Meet the Lockout Lawyers Destroying Sports

[Teamster Jeff]

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Last fall it was NFL and NBA players locked out of their jobs. This off-season, we first had the NFL referees, who make a pittance relative to the league's revenue, watching scab refs stumble for three weeks. Now we have the ongoing lockout of National Hockey League players. NHL owners are coming off a year in which they made a record $3.3 billion in revenue. League owners have responded to this success by locking out the players, demanding massive concessions, canceling eighty-two games and squandering reservoirs of good will among fans.

I'm sure this must seem like a wild coincidence: four lockouts in fourteen months, affecting three of the four major professional sports leagues of this country. What are the odds? Actually, they're very good. This is not merely a case of four sets of labor negotiations that have tragically broken down. This is a conscious, industry-wide strategy. A law firm called Proskauer Rose is now representing management in all four major men's sports leagues, the first time in history one firm has been hired to play such a unified role. In practice, this has meant that in four sets of negotiations with four very different economic issues at play, we get the same results: lockouts and a stack of union complaints with the National Labor Relations Board. It's been great for owners and awful for players, fans, stadium workers and tax payers.
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http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12182-meet-the-lockout-lawyers-destroying-sports

[Drale]

1. A strike or a lockout that cancels games is the stupidest thing players or owners could do

the MLB learned that in 94, and it took them almost 10 years to regain what they lost in fans and revenue.

[Teamster Jeff]

2. Especially the NHL

People will lose interest quick. Stupid greed

[DarthDem]

3. Whatever

PR is not a great firm by any means despite what they think of themselves, but they're not responsible for the "destruction of sports" - - the rapacious, fatcat owners have that honor.

Silly premise to blame the lawyers.

[Teamster Jeff]

4. I don't think that many blame lawyers for the "destruction of sports"

That's just an attention getting headline by the author. I agree that owners are to blame. What is interesting is that all of the major sports leagues share the same law firm and have agreed that locking out players and canceling games is the best way to negotiate contracts.