The NHL sucks! The last NHL lockout was a whopping eight years ago and this one makes it three lockouts in less than 20 years (1994-95 Owner Lockout). It is clearly a disappointing day for any hockey fan. This particular lockout appears as though it will drag for at least a few months. Many players have already found other places to play and the owners care so little that they are willing to write off another NHL season. The biggest losers, once again, are the fans.
On one hand you can blame the players for being selfish and greedy. They are in entertainment and play a sport that they love and get paid for it. It's just a fun game they get to enjoy with tons of fans chanting their names and paying lots of money for tickets and merchandise. They are living the dream making millions of dollars. Why do we as fans care if the owners want to take back some money to put towards other financial needs associated with running a professional sports franchise? The players should just be happy to get paid at all since many of us would play for free if we had the opportunity. Seems like the players have it made and should be making some concessions so that the NHL season starts on time and the Lockout doesn't ever begin.
Sorry, not sure who wrote that last paragraph because the situation is not that cut and dry, and the players are not the ones to be penalized for choices of other people involved. Remember, this is the third NHL Lockout in less than 20 years. The third owners lockout in 20 years. The players are indeed in the entertainment business, but I don't hear anyone complaining about what your favorite actor or actress is making for a film. The entertainment industry spans many different areas and the price for attendance and in turn the pay for the entertainers is determined. A LA Kings jersey can be sold for $160. Why so much? I'm not sure, but ask the 18,000 people in the Staples Center why and most will not care because they are passionate about their players and the entertainment they get from them each game night. We have placed sports at an elevated level making professional sports teams like a bank that can print money.
The OWNERS are the ones that determine how money is spent in their sports organization. These owners have been such poor business owners that they are locking out their players for the third time in 20 years. Normal businesses that operated in this fashion would no longer be in business. Owners are notorious for throwing money around and spending it carelessly. Their GM will sign average players to top player contracts. Top players get contracts that are longer than anyone's career could possibly be. Here is where the mob starts throwing agents under the bus. Maybe I am wrong, but agents don't put guns to GM's heads. You can complain all you want about player and agent greed, but you must always return to the source and truly put the blame there.
"Well I would play for free if I could." Not a more ignorant statement could be made about professional athletics. I will not sit here and say their lives are hard in any general way, but there are sacrifices made and immense amounts of work put in to become an elite athlete. Notice every person that ever says something like that is sitting on their couch when saying it. My logical guess is the top .1% and maybe less become professional athletes at the highest level. They are there for a reason and you are not. The physical toll an athletes body takes would scare people if they knew the realities. "But they know the consequences and choose to do it anyways." Fair point and the same can be said for any job. We, however, have dictated that they should be paid higher amounts by continually supporting our teams and spending money that raises profits for owners. So why as someone who will have physical issues down the line ask for less money when the going rate is what it is?
"Well the players should give more back to the regular people." I have yet to meet a professional athlete who either doesn't have his/her own foundation, doesn't donate to multiple programs in both their home town and playing town, and doesn't donate their time to visiting hospitals, shelters, etc. Many athletes catch a bad rap because the media loves to highlight the negative things that occur. They thrive in seeing someone great being brought down because they are normally so successful. There are good men and women being great people in society everyday that also make a living playing a sport. They are in the end, however, people like you and me that want privacy at times and want to lead as normal a life as possible. These are not selfish desires, but normal human feelings that we can all relate to.
There is some rambling here and even some defensive attitude as an athlete that has been near the top, but to bring this full circle, there are different sides to pick during the NHL lockout. I for one choose the players side. While neither side is completely absolved of all issues related to the Lockout, the owners are in fact the owners of the franchises and the league. They set the policy with their actions, and to this point those actions have been detrimental to themselves. To ask another party to aggressively cut their revenue percentage and flip the status quo on it's head is asking too much. There are other ways of reigning in a business without sticking it to your employees.
For one, the man that has led the NHL into three lockouts, Gary Bettman, must be fired and immediately replaced with a more business savvy leader that can leverage new ways of marketing and financing the NHL. It needs to be someone that cares about the future of the sport, not someone who in the good ol' boys club just shaking hands and pretending to give a rip about where his/her company is heading. Secondly, and to expand on the first point, an understanding of marketing the NHL to the U.S. must be present. A simple point, the NHL rejected ESPN's offer a few years back to take a "more lucrative" deal with Versus, now NBC Sports. In Gary Bettman's eyes, lucrative means more money up front to be on a channel that no one gets. A marketing savvy person will take less money up front for a better return down the road. ESPN is not the worldwide leader in sports for nothing. What they give exposure to becomes more main stream in sports and culture. They simply have that power now. If you are not televised on ESPN you will not get that exposure via live broadcasts or on SportsCenter. You do not have to like ESPN to accept these facts. The NHL needs better leadership from someone or a group that better understands sound financial and marketing business. Until that happens no amount of lockouts will ever help the NHL.
The players want to play. They want to play for the contracts they have been given by their GM and Owner. The owners do not want to play regardless of the contracts they themselves have handed out. Until big changes are made I see no optimism for the floundering NHL. NHL: figure out your larger issues before simply locking out the players and asking for more money. Here is to hoping the Lockout brings about more change than just in the percentages of revenue. Hope that leadership will change and look itself in the mirror before proceeding down a path where the NHL is 100% insignificant in our country.
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