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Delay of Game |
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Contributed by Tyrone Mercer
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Wednesday, 08 March 2006 (read 1844 times) |
Since the Angry Gourmet took off with his "auburn haired beauty" to
hang out with the Basques in Spain, three things have happened around
this benighted violation of the web host's terms of use. The
first is that we don't get to stare at the lovely vision that was his
auburn haired beauty, the second is that the level of food provided as
we miss deadline after deadline now consists of Scott's Bean Surprise,
and the third is that the rag reads like The Daily Show meets Brokeback
Mountain. In order to butch this place up a little bit, I've
started introducing you, my fair reader, to the wide world of
sports. Gently at first with our Olympic coverage, and now with
that greatest of American sporting pastimes: the mighty NFL.
 Well, I say mighty, but it seems that the NFL is now caught in a little
bit of labor strife. It's tough to have much sympathy for what is in
effect a dispute between billionaires and millionaires, but when you
run a highly successful fantasy league well you sometimes sit up and
take notice when veteran players start getting cut. For those of us on
the lower end of the socioeconomic scale from your average run of the
mill linebacker or basic Microsoft founder Paul Allen, the thought that
our fantasy team will be weakened if nobody can pay Mike Anderson
enough to square his shoulders and run downhill is enough to make fall
look like a good time to, and I shudder as I type, connect with our
families.
If you haven't been keeping up with events in sports, and why should
you you skirt wearing pansy, then you may not be aware that, as of the
time of this writing, the NFL is mired in a range of talks about just
how to divvy up the dosh. As you might expect, especially among
millionaires, a discussion about money is getting very emotional. It
might be even a little corrupt, and by a little I mean carrying all the
stench of your garden variety Haliburton bid submission, but I won't
draw that conclusion. As Suntori wisely reminds in his new book Now
and Zen, "Question the strategy of irritating a man of 300 pounds who
runs a quick 40." Still one can't help but wonder what all the fuss is
about.
 O.K. Actually I know what all the fuss is about, pride. The NFL goes
to a lot of effort to make its product the Best Show in Professional
Sports™, aside from that long running thriller Bud Selig, Baseball
Commissioner?, and each of the actors in this drama desperately want to
hold on to that glory position. One group of owners feel that every
thing's all right and the players can have a little bump up in their
salaries and let's get on with it. Another group of owners feel that
every thing's all right and the players can have a little bump up in
their salaries but they need a better revenue sharing agreement so
they can afford it so all the big teams need to cough up some dough.
The players just want to be paid a fair wage for what is hard,
dangerous, and societally important work, like say, inner city school
teaching. You'd think that it would be easy.
Still, it's easier than it would be if the traditional labor unions,
like the United Auto Workers, Teamsters, Pilot's or the NEA were involved.
Alright, that's a joke, really how much effort is involved in rolling
over to the demands of Capital™? There's a lot that could be
learned by the AFL-CIO in this labor issue. The most important thing
being, play football instead of building cars. The other of course is
stop trying to unionize Wal-Mart, the big money is in sports. Of
course I suppose they're a little gun shy given the way that Jimmy
Hoffa got into professional football. Still who wouldn't suffer a
bullet in the head for a seat under the end zone?
Of course, there's the message that all of this sends to our kids, and
really shouldn't we always be thinking about the children? Like
Disorganized Labor™, the message that they're getting is play
football. Of course they have to play it very very well.
The average
salary for an NFL player is $90,000. A kid has to get up into
Jake
Plummer talent to make six figures. Although to be as good as
Jake the
Snake you just need to play well enough to get to playoff games where
you can choke. Not that I'm bitter about the five large the
fucker cost me by not beating Pittsburgh. Any kid with weedy
aspirations to be a kicker, are you
listening soccer moms, had better just stop showering and move to
Europe. The average salary for an NFL quality kicker is only 60
g's.
Hell I know some teachers who, thanks to the NEA, make that much and
they don't face anything more dangerous than the possibility a parent
will show up at conferences. Of course that explains why the NFL
is
filled with kickers who have more consonants than vowels in their
names: 60 g's buys you a small militia in some of the less
reputable
bits of Eastern Europe.
The Sports Media™ is all atwitter about the negotiations. No
columnist worth his jock will be caught dead not speculating that a
lack of agreement is somehow the end of the NFL. "How can they be
contemplating this?" is the communal bellow when negotiations go
poorly, to be replaced by universal hosannas and talk of "pulling back
from The Abyss™ *" when things go well. The thing is, nobody really
needs an agreement right now. We wouldn't even be talking about this,
but for the fact that at the owners' winter meetings some teams wanted
to reopen the current revenue sharing agreement. The players got a
whiff and decided to put a little pressure on the whole thing. Not
surprising really, what with the cost of fuel, food, and steroids these
days.
So life continues onward. All the little fantasy football geeks get to
sit around biting their nails as they see top performers like Mike
Anderson get cut from productive teams and sent off to places like
Arizona. As for myself, well I think it may be time to investigate the
world of sports agency. Who knows, maybe with a little extra sumthin'
sumthin' I might be able to get my own auburn haired beauty. There's
always room under the salary cap for one of those.
*O.K., not the best James Cameron movie going, but at least minorities
don't die by the carload, and it's not as sappy as Titanic. In fact if
I had to pull away from something I think that's what I'd pull away
from. Oh and Joan Rivers.
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Some of the People 
