Sports and Money

One of the faces of the ugliest situations in sports

 We are over 100 days into the NBA lockout and it looks like it will never end. It is an argument between millionaires and billionaires, neither side is exactly hurting for money but I do believe that the owners put themselves in this situation. The owners put themselves in this situation by allowing a soft cap to be put into place and agreeing to guaranteed contracts for some reason. The average NBA player makes 5.15m a year while the average MLB player is 3m. Do the players need to be arguing for more money, no, but it isn't fair for owners to be making a ridiculous amount of money of players considering they are the product. Attendance in the NBA last year was down partly due to the fact that ticket prices are through the roof, a by product of spending to much money on players and other staff, therefore having to bring more money in.

 We have problems with money in all pro sports, it reduces the competitiveness between teams because only the rich prosper(we should love this in America because of our love of capitalism, in which the rich get richer the poor get poorer and we have less people teams that can compete due to a wide gap between social classes.). This why I suggest that we bring back pro sports to how they were before players got free agency. In addition to taking away free agency, teams will have a limit to how much teams can charge fans to view the game. In order to that, because no league would want to lose money, we need government intervention ins sports.
 Obama needs to create a new cabinet position regarding athletics and recreation because the job of our government is to satisfy our needs and if you haven't noticed, Americans like sports. These are the changes that I recommend to the appointed leader(if it is not me)
1. Players have all costs covered

I guess it's a sport

All athletes will pretty much play for free except all their living expenses are covered. They will have a modest house with a modest house(they don't need lavish houses or homes cause let's face it, athletes aren't exactly changing how the world runs and don't deserve to be paid more than leaders of countries or leading scientists). If you don't believe that athletes won't play for minimum salary, look at the WNBA, many women play for almost nothing because it is a sport they love and it is a way to take care of their family(their job as a mother).I know I'm stretching it calling women's basketball a sport(it's a tough argument) but it benefits my argument so for the rest of the article it is considered a sport). Minor leaguers play not just for the chance to make it to the majors, only a small fraction of them have a chance, but because it allows them to play the game they love well into their adulthood. Also, every member of this staff would play   their favorite sport for only a small apartment, rides back and forth from work, and 3 meals a day. 
 Depending on the size of their family, players would get paid enough so that their family could live a decent life, which would most likely be better if these college dropouts would have to go into the work force. This system is very similar to how basketball works in parts of Europe except that they won't be making extra money for playing. I don't see how players could complain about this considering they would never have to pay for anything, meaning no dealing with agents, checkbooks, and greedy people trying to take their money.
2. Limit ticket prices
Owners are going to hate this part of the plan, but look at how much money they are going to save in option #1. I'm going to throw #20 as the top ticket price, yes that means courtside tickets would be worth $20, and the nosebleeds would be worth $1. Teams would not be making as much revenue off of tickets but I didn't say anything about the cost of merchandise. The more fans that show up to the game and the more money they have means they can buy apparel and other over priced items from the team store, I'm not going to mention concessions since teams would most likely start charging $10 for a beer.
3. Make the Games Available to Everyone
 This means that all games will be on basic cable(another service that should be provided by the government, just basic cable, not HBO or Star or anything but everyone should have the right to watch Tosh.0 or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). This will take away from the huge amount of money that teams get from media, but they are also cutting the budget in other places and team owners deserve to make less a year than players because the players are the product that the fans come to watch. This again brings merchandising into play because the more people that allowed to watch the team play, the more people will become fans of the team and buy the team's clothing, hats, etc,. 


This is my plan to fix professional sports, hopefully if it is adopted professional sports will fall behind college sports in popularity because that is where I believe truth athletics live. Professional sports should be entertainment, not a place where billions of dollars sit so greedy players and owners can fight over them.