GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) – Normally, in this space, I talk to you mostly about college athletics; today, I will not. Instead, want to talk about two pro sports that need fixing, Major League Baseball and the NBA. I’m a big baseball guy, loved the game since I can remember. But now, the sport faces a possible loss of the 2027 season. Owners are intent on securing a salary cap after the current labor agreement expires on December 1, and most players are fiercely against it.
Recent polling seems to indicate fans are supportive of a cap and turned off by the spending sprees of a handful of franchises, while others can’t or won’t keep up. Add to this the stunning resignation of Tony Clark, the former player who ran the players’ union, who was fired after an alleged inappropriate relationship with his sister-in-law, who also happened to be an employee of the union he ran. A real mess. The owners are expected to lock out the players, and we have seen what past strikes have done to the popularity of the game.
Whatever the negotiations might be, the hope is that both sides can compromise, and no games will be missed. Baseball seems to have found some new fans and new popularity, and a strike and missing games would all but kill that momentum. This will not be an easy negotiation, but the hope is that both sides will negotiate in the best interest of the game.
The NBA has its problems, too, and management is out to make changes. League commissioner Adam Silver says they will attack the problem of tanking forcefully. But that’s not easy to do. Fans put pressure on teams to be competitive and on teams stuck in the middle of the league, and one way to get better is to lose games so that those teams can get a better draft position to acquire better talent. The draft lottery is supposed to be a deterrent to this, but it certainly seems it is not enough of one.
So how do you fix the problem? Some suggestions I really like. Take away draft picks for repeat offenders. Move the offenders from the top of the draft to the bottom. How about taking away draft picks? Other remedies being proposed include freezing draft lottery odds at a certain date and extending the lottery to include play in teams. And don’t get me started on the load management issue when perfectly healthy players are held out so a team can have better odds to lose. It’s just not a good look for the league when maybe a third of the teams are tanking.
The NBA and Major League Baseball have great players, but the one league that seems to have it right is the NFL. Embraces parity, has a salary cap, and a system so successful that college teams are becoming more and more like it. Any lessons to be learned there?
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