I hear it was $3 billion in total contracts in the first 24 or 48 hours of free agency. Billion, with a "B". I don't begrudge anyone in any profession from making a huge salary (well, OK, maybe Tom Cruise). It's what the market will bear. I just have to wonder how long the various sports, all pro sports, can sustain on a business model where the entire thing can cave in once enough people lose interest in the sport. It's been happening to baseball for a while, yet big contracts are still being handed out (although the offseason saw some serious pruning there, with two of the bigger name pitchers sitting and waiting for someone to pay their asking price). Big TV contracts, people paying increasingly crazier prices for admission and concessions...get your payday while you can. MLB may give us a clue. When a guy who plays every 5th day and makes maybe 30-35 starts in a year and makes $30 million a year, or even those making that money and playing every day, in a sport with declining attendance becomes the norm, then you get a dead offseason. The players thought it was collusion. There are what, 15, 17 teams in rebuild mode? This cannot last forever. Younger sports should pay heed, as one that has been around for well over 100 years is showing its age, and it is going bald, getting fat and increasingly relying on trinkets and gimmicks to get anyone to pay attention to it, and baseball was always my favorite sport (42 years of Seattle Mariners futility amid what seems to be its 86th rebuilding year is killing it for me...I mean, they paid Philly $18 million to take Jay Bruce off of their hands, and days later, traded their best hitter to the Yankees. The effing Yankees.).
pacman357 wrote:
baseball does little to globalize their sport other than letting Japan do their own thing and cherry picking the best, and also signing prepubescent teens from limited parts of Latin America.
150 years later they decide to play two games in England? Please.
In the late 50's/early 60's the NBA started sending Red Auerbach and Co to Russia to teach them how to play AND how to coach...and they haven't stopped selling their product world wide since. They probably have players from every continent except Eskimosia. There are real pro leagues in Russia, Spain, Germany, Greece, China, Turkey etc. etc. etc.
They weathered a period of real bad stuff, bad players, bad owners, bad character among both, bad games...and fixed it all.
They even instituted a dress code for players when travelling to satisfy the nonbelievers among doubting fans who still had difficulty believing in these players.
In addition to the cooperation between the owners and the players I already cited, I personally feel the play is better than, say the Iverson years, more team play as evidenced by the Spurs for over a decade, the Warriors over five years, and some others on the verge of making it to the top. As amazing a scorer as Harden is, the Rockets won't win it with his ball hog style.
That said, I miss low post play and don't like the strategy of hoisting 3-pointers, but those changes have forced the evolution of even more athletic types than ever. Wing men are the rage, and "stretch" big men who can step out and hit the 3 have opened the lane and resulted in more action and more points than in the dark years.
I love baseball, always will, but hoops is stealing their lunch.
edit: Pac, please hit "enter" every so often for ease of reading.
Edited by user
7 years ago |
Reason: Not specified
