As we really start to get into the abyss that is the NFL offseason, lots of questions still remain about the status of the CBA talks. An upcoming Thursday bargaining session between the league and the union was cancelled. However, both Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith called the past weekend's talks "beneficial," whatever that means. I have said that there needs to be pressure from the outside to force the two sides to talk and eventually agree to something. If people ignore what's going on, there will be no incentive for the two sides to talk, and a lockout is inevitable (if it wasn't already).
Josh over at Lattanzi Land, has a slightly different point of view, and I would be remiss if I did not say that it has merit. He accuses the sports media of what he calls "battered wife syndrome." In short (and please, Josh, correct me if my interpretation is off), BWS is when the media keeps going back to the NFL for scoops, as much of a quagmire as it is, because it is what gives them the best ratings. Therefore, as the NFL is soaking in all the media attention, they really don't have ANY incentive to want to wrap up the talks. Meanwhile, truly newsworth events like the transfer of power in Egypt, don't get quite the amount of coverage they deserve. Egypt is slightly more impactful to the rest of the world than what the NFL is doing, as the results of the protests could shape politics in the Middle East for some time to come.
If you want the NFL to speed up the process, leave them alone. Tell ESPN and all of its friends to stop having camera camping out at Park Avenue looking for the next sound bite. That way, when the NFL realizes that it's no longer the center of attention, then they might get a little motivation to speed up the process. Otherwise, they might not get the airtime they so desperately crave.
I've got to say, it might be worth a shot. The NFL needs to be pressured. I never really did think that the source of pressure would be...no pressure at all.
Josh, feel free to chide me for any incorrect interpretations of your point of view as you see fit.
You have it mostly there.
ReplyDeleteBattered Wife Syndrome (in this context of football media) is the media acting as the battered wife to the NFL's abusive husband - no matter how badly they keep being led on, beaten, and so forth, the media members react in a manner that accepts it because 'he [the NFL] provides so well for me and the kids'.
This kind of relationship is mostly found in media outlets that have a vested interest in ensuring the NFL has a season next year, and it manifests itself in the whining about having to get a deal now because you can't take it away. How will we live without our husband, the NFL?
A recent example (from today, even) is Drew Magary's Jamboroo column at Deadspin. He even mentions the abusive relationship effect.
Good points all around. It is especially interesting when you think about all of these media outlets are going to be scrambling to find stuff to fill air time in the Fall when they ordinarily would be covering football. Theyr're thinking ahead. Clever.
ReplyDeleteI don't think ESPN should stop covering the CBA talks - they're not sending correspondents to Egypt, after all. But I chided you in an earlier post for saying that the non-sports media should cover it, on the grounds that they had, y'know, actually important stuff to cover. And that's not to say that the NFL isn't important in some way, but it has its context.
ReplyDeleteProFootballTalk and the like are crapping their pants throughout this whole thing because they see their livelihood passing before their eyes. ESPN will not fold if the NFL ceases to be - they will just fold ESPNU programming in to the regular fall lineup, and instead of having half an hour of College Football Live and half an hour of NFL Live, we'll have an hour of College Football Live. What is really perturbing to me as a fan and consumer of the NFL is that they have us by the balls and they know it. The market for professional football is incredibly elastic - even if you don't go to a game, you watch it on TV. Even if it's not on locally, you get DirecTV or go to a bar that has it. Even if rule changes make no less than half of the fan base say the game is now crap, the Super Bowl is the highest watched television event in the history of time (or some other such hyperbole). I think I remember a Monday Night Football game more than doubled a World Series game's ratings. Now, we all know baseball is shitty and boring, but it was the Super Bowl of baseball. And more than twice as many people tuned in to a week 8 game between Indy and Houston (ok, I'll admit, that's a pretty compelling MNF game). Football has replaced religion as the opiate of the masses. We all clamor for it. THAT'S why there's such tremendous hyperbolic apocalyptic language associated with the impending lockout. And until the NFL's generous compensation for those slighted Super Bowl-goers, I had no faith in Big (Corporate) Brother being conciliatory to its consumers. But maybe the NFL is the exception that proves the rule?
