This Will Be a Labor Dispute
to Love
By Thomas
Boswell
Washington Post Columnist
Friday, January 8, 1998;
Page C1
Some thoughts, you assume,
will never cross your mind.
For example, who imagined we
ever would see a long, ugly
labor war in sports that,
once it ended, left some of
us feeling, "That hurt. But
it was worth it."
Pro sports was fundamentally
altered this week. Probably
for the better. The more the
NBA's new labor agreement
comes into focus, the more
probable it seems to me that
every pro sport ultimately
will be better for
basketball's bad experience.
"Owners from every other
sport were calling me every
night," said the Wizards'
Abe Pollin, the senior NBA
owner after 35 years, who
went to bed every night with
three bleak words on his
mind: cancel the season.
"‚'Abe, don't give in, stand
firm. Abe, you're fighting
our battle.'‚"
The NBA owners may have
fought some of our battles,
too. The idea of a maximum
salary is so radical – such
an unexpected and welcome
sight in this era of $100
million guaranteed contracts
– that it would have been
unthinkable a year ago. But
now it's here. And the idea
will spread.
When we read that no NBA
player can sign for more
than $14 million a season,
don't many of us want to
cheer? As Raptor Kevin
Willis so elegantly put it,
"That's still a lot of
money. If you can't live off
that, something's wrong."
In sports, how much is too
much? Some fans, long ago,
couldn't swallow the idea of
even $1 million-a-year
athletes. Everybody has
their own obscene-salary
meter. Certainly, however,
we can get a consensus that
$14 million is enough in a
sport where many owners –
such as Pollin – barely
break even.
Now, the best NBA infants
cannot easily jump teams
until after their fifth
year, rather than their
third. That's a step toward
sanity, too. Why, under the
new agreement, you could
even get hit with a serious
fine if you strangled a
coach.
If you want to feel warm and
fuzzy, just watch what
happens in coming days as
200 free agents get squeezed
and low-balled in a hurry-up
marketplace designed by
owners to drive down
salaries. Baseball taught
them the nasty trick; in the
spring of '95, stunned free
agents, trapped in a similar
bind, took deals at half of
what they would have gotten
before the strike.
"What united us?" said
Pollin. "It was pretty
simple. Last year, we paid
out a billion dollars in
salaries and the teams took
in nothing. This year, we
would have paid out $1.25
billion and we'd have lost
$150 million. The players
don't believe us. But those
are the numbers. . . .
"The players never believed,
until the last day or two,
that we would cancel the
season. Others, who will go
nameless, convinced them
that we would not. But they
finally got the message."
The sight this week of the
NBA players caving in by a
179-5 vote is an
illustration of how
dramatically times can
change. Twenty years ago,
many felt the only decent
side in a sports labor
argument was that of the
players. They had gotten
gypped for generations. (My
boyhood hero, Roy Sievers,
held out for a $2,000 raise
after winning the '58 AL
home run title for the
Senators. He didn't get it.)
By the '90s, the balance has
gradually changed. When
Michael Jordan makes $33
million a year or Kevin
Brown gets $15 million, then
the pertinent question has
changed. It's foolish to
ask, "Which side should I
take?" Neither owners nor
players deserve much
concern. Only ticket prices
– our ticket prices – should
matter to us. Anything that
stabilizes them, anything
that caps the greed of
either players or owners, is
good.
Blood on the floor serves a
purpose. For example,
baseball owners got mauled
even worse than the players
in '94. Yet notice how the
pugnacious tone, which
contaminated baseball for 20
years, has almost totally
disappeared since The
Strike. Nobody wants to
fight.
This time, a union – average
salary: $2.6 million – got
its lights punched out.
That's fine, too. Just so
somebody gets crunched. NBA
owners orchestrated their
lockout with a chillingly
acute evaluation of their
employees. They waited until
$500 million in player
salaries had been lost, then
set a
swear-on-our-mothers'-graves
deadline to cancel the whole
season.
Union boss Billy Hunter
realized that, the instant
his players got to vote on
the owners' "final" proposal
– whatever it might contain
– he was toast. They didn't
have the stomach to pay to
see the owners' hole card.
So, in one six-hour
negotiation, a deal was
struck, mostly on the
owners' terms.
Maybe, thanks to the NBA,
baseball will set a maximum
salary someday. Perhaps,
eventually, rookies will
enter the NFL with less
gaudy deals. Maybe, in time,
the percentage of revenue
that goes to players will be
trimmed a tad – as in the
NBA deal. Could that help
slow ticket price inflation?
In the long run, how much
damage was really done to
the NBA? Forget the millions
lost by the players, owners
and TV networks. That's
their problem.
Most important, the NBA did
not lose its whole season.
Fifty-odd games, followed by
a 16-team playoff, is as
much pro basketball as
anybody needs. (Okay, maybe
not Wilbon. But love-struck
extremists like us don't
count. I still miss the 18
games lost from the '95
baseball season.)
Will the NBA suffer as much
fan defection as baseball?
"Is this baseball or is it
not baseball?" said Wizards
president Susan O'Malley
yesterday.
Believe me, it's not.
Baseball shot itself in the
chest. The NBA just took off
a toe or two. Some will moan
that the NBA should be
punished. Stay away. Or boo
'em if you go. But is that
necessary? Think of what
we've gained.
First, Michael Jordan now
has to play this season.
What's he going to do? Quit?
When he's in perfect health?
When the game that gave him
everything he's got is down
on its knees begging him to
come back in its hour of
need? If Jordan retires now
– which he won't because
he's too smart and too
decent – he'll trash his
image worse than any
garden-variety scandal
possibly could.
Next, think about Juwan
Howard. Or, rather, the next
Howard. That future phenom
won't be able to wangle a
$100 million contract after
two pretty good seasons.
According to Wizards GM Wes
Unseld, future players won't
gain that leverage until
after their fifth year. What
would Howard, in his fifth
season, command now? Half of
that $100 million? Less?
See, sports can make
progress.
Finally, think of the next
Pollin. If some future
Wizards owner wants to build
a fine new arena for his
home town, he may not have
to risk his whole fortune on
that dicey bet. Why, he
might even have some rough
sense of his future payroll
costs and the possibility of
– gasp – a normal business
profit.
Fiscal sanity – or even a
baby step in that direction
– has its price. About a
third of the schedule, and
about a billion dollars
subtracted from the wallets
of the very rich, isn't that
much to pay. Unless, of
course, you sell programs or
park cars at MCI Center.
Isn't that always who gets
nailed?
Hard as it seems to believe
at first blush, sports
history – with its long view
– may someday view this
lockout as a watershed, a
blessing and a bargain.
© Copyright 1999 The
Washington Post Company