Hold That (Bottom) Line

There is nothing like labor unrest on the gridiron to demonstrate to the world what professional “sports” really are all about: jobs, jobs, jobs and money, money, money.

The current dispute in the National Football League features on one side the 28 NFL team owners, primarily rich white men who enjoy exclusive franchises and exclusive television contracts and who constantly practice extortion on civic leaders to dupe the taxpayers into underwriting the construction of fancy stadiums. On the other side are the human boxcars who average roughly $300,000 for 30 minutes’ work a week for half the year, who run all sorts of lucrative sidelines and who have still found time to put something like 300 demands on the bargaining table. If there’s a strike, NFL management says that it will play with strikebreakers from the players’ union, lured across the picket lines with $1,000 bills, and anyone else who weighs as much as an adult moose and can knock down a boxcar. The management promises rebates to ticket holders and television networks and sponsors if scab games are not entertaining enough. The players’ labor allies no doubt would retaliate with boycotts.

Normally, it is said, no one benefits from a strike. That may be different if there is an NFL walkout, for it will become clear just how much sportsmanship and fair play are involved when the business of sports gets down to the bottom line.