We all recognize the NFL as the most powerful collective sports enterprise on Earth, and the ongoing lockout of the players by the owners is all over the sports news of the day. Everyone has a take on it as the owners try to choke down on the players to grab an extra billion dollar slice of a very big pie. To all football fans, it's a very big deal, and to the interested parties it is really a pressing set of issues to be resolved before we see football again.
However, for the very elemental, long-term success of the NFL, the settlement of this labor dispute peacefully and quickly is not nearly as important as it is the the NBA.
Because the NBA is still playing, and because the NFL is so overwhelming in it's size and media reach, the looming NBA labor unrest is flying under the radar of consciousness for many fans, especially in non-NBA markets. But the labor troubles are on the horizon, and I fully expect a lockout on the pro hardwood, too.
For the NBA, it's not so much about the actual dollars they are spending on payroll, but about competitive balance. The NBA is the favorite league of conspiracy theorists, from the Kareem Abdul Jabbar trade to the Lakers, to the Patrick Ewing draft lottery envelope to the Knicks, to Michael Jordan's first retirement right in the middle of six championships, to LeBron James' migration from Cleveland to Miami....(hey, I would have gone to Miami, too)
The fact of the matter is that for the league to be fully viable and profitable, the NBA needs to come up with a compensation and player's contract rights agreement which allows teams in the secondary markets like Portland, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Cleveland, and Milwaukee to not only retain their talented core players, but to also supplement them with good players so that the fan bases in those cities have a reason to buy tickets, merchandise and to watch the games on TV.
More than any other league, the NBA has featured a few historically good franchises, and the rest basically have no chance. Boston and the Lakers have combined for almost half of the total NBA titles. That's great if you love the Celtics or the Lakers, but not so great if you're a 76er fan, a Grizzlies fan, or a Raptor follower. NBA Commissioner David Stern knows he needs more balance, and there are a whole lot of voting owners who will DEMAND it in the next round of negotiating with the players. Why pump hundreds of millions of dollars into owning a team (a very expensive hobby), when your team has no chance? Devaluing 3/4th of your franchises, ultimately devalues all the franchises. Kind of hard to call NBA owners part of a Bourgeoisie, but most of the teams know they are not part of the league's Aristocracy.
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And now we digress back to baseball...
The Cardinals have the third best record in the big leagues right now, at 30-20. Really a pretty good number after 50 games, especially with Adam Wainwright gone for the year, with one win from Chris Carpenter, with Albert Pujols' having the worst 1/3 of a season in his career, with several others being injured on the Disabled List, and of course with the second most blown saves in all of baseball.
If the Cardinals had just successfully converted 5 of their nine blown saves, the record would be 35 wins in the first 50 games....imagine, 35-15 looks a whole lot different than 30-20. Right Cubs fans??
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