The NFL labor negotiations have many talking about the possibility of a lockout. No football this fall may cause riots, depression, and ESPN’s talking heads to explode (The thought of Merril Hoge not over analyzing every game on Monday morning’s Sportscenter while the World Series gets a four minute timeslot makes me very, very happy). The possible lockout got me thinking of it’s potential implications over the next decade. We have recent examples of the long lasting effects of lockouts with the NHL’s 2004-05 lockout and MLB’s 1994 cancellation of the World Series. Since I care minimally about hockey, and this is a baseball blog, lets examine the effects of the baseball lockout and how it ultimately rebounded.
1994 marked a time when baseball contemplated a salary cap. The thought was that small
market teams would soon be unable to consistently compete – franchises needed a level playing field. Players, interested in maximizing salaries, voted against the salary cap and wanted a revenue sharing system wherein the top 12 grossing teams shared 2% of their earnings to improve the inequity of markets. Ultimately, after the players walked out August 12, the rest of the season was canceled. This move meant the loss of $580 million in ownership revenue and $230 million in player salaries.
The fans were not happy. They held up signs that read “$hame on you,” “Greed,” and “You ruined the game.” The fans also boycotted some games. In the 1994 strike shortened season, 31,276 fans attended per game. The 1995 number dropped to 25,034. America’s pastime looked to be headed downhill. Football emerged as a legitimate counterpart and Michael Jordan brought basketball to a new height of popularity. MLB needed a jolt, a spark to reinvigorate a jaded fan base.
Though the 1995 World Series marked a joyous time across the South (Remember the Braves’ won) and 1996 was the Yankee’s first championship in nearly 20 years, baseball was at a low time. In 1997, Mark McGuire smacked 58 home runs and the Marlins won the World Series in their fifth season of existance, fans needed something more.
Enter…. a Monster of a man and precocious Carribean ballplayer with a big smile and a sense of humor. McGuire and Sammy Sosa grabbed American hearts as they chased baseball’s most hallowed single season record, one that had stood for 37 years. Their personalities were on public display across the nation and Americans fell in love with them. Both sluggers broke the record as McGuire set the new mark with home run number 70. Sosa had 66 and if you remember Ken Griffey Jr. had 56 and was on pace through the all star break.
Chicks dig the long ball, and apparently so do the men. Attendance over the summer of 1998 rose by 7 million and baseball was back at the forefront of American sport’s culture. When it later came to light that these players were perhaps aided by steroids, baseball had already reestablished its position as America’s past time.
I don’t see any such energy infusing football. Football has some sense of history but with new passing records broken seemingly every year, the game has changed from its early days. Chris Johnson had a chance to break the single season rushing record a year ago and nobody seemed to care. Football fans will undoubtedly be upset should there be no football this fall. They will hold the same sense of hostility and accusations of greed that we saw in baseball. The NFL is at its highest point of popularity ever and cannot afford to lose the interest of its fans. A lockout would make the average sports fan lose interest and turn to the college game. Without a meaningful record to break or a once in a lifetime performer, undisciplined, scary men doing frightful things to each other will lose the attention of Americans. Football can’t recover from a lockout the way baseball did so, they should just try to avoid one lest they want to go the way of the NHL.
-Sean Morash
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