I’m just not seeing football happening guys
- Thread starter kougkurt
- Start date
So I complained about the litigious nature of our country and my unhappiness with it. after I learned more about the McDonald's case, that was actually a case where negligence warranted a response. I don't know if $640,000 was the right amount (it was over $3 million at one point) Based on the burns she suffered, it was estimated that the coffee was between 185 and 190 degrees when it was served to her. In general, the recommended temperature for serving coffee is supposed to be closer to 175 degrees, but McDonalds made the choice to serve it hotter.
Where that case got tough is that the lady only wanted her expenses covered ($18,000 in medical expenses and lost wages). McDonald's responded with an offer of $800. At that point, they deserved a kick in the nuts for being the greedy corporate dicks that we all knew that they were. So, even though I'm not a fan of the court system, it's companies like McDonald's that make courts necessary. It sucks that people and companies are so terrible to one another where it's even a thing.
It would surprise me more IF there was football in the fall. I wouldn't be opposed to no football this Fall, thou I would like to hear more of the new coaches thoughts on the matter. IF there is fball, perhaps no fans allowed in the stadiums and testing before each game ? I do understand that staying " locked down " would destroy our country, so, no easy answer at this point in time - the Admin will come to some decision.
Absent an effective vaccination, and billions of inoculations, the only way this thing will be beaten, like the Spanish flu, is herd immunity, on that essentially all epidemiologist agree. History tells us don't hold your breath on a effective vaccination for a "corona virus," particularly if you are expecting to inoculate billions of people any time soon. Herd immunity demands a 65 to 70% exposure rate.
It come down to controlling the infection rate so that medical services don't get overwhelmed. Because of the mindless panic associate with this virus, they are laying off medical service workers, due to people going without treatment. We have an abundance of capacity right now. It time to get back to normal, with sane virus control practices, with the onus on people at high risk protecting themselves, "the herd" protecting them just has little or no "end game."
Where is the flaw in that logic? College life needs to return, dispelling the panic, taking the lead on the logic and science front. Yes, we are faced with a crap sandwich of a virus, but there is little choice but to eat the damn thing, getting it over with.
It come down to controlling the infection rate so that medical services don't get overwhelmed. Because of the mindless panic associate with this virus, they are laying off medical service workers, due to people going without treatment. We have an abundance of capacity right now. It time to get back to normal, with sane virus control practices, with the onus on people at high risk protecting themselves, "the herd" protecting them just has little or no "end game."
Where is the flaw in that logic? College life needs to return, dispelling the panic, taking the lead on the logic and science front. Yes, we are faced with a crap sandwich of a virus, but there is little choice but to eat the damn thing, getting it over with.
I think the problem with the every man for himself philosophy is that many high risk people are not in a position to just stay home. Some have to go to work and everyone has to buy groceries and other necessities. For me, it’s no big deal to pay extra to have that stuff delivered but I realize that’s not the case for many of my high risk compadres.
For the high risk cohort that has to venture out, their options to protect themselves are pretty much limited to wearing a mask and trying to maintain some distance between themselves and other people. Unfortunately, the mask does more to protect others than it does to protect the wearer and many low risk people consider wearing a mask to be beneath them. Further, social distancing is difficult when others refuse to play because they consider their own personal risk to be low.
Without suggesting you're arguing this, necessarily, it seems flawed to require 95% of people to stay home and have their lives drastically affected (and, in many cases, severely harmed, such as if they are small business owners or other "non-essential" workers who can't stay home or whose jobs disappear) primarily out of a fear that 25% of people, or whatever the high-risk population is, may have their lives drastically affected. In addition to all the other arguments that are even clearer, it seems like allowing the remaining 75% to go about their lives can have benefits economically and practically that can help, among others, those who can't venture out.
More generally, your points are reasonable and well-taken, and I know the issues are complex. E.g., a college like WSU, which mainly has traditional students who are very young and mostly healthy, has about the highest concentration of "low-risk" adults you could imagine. But there still are university staff and others who are older and it's not like they could (all) just stay home.
