Alright before I get bombarded with all sorts of hate emails and comments, let me try and see if a “fan” of the game can make some serious sense out of all of this.
We are talking about owners, who for the most part are Billionaires, or at the least Mulit- Millionaires! And they are fighting with their employees, who themselves are Multi-Millionaires—and the ones that are going to suffer are????? YES! You have it correct! THE FANS!
SO—LOCK THE DAMN THING UP and throw away the key!
I am not going to sit inside a stadium that was paid for, by taxpayers who can’t afford to walk through the door of the stadium with a family, they only way someone can do that is if they are corporate sponsored or at the very least—who hasn’t lost their job. I know what you might be thinking, “BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE EMPLOYEES???”… what about them?
Most of them work at the stadium as a part time job to begin with, they have regular jobs that they have to work around to make sure that they have certain days off to cover an event. Lets see, if a person who works for the stadium, on a Sunday, or Sunday Night, knows that schedule well in advanced, lets not forget the annual Thanksgiving Day Game, or what about the occasional Monday Night game, they have to make some sort of arrangement with their regular job in the event that they might not be at work at their normal time, just by logistics. I’m not saying every employee does that, but I am sure there are a few who do.
So now lets talk about, without a football game in a NFL Stadium for 8 home games plus pre-season and maybe post season (possibly 13 games total), those dates have to be filled in some way, so more concerts, tractor pulls, conventions, (domed stadiums obviously) maybe during the winter months they put more outdoor hockey games in the northern stadiums, in the domed stadiums you might have more reason for using the property for bigger events, the circus might be interesting to see at Cowboys Stadium. I mean we already have had prize fights, NBA basketball, College Football, Motorcross races, concerts, there’s plenty of activity to keep people busy.
So a LOCKOUT is not all that devastating, it might in fact help a bit.
When baseball went on strike in 1994- and part 95, fans vowed never to return to the game, and that attendance would suffer—in the beginning it did, but last year alone, 3million people went through the turnstile at Rangers Ball Park in Arlington. So over the last 17 years, I think baseball is safe. Ok what about Hockey. They went on strike, in the mid 90’s as well, that did some damage—however, the lockout when there was no HOCKEY AT ALL!!!!! Well, they lowered prices of tickets, they did everything they could to get the fan back in the seats! And for the most part, it has worked. If you wish to talk about the Dallas Stars in particular, there are other franchises that have their own set of issues, most likely there are too many teams that are in markets that are not supporting their teams.
Now the NFL…. If this league continues to the point of not having a season and blows off a Super Bowl, or even have a partial season, it will force the owners to re-evaluate their spending money on rookies who have never played a down of professional football, and yet they demand, tens of millions of dollars to sit on a bench and maybe see action late in the season, there has to be a salary cap, there has to be a margin of money allowed to pay a player who is just coming into the league and has to prove to the ownership and to the NFL that they are an impact player.
Do they stop rewarding players who have been with the team for over three years, and have proven that they are not only an impact player, but has exceeded the expectations of the owners and coaches impressions, and give them a nice dollar amount, but when you start talking 100 million dollars over a 10 year period of time, PLEASE! That deserves a “CHILD PLEASE!”
When you talk about the trail blazers of the NFL, the men that played when there was no medical technology that they have today, who lost part of their playing careers because of busted up knees, hips, shoulders, and so on, and today—they can’t walk, they can’t lift their arms above their heads, its just kills me that the NFL for a time turned its back on them, and yet these “youngsters” just sit back and say, that was then, this is now, and I’ll get mine, let them get theirs—if they can! THEY CAN”T!
LOCK THEM OUT! Bring the owners to their knees—I am one that believes that if they owners were able to get the 9billion dollars that the Networks owned them, regardless if they played a single down of football or not, well I believe that the federal government should then be able to intercede and hold the money up in escrow until a season commences. Or lets just take the whole smack of 9Billion dollars and divide it among 50 states—hmm that is—180 million dollars—PER STATE! Hmm that takes care of education, and other short falls, and puts the states back to work, and makes the advertising revenue that the NFL would have made to share among 32 franchise, now give to the community of every state in the union and maybe we can put our priorities back where they should be.
Why do we pay entertainers millions of dollars, yet we pay our teachers almost nothing, yet it’s the teacher that helps the future entertainer, or athlete to excel in their chosen profession, along with the business owner, or future franchise owner, or the sports writer, or the script writer… we have our priorities totally back ass-wards! And have since the first million dollar baby entered the world of sport and entertainment.
Do we really need to spend money to see Charlie Sheen make a complete jackass out of himself? NO! do we really need to spend money to see a singer lip sync his or her music on stage, and we buy into it because we don’t know any better!
I recall not too long ago, I attended a concert out at Fair Park that a radio station had sponsored—the acts were some people I had no idea who the hell they were, but one of the acts was an up and coming young girl that lived in Richardson, down the block from where I lived at one time, and her voice coach was the wife of a former Dallas Cowboy, so it was a way to support her and her studio, in any case, the acts came on—and it was a very expensive Karoke show! The headliner by the way was Ricky Martin, and he was done after three songs—so once again, I will ask—WHY DO WE PAY FOR IT?
We are confused as a society, we believe that video games will babysit our children, and yet what is it teaching them… we believe that teachers should not have discipline in the classroom, yet we have a new generation of children that have very little respect for authority, we believe that police are the enemy, and with that thought, we have a generation that has no fear of pulling a gun and shooting and killing a person who wears a badge over their heart who is hired to protect and serve our community. WE believe that our Constitutional Rights are to protest everything, yet when the protest the funeral of a fallen solder, who died in defense of that Constitution, we are confused, at least I am, instead of being grateful for their service, this society is spitting on the grave of that solder and saying he died for nothing!
LOCK THEM OUT! Maybe it will be a wake up call, maybe it might bring some reality back to a sport and to a society that nothing is going to last forever! And maybe—just maybe I’m crazy and that none of this really makes any sense and I am a fool for thinking it!
However, I do have the right to say it, believe it, and think its about damn time we do something about it!
Just a thought!
No comments:
Post a Comment