NBA Lockout

If something could be learned from the National Football League lockout that entrenched the summer story lines, is that the only losers in the whole standoff between the owners and the players was the fans. The NFL has a strong fan base of loyal followers. Thus, the NFL seemed to be given time by the fans to work out the kinks in the labor disagreements between the two sides. The NFL also was smart enough to deal with the lockout situation during their offseason and got to an agreement with little serious damage done to games being played. In fact, the NFL only missed one preseason game, the Hall of Fame Game.

The NFL is a striving successful establishment. The NFL has created a system of competitive competition in it's league among the small market teams and the big market teams. The NFL is the golden standard right now when it comes to running a professional league.

As the NFL lockout has come to a close and the season is now off and running, the NBA is now the professional sports league entrenched in it's own lockout. But the NBA's lockout seems to be a long way from over. Some think the NBA lockout will last half the season ending sometime in January, others are warning that the lockout could last all season long. The big difference between the NFL and the NBA lockout is the success of the leagues.

There was a report that came out saying that 22 out of the 30 teams were losing money. The NBA has guaranteed contracts that were getting to be bloated contracts. Then there is also the fact that commissioner David Stern was letting the players begin to run the league. So small market teams were having trouble competing with the big market teams. It became a trend for star players on small market teams to hold the team hostage by seeking large contracts or demanding to be traded to a team in a bigger market. The trend then seems to be forming what has been dubbed as "super teams," or teaming with other star players on the big market teams. Theses "super teams" have then deluded the competitiveness throughout the rest of the league. The owners want to implement a hard salary cap while the players don't want to give up the big contracts which leads to the NBA lockout.

Now some of the star players of the NBA are threatening to go play overseas until the lockout has been resolved. But the NBA and the players need to be very careful. The NBA was still recuperating from it's last lockout back in 1998. The NBA also has the competition of college basketball. Most of the athletes in college know that the college level is the farthest they will go in their athletic careers therefore they play with all their hearts and not just for the money. College basketball also has one of the greatest sporting tournaments in all of sports with March Madness.

Fans are very passionate about their sports, but when a league has a lockout, the fans are the biggest losers. Once the lockout finally ends for the NBA, the league will be back to earning hundreds of millions of dollars. The players will receive their contracts and be living like kings again. But the ones that lost out was the fans, they lost that season of cheering on their favorite team. They lost the season of seeing their favorite players play the game. But the NBA needs to be careful taking advantage of the fans because the fans may not always come back. Hopefully the NBA was watching the NFL lockout and learned that the shorter this lockout is; the better.

-Jake Ipson