I guess maybe some of us have been away from college too long, but just to refresh your memory, the campus is full of ADULTS too. They teach the classes, do research, cook the food, and thousands of other things. There are actually thousands of ADULTS who work at WSU or any other campus, and then they go home to their families, and some of them have even older ADULTS that live with them or that they care for. And they also go out into the community daily and shop and go to church and interact with pretty much every other ADULT in Whitman County on a daily basis. And while there are no COVID19 cases in Pullman Memorial Hospital, there are other patients, and at any time there might be 2 or 3 empty ICU beds, so there is basically no ability to deal with any type of an outbreak.
So for all of epidemiologist on the board, YES- there will be few if any students who will die of COVID19. But NO- college can not reopen, because the college is a lot more than students.
So for all of epidemiologist on the board, YES- there will be few if any students who will die of COVID19. But NO- college can not reopen, because the college is a lot more than students.
But most colleges will reopen. WSU will too - in-person and on time. But they’ll keep kids home after thanksgiving.
What’s being overlooked is that state schools are seriously risk averse. They take ridiculous steps to reduce the potential for a lawsuit, and this is going to be no different. They’re going to follow every possible recommendation, and will implement every protection that comes from the governor, state and local health authorities in order to maintain CYA. They’re going to spend a pile of money installing sneeze guards, stockpiling hand sanitizer, and buying face masks, all in an effort to be doing something publicly visible, and to be able to say “we did all we could.” This way, when the inevitable lawsuits come, the university isn’t responsible, they followed all the directives provided.
WSU is in an even more awkward position, because they start before most institutions in the country. I guarantee all of the other State of Washington campuses will be watching closely to see how effective WSU’s measures are. WSU has little choice but to approach it conservatively. There will be no example for them to look to.
Private schools live in a different environment, and will make their decisions based on that. Their local authorities will have some sway, and possibly also their insurance carriers. But they’ll have more flexibility than public schools. Maybe they’ll decide face masks are “encouraged” instead of required. Maybe they’ll just try to operate normally. I think the one thing they’ll have in common with the public schools is that every one of them is going to get sued - either for not doing enough and getting people sick, or for doing too much and either ruining the learning environment or ‘violating rights.’
do they stop the game over flu?...do they take every symptomatic athlete a public declaration?...did they do this when swine flu was going around or Hong Kong flu that killed a million people...no....no....no.....
at this point I am tired of playing this game of carrot....no college football, then no pro football.....
at this point I am tired of playing this game of carrot....no college football, then no pro football.....
What is the "end game" with the continued social isolation strategy? It "buys time" for a vaccine, but the "Oxford Team" considered the farthest ahead, has been working on their corona virus vaccine for 20 years. Everyone with a financial interest is saying they can develop one relatively quickly, but how much of that is a funding money grab? There is no money in saying, we have been working at it for decades without success, it could take years.
All the while, a global financial collapse looms. The only certainty is to forge ahead towards herd immunity, and that still will requires controlled expose as near medical capacity levels for a minimum of 2 to 3 years.
Ah, the continuing "wait it out" strategy, hoping for a miracle. This is little more than short term infection control at unsustainable levels. What is the "end game," if any, with this approach? 10 years of 10% economic contraction, then pick up the pieces of a worldwide financial collapse the likes we have never seen before? You do realize that the great depression lasted 10 years, and needed a world war to put it in our rear view mirror.
"Adults" are capable of making adult decisions and assessing risk on an individual basis.
Or if they aren't reopening, they can also not get paid like millions of other Americans who were not given the opportunity to make that choice on their own.
Not “ on their own”, but quarantined and safe until a vaccine is developed. Everyone else has to slow the spread, no way to “control it”. Remember when this all began? We were told to “flatten the curve”. Same number of people will catch it, just don’t want to overwhelm hospitals. Now it’s changed to “stop the spread
“. Ain’t gonna happen without a vaccine, so be prudent and keep the vulnerable safe. Herd immunity for the rest of us that have extremely low death rates. Extremely.
Not only that, McD has had several incidents of burning people with their hot coffee, and iirc their standard was 190 degrees (or maybe more). Not only that, it was an elderly lady who required plastic surgury to repair her crotchal region.
But yeah, there was a LOT of press about tort reform with fingers pointing to this case and how "some lady had burned herself with hot coffee." Wonder who those lobbyists worked for...
Its not "every man for himself." We as a society can still exercise caution and best practices. And if you are a friend or relative of a vulnerable person, then you can help those people with their shopping or whatever.
