Re: Scab player options

[Kim Malo <kmalo19@idt.net>]

At 05:11 PM 8/6/98 -0800, Peter Delevett <pdelevett@sjbj.com> wrote:
However, I disagree with your point about scab players hurting the NFL and
MLB. Did anybody really stop watching football for longer than a season at
most? Even baseball -- there's been so much talk in the media this year
about how MLB has finally "buried the ghosts of the strike." I think the
viewers would come back.

Football is a bit unique, because only once a week games creates an
artificially greater demand, as does the heavy duty gambling. But people
didn't go to watch the scab players, which is what you were proposing. And I
believe I've read that there was some decline lasting a couple years.
Baseball definitely still hasn't recovered. We don't see it as much in
Boston, where national experts continually comment on fan loyalty. But it's
taken things like the chase after Maris to bring some enthusiasm back and
there are still a lot of teams playing regularly before crowds well below
what they used to draw. Turned a lot of kids off too, and they're needed to
perpetuate the success.

>But basically, there IS no "cheaper place to buy hamburger" -- the CBA and
college hoops will never be a permanent replacement for the NBA (even if the
disgruntled NBAers were to somehow secede to the CBA, as someone here
suggested tongue-in-cheek.)

A full alternative, drawing all of the same fans? Nope, you're right. But
minor league baseball has surged in popular as major league baseball has
fallen for much the same reasons, and college hoops is, for all intents and
purposes, the NBA's minor leagues (the CBA doesn't have as wide geographical
coverage). The fair weather fans won't go there, but the hoop junkies and
those with a problem on paying top price for inferior talent when you can
see equivalent for less will.

> Now, what COULD happen would be an alternative league might get started up
by big TV money, as already has been hinted. But I am very skeptical --
anybody remember the USFL? The World Football League? And I doubt the
alternative pro football league being proposed by NBC & Turner will ever be
more than a short-lived blip on the radar.

The problem with anything like this is the quality and credibility of the
people running it. Wanna have some fun? Read _Loose Balls_ by Terry Pluto,
about the ABA. Frankly, I don't see the top NBA players/agents getting their
act together enough to run something like this efficiently enough to work.
Too much arrogance and not enough being used to making compromises necessary
to survive. OTOH the football version might cut it, precisely because of
who's running it and the fact that they're setting it up not to directly
compete with most of the NFL season.

-Kim
Kim Malo
kmalo19@idt.net