@Kent. Perhaps. The NFL knows it has a good thing, and the last thing they need is for fans to turn the game off and stop spending their money on it. Therefore, you could argue that they attempted to placate the displaced fans out of a desire for self-preservation. The lockout will be bad enough, but if you got fans (now suing) angry that they didn't get what they paid for, they could be opening a Pandora's Box of sorts. Either way, they did the right thing there. If they want to keep their position at the pinnacle of pro sports, they have to make sure that everyone is totally satisfied. The view from the top is nice, but the higher up you get, the harder the fall becomes.
ReplyDeleteSee that's the thing, though. I DON'T think "they have to make sure everyone is totally satisfied" in order to keep their status as the premier sports league in the U.S. Football is America's sport. The only way the NFL falls from their perch, in my mind, is if they lockout their talent and someone else with start-up capital (Mark Cuban, PLEASE, Mark Cuban!) makes a deal with them to form a new league. I've been saying this throughout this entire CBA ordeal: people don't tune in to Steelers games because of Andy Rooney. They tune in because of Hines Ward and Ben Roethlisberger, James Harrison and Troy Polamalu. If it's Rod Smart and J.P. Losman instead, and Ward and Roethlisberger play for a Pittsburgh-area team in a new league, the fan base is going to jump to it. It may not be immediate, but if the NFL suddenly has the talent level of the XFL while the former NFL talent is in another league, within a year or two the NFL will be down to to the point where if it's not out of business, it might as well be.
ReplyDeleteAs I alluded to above, a majority of the fans were pretty pissed about the rule changes emphasizing player safety. If the NFL had "to make sure that everyone is totally satisfied," then logic would dictate that the NFL would be less popular than before the rule changes. But popularity, at least as measured by ratings, is up, every year. Better than ever. People are even tuning into the PRO BOWL at greater rates than ever (or at least the last ten years or whatever). So, again, the NFL, or whichever entity controls the top football talent in America, has us by the balls.
What you're saying though contradicts direct evidence. Let me present to you 1987. The players were on strike and the scab games were some of the most well-attended games of that season. They even made a movie (sort of) about it. I'm not saying that there won't be some drop off of support if all the players went to another league, but people are fans of teams far moreso than they are fans of players. The UFL will be an interesting test case this fall in there is in fact a lockout. We shall see.
ReplyDeleteYou and Josh have both brought up 1987. First let me say that, while I saw the exploits of Shane Falco and Jumbo in a movie theater near you, I don't know much about the 1987 strike. But I know two things: it was a STRIKE, and not a lockout; and some (if not all?) of the quarterbacks broke the strike before the rest of the players' union. My NFL doomsday scenario is predicated on two things: first, the players are being locked out by the owners, meaning they want to keep playing even at the status quo (arguably); and second, a third party makes a deal with the players to start a new league. If that happens, the NFL is finished. I don't care that Pittsburgh identifies with the Steelers. At some point in time, Houston identified with the Oilers. How many Houstonians do you think are Titans fans today? I'm sure there are some (we are, after all, a transplant nation, says a Colts fan in Baltimore who has Redskins, Buccaneers, and Steelers fan friends, as well as the standard Baltimoron Ravens fans), but most are likely Texans fans. And certainly if the Steelers turned into the Los Angeles Xtreme, their fan base would quickly un-identify with them.
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you what I wouldn't be upset about: if the NFL owners' lockout prompted NFL players to join the UFL. But I doubt that's how it would work - as I said, what I'm envisioning is a sudden, strike-while-the-iron-is-hot scenario in which an outside group of investors get with the players while the NFL owners are at their most frustratingly greedy.
I don't think the fans actually care *how* the work stoppage occurs. Not a whole lot of people are taking one side or the other in this. They just know that their heroin supply is about to be taken from them. BWS only really applies to media, but the fans act like drug addicts.
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