Not only that, but there is this underlying fallacy that "vaccine = cure", which of course the dictators in charge are not dispelling. Current flu vaccine is only effective for 60% of those who take it by current estimates. So even after there IS a vaccine, a huge amount of the vulnerable population is still going to get sick and die.
Perhaps it’s different where you live but I don’t see many people exercising caution and using best practices (I.e., masks and spacing). In fact here it’s closer to an open rebellion against such practices.
I agree that shutting down much of the economy to slow the spread was only justified for worst case situations like maybe New York. It also made some sense for the rest of the country to do it for a couple weeks while the Feds and States developed and implemented a plan. Unfortunately it seems that didn’t happen. Nobody developed a plan and no two states implemented the same measures.
So here we are four months in and the closest we have to a plan is a CDC recommendation for people to wear masks, avoid large gatherings and practice social distancing. And much of the population flat refuses to do any of those things.
My guess is that we will continue to stumble along for years with hotspots requiring draconian shutdown measures popping up from time to time in various places around the country.
Here is the WSU plan for the fall at this point. Came out a few days ago.
https://news.wsu.edu/2020/06/10/wsu-president-kirk-schulz-provides-roadmap-fall-semester/
It will be interesting. The policy would make it pretty difficult for fans to be in a stadium. Or even for a football team to be in the locker room together assuming they are allowed to practice and play games.
My son will be a freshman this fall. He’s attending WSU Alive as a type this. Remotely, of course.
https://news.wsu.edu/2020/06/10/wsu-president-kirk-schulz-provides-roadmap-fall-semester/
It will be interesting. The policy would make it pretty difficult for fans to be in a stadium. Or even for a football team to be in the locker room together assuming they are allowed to practice and play games.
In‑person gathering limits
No more than 50 individuals will be allowed for any in‑person group activities during the fall semester. This applies to classrooms, events, and meetings. The specifics of the restrictions may differ depending on the health situation in the communities where WSU campuses and operations are located.
No more than 50 individuals will be allowed for any in‑person group activities during the fall semester. This applies to classrooms, events, and meetings. The specifics of the restrictions may differ depending on the health situation in the communities where WSU campuses and operations are located.
My son will be a freshman this fall. He’s attending WSU Alive as a type this. Remotely, of course.
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We've already blown too many opportunities as a nation on this issue, so the important things are to learn from the mistakes and try to do better going forward. Let's observe recent history and see what that might mean for colleges, universities and their sports programs this fall.
Mistakes thus far (both of omission and commission)?
- caught with our pants down. Utterly unprepared (planning, training, stored PPE, you name it), compounded by denial. And then the states, counties, private hospitals, and everybody who wanted PPE had to compete on the open market. I haven't seen such a cluster since HIV was first identified. HIV didn't move as fast, except in a community that those running the government did not care about. You probably all know how the HIV situation unfolded.
- contact tracing was the whole ball game if you were going to shut down society for a month or two and wanted to get full benefit from that action. You could pick two dozen countries that coupled active contact tracing with shutdowns...from Switzerland to S Korea...and find that the two actions put together cut the caseload down to a much, much smaller portion of the population than we managed. But only now is contact tracing starting to be a serious thing in the majority of the US (and there are still parts where it is still way under-utilized). My friend in the Swiss police told me the country's law enforcement group was drafted for contact tracing, because their health departments did not have the resources. Covid was out of control on their Italian border and spreading in the rest of the country, so when they shut down, they shut down hard and traced every contact they possibly could. We did not do that. Stupid is as stupid does, to quote that great philosopher.
- The asian countries that actually faced covid first had one recommended strategy having to do with safe behavior and the WHO and CDC had another back at the first of March. On the mask issue, the asian countries were proved right and the others wrong. Aerosol transmission is a big deal. If you had any doubt about that you only had to understand what happened at the Mt. Vernon, WA choir practice.
- We now have semi-adequate testing (at least here in SoCal) to see if someone currently has the disease. The percentage of false negatives are really high, so we typically have to get two tests >24 hours apart in order to get the false negative rate under 10%, but at least we have the tests. Unfortunately, we do not have anything like adequate widespread antibody tests to know how many have already had it. Even the spot surveys in LA county have had confusing results. It makes a big difference in all the arguments going on if we could clearly say that the fatality rate was trending in a rough order of magnitude of 0.25% or 2.5%, or somewhere in between. We have had enough deaths to analyze to know roughly at how much higher risks hispanics, blacks, native americans & pacific islanders are than whites. But while we can look at the proportions of fatalities vs. population between those groups, we don't have a full order of magnitude number. Still need better anti-body testing so the number of fatalities can be compared to the number of actual infections.
- countries in time of crisis look to leadership for a clear, well thought out course of action and some measure of unity. We didn't get that, either.
The biggest war going on right now?
- Since aerosol transmission is real, masks are important. There are people who don't believe that. I've seen screaming matches between relatives, neighbors and co-workers over this issue; maybe you have, too. It is another civil war. Those who refuse masks seem to think it is a critical personal freedom political statement, and that the country is being ruled by fear. Those who feel they are necessary seem to think that those who don't see a need for masks probably don't believe in evolution, science or engineering, and are ruled by the biggest fear of them all: paranoia. Both think that the other has no regard for the safety of others, for different reasons. I've seen 20 year friendships sundered over this issue, and humpty dumpty is not going to put a lot of those relationships back together again.
Going forward?
- A lot of colleges and universities (particularly smaller, private ones) are at risk of folding if they can't hold classes this fall. That is just a fact. Most have a variety of plans, including business as usual, small class attendance in live lecture with on line for 70-80% of the students, and fully on line. We are just now hearing what their individual decisions are likely to be. It is looking to me like the middle ground is most likely for most...maybe 10-30% of the students in the class (the % heavily dependent upon the size & configuration of the room), with the rest on line. Teachers over 60 or with one of the many underlying issues are probably only going to be on line. I'm guessing that will be 20% or so of the faculty at most state universities. And bear in mind that it is not just the financial health of colleges and universities at stake; they have a lot of employees that need jobs, and they have students that need to make another year of academic progress. On line will be a part of the answer; it will probably be case-to-case as to how much of a role on line ends up playing. That also leads to the question of how many students will be on campus, dorm population density, etc. I think the universities could pull off a limited campus and classroom presence, but no way could they make it work with the usual dorms packed like sardines approach.
- It goes without saying that a college or university would have a tough time without adequate medical facilities, a big stash of PPE and a lot of other things you would not want to be without. A contact tracing strategy and resources. Frequent tests. And a uniform mask policy would be an absolute requirement.
- As for sports...MLB has been unable to get its act together. Much of the popular press tells you it is all about money. If you know anyone involved with the conversation, it is as much about conditions required for safe and practical baseball as it is about the money. If we could quarantine the players, officials and staff, we could certainly play. The numbers of people and logistics are relatively small compared to an entire major state university campus, private transportation & hotels can be arranged, and the games are mostly outdoors. The stadium would have to be pretty much empty, but it could happen. Of course, if someone on a team gets the virus (how isn't important), the resulting quarantine would cause forfeit losses and damage that team's results. I thought MLB had the best shot among team sports of making this work, but I'm now doubting it will happen this year. What about the NBA? Much smaller group to quarantine, and you could put together some kind of 2 month long tournament. That might happen. But if neither works, we are looking at the NFL and college football as the next group up. The NFL might pull it off where MLB has failed, particularly if nobody cares that much about the forfeits. Colleges? Using athletic dorms you could probably make the quarantine idea work if everybody, including the tutors, were confined together and doing all the academics on line. But as a practical matter, it probably won't wash. The kids all eat & do laundry together in an academic dorm, and some will go over the wall for social opportunities. And their teams will have to decide to either report covid exposures and accept the forfeits, or try to cheat.
At least that is what it looks like from my window on the ship.
Mistakes thus far (both of omission and commission)?
- caught with our pants down. Utterly unprepared (planning, training, stored PPE, you name it), compounded by denial. And then the states, counties, private hospitals, and everybody who wanted PPE had to compete on the open market. I haven't seen such a cluster since HIV was first identified. HIV didn't move as fast, except in a community that those running the government did not care about. You probably all know how the HIV situation unfolded.
- contact tracing was the whole ball game if you were going to shut down society for a month or two and wanted to get full benefit from that action. You could pick two dozen countries that coupled active contact tracing with shutdowns...from Switzerland to S Korea...and find that the two actions put together cut the caseload down to a much, much smaller portion of the population than we managed. But only now is contact tracing starting to be a serious thing in the majority of the US (and there are still parts where it is still way under-utilized). My friend in the Swiss police told me the country's law enforcement group was drafted for contact tracing, because their health departments did not have the resources. Covid was out of control on their Italian border and spreading in the rest of the country, so when they shut down, they shut down hard and traced every contact they possibly could. We did not do that. Stupid is as stupid does, to quote that great philosopher.
- The asian countries that actually faced covid first had one recommended strategy having to do with safe behavior and the WHO and CDC had another back at the first of March. On the mask issue, the asian countries were proved right and the others wrong. Aerosol transmission is a big deal. If you had any doubt about that you only had to understand what happened at the Mt. Vernon, WA choir practice.
- We now have semi-adequate testing (at least here in SoCal) to see if someone currently has the disease. The percentage of false negatives are really high, so we typically have to get two tests >24 hours apart in order to get the false negative rate under 10%, but at least we have the tests. Unfortunately, we do not have anything like adequate widespread antibody tests to know how many have already had it. Even the spot surveys in LA county have had confusing results. It makes a big difference in all the arguments going on if we could clearly say that the fatality rate was trending in a rough order of magnitude of 0.25% or 2.5%, or somewhere in between. We have had enough deaths to analyze to know roughly at how much higher risks hispanics, blacks, native americans & pacific islanders are than whites. But while we can look at the proportions of fatalities vs. population between those groups, we don't have a full order of magnitude number. Still need better anti-body testing so the number of fatalities can be compared to the number of actual infections.
- countries in time of crisis look to leadership for a clear, well thought out course of action and some measure of unity. We didn't get that, either.
The biggest war going on right now?
- Since aerosol transmission is real, masks are important. There are people who don't believe that. I've seen screaming matches between relatives, neighbors and co-workers over this issue; maybe you have, too. It is another civil war. Those who refuse masks seem to think it is a critical personal freedom political statement, and that the country is being ruled by fear. Those who feel they are necessary seem to think that those who don't see a need for masks probably don't believe in evolution, science or engineering, and are ruled by the biggest fear of them all: paranoia. Both think that the other has no regard for the safety of others, for different reasons. I've seen 20 year friendships sundered over this issue, and humpty dumpty is not going to put a lot of those relationships back together again.
Going forward?
- A lot of colleges and universities (particularly smaller, private ones) are at risk of folding if they can't hold classes this fall. That is just a fact. Most have a variety of plans, including business as usual, small class attendance in live lecture with on line for 70-80% of the students, and fully on line. We are just now hearing what their individual decisions are likely to be. It is looking to me like the middle ground is most likely for most...maybe 10-30% of the students in the class (the % heavily dependent upon the size & configuration of the room), with the rest on line. Teachers over 60 or with one of the many underlying issues are probably only going to be on line. I'm guessing that will be 20% or so of the faculty at most state universities. And bear in mind that it is not just the financial health of colleges and universities at stake; they have a lot of employees that need jobs, and they have students that need to make another year of academic progress. On line will be a part of the answer; it will probably be case-to-case as to how much of a role on line ends up playing. That also leads to the question of how many students will be on campus, dorm population density, etc. I think the universities could pull off a limited campus and classroom presence, but no way could they make it work with the usual dorms packed like sardines approach.
- It goes without saying that a college or university would have a tough time without adequate medical facilities, a big stash of PPE and a lot of other things you would not want to be without. A contact tracing strategy and resources. Frequent tests. And a uniform mask policy would be an absolute requirement.
- As for sports...MLB has been unable to get its act together. Much of the popular press tells you it is all about money. If you know anyone involved with the conversation, it is as much about conditions required for safe and practical baseball as it is about the money. If we could quarantine the players, officials and staff, we could certainly play. The numbers of people and logistics are relatively small compared to an entire major state university campus, private transportation & hotels can be arranged, and the games are mostly outdoors. The stadium would have to be pretty much empty, but it could happen. Of course, if someone on a team gets the virus (how isn't important), the resulting quarantine would cause forfeit losses and damage that team's results. I thought MLB had the best shot among team sports of making this work, but I'm now doubting it will happen this year. What about the NBA? Much smaller group to quarantine, and you could put together some kind of 2 month long tournament. That might happen. But if neither works, we are looking at the NFL and college football as the next group up. The NFL might pull it off where MLB has failed, particularly if nobody cares that much about the forfeits. Colleges? Using athletic dorms you could probably make the quarantine idea work if everybody, including the tutors, were confined together and doing all the academics on line. But as a practical matter, it probably won't wash. The kids all eat & do laundry together in an academic dorm, and some will go over the wall for social opportunities. And their teams will have to decide to either report covid exposures and accept the forfeits, or try to cheat.
At least that is what it looks like from my window on the ship.
actually from what I've been told and what I have read, high risk people are allowed to go on unemployment if their work is considered dangerous in the context of covid....
so yes, the vulnerable IF THEY CHOOSE should have been told to stay home and isolate...the rest of the populace could have obtained higher herd immunity numbers and now look.....we're stumbling along with this virus as healthy people get it, and get over it....
in Washington state, the great risk factor still is age with over 50% of deaths in people over 80 yrs old....
so yes, the vulnerable IF THEY CHOOSE should have been told to stay home and isolate...the rest of the populace could have obtained higher herd immunity numbers and now look.....we're stumbling along with this virus as healthy people get it, and get over it....
in Washington state, the great risk factor still is age with over 50% of deaths in people over 80 yrs old....
MLB is always about the money.
MLB owners signed onto a deal in March at height of pandemic that they now want to renege on.
They want to privatize the profits and socialize the losses.
Owners won't open their books not just to keep info from the players but to keep the info from other owners and the local municipalities.
John Stanton & Kevin Mather forced the groundskeeper into retirement and Jerry Dipoto released the second highest number of minor leaguers last month.
Pretty sure that’s not true. At least not in every industry and every company. Plus, once the 600 a week federal bump to unemployment goes away (end of July) most people in most states wouldn’t draw enough on unemployment to survive. It maxes out at less than 300 a week in many states. I realize it’s higher than that in some states like CA, WA and NY but in many, maybe most states it’s pitifully low. I don’t think 300 a week would be a viable option for someone making even as little as 50k a year, whether they are high risk or not.
I had a student spend a semester in English 101 looking at the frivolous lawsuit issue. What she found is that it's largely overblown
I'm not a labor law expert, but almost every instance of labor bargaining conflict in professional sports (and most cases of teams moving) is the owners being Mr Burns. How that turns into 'athletes being entitled' is a whole other question.
The "athletes being entitled" is super easy to explain. Men that are being paid money that should lead to generational wealth are always asking for a bigger piece of the pie. There was a time when pro athletes had a point. It's laughable to look back at salaries in the 1980's and realize how inequitable things were. In 1980, the average salary in the NFL was $79,000. Today it is $2.7 million. In 1980, the average mlb player made $144,000. By 2018, it was $4.1 million. The average NBA salary in 1980 was $182,000. Today, it is $6.4 million. So yeah, greedy fuggin' players is definitely a thing.
Like any other union situation, player unions were created in a time where there was genuine inequity in the balance of power and owners needed to be kicked in the nuts. Over time, the balance of power shifts but the unions, in order to appear to have value, must continue to extract more gains at every negotiation out of fear that they will appear unnecessary. When the situation reaches maturity, the cost of the being involved in the union normally exceeds the incremental value that they bring to the table and they know that.
So, I've reached the point where I find it hard to support professional sports financially, because I realize that the whole damned charade is filled with greedy pricks that are more worried about "getting theirs" than any kind of love of the game. I can tell you this....I haven't missed MLB for a second and as far as I'm concerned, they could shut down and not that many people would notice. Same goes for the NBA. Klay Thompson rekindled my interest in the NBA, but if they never played another game.....meh. Once it became a big deal about whether Klay might "only" get paid $160 million instead of $190 million, I kind of started thinking of him as a greedy prick too. Fans in Oakland who supported that team for decades are getting hosed out of watching their team so "deserving" athletes like Klay can get paid almost $40 million a year.
Long story short, pro athletes in general all become entitled dicks over time.
I remember reading that Tony Dungy had to get off season work to make ends meet.
Used to be a common story.
Going back even further, pre-Curt Flood athletes were effectively indentured servants. No right