becoming a “film” actress. Heard this from a friend years later. She was two years younger so I had no clue who she was.
Yeah PBS is a story in itself. Some of the idiots they promote like some authors for fund raising are awful.
Sounds like Nikki is on the job.
We could go on and on about the big business of college sports especially football but that is another story in itself.
“I dumped TV over a year.”
Then you have already missed the first two episodes of “Top Shot” and a really well-done and informative docu-drama about Krakatoa.
As far as the clueless sports media — go and get a real job parasite. Oh, I forgot, there isn't a real world job you're capable of doing. Guess you'll have to join the ranks of the jobless — you know — the little people you look down your snotty noses at.
Wow - who should root for? A league that smeared Rush as a racist, makes Vick a hero again, has monopoly status, runs pro-Obama commercials and panders to billionaire owners who shake down taxpayers to get stadiums built.
Or loads of thugs and prima donna’s who sometimes break laws and get away with it.
I hope they strike and the season is canceled.
If an owner of a company is dumb enough to negotiate an individual contract with someone.....pay that person millions...AND lets the person join a union....the owner is a Bleeping idiot
Note that NFL owners have revenue sharing....which is a nice way to call SOCIALISM. Also, most of the owners play in stadiums mostly funded by taxpayers.....Miami and Washington (yes, Washington Redskins) are the only ones who play in wholly privately funded stadiums
Important to note that it will be the owners locking out players....not players on strike.
Even though a number of the players are thugs...most are not...and I will side with the players on this one. I do not go to NFL games to watch Jerry Jones own a team....
***Note that NFL owners have revenue sharing....which is a nice way to call SOCIALISM. Also, most of the owners play in stadiums mostly funded by taxpayers.....Miami and Washington (yes, Washington Redskins) are the only ones who play in wholly privately funded stadiums***
Seems you forgot about the Green Bay Packers and Lambeau Field, owned by the citizens. I believe you and Frantzie may also be wrong regarding Cowboys Stadium. The stadium was built with money from Jerry Jones. The city of Arlington DID spend some taxpayers’ dollars buying and clearing some nearby real estate to permit better access to the stadium, road improvements and parking areas. The city knew that the stadium would bring increased business and tax dollars. Many new businesses opened and have thrived. Win-win for Cowboys and Arlington.
I’m sure someone here will explain how I am wrong...
I found the commercials and live entertainment during the Daytona 500 much more classy and enjoyable, and I dont even like stock car racing. I think the NFL needs to take some notes from them.
Those Pepsi commercials were absolutely sophomoric, unoriginal, and as you said,”sick”.
I’m a Redskin’s fan so it might be better if they did cancel next season!
How long before he makes it a racial issue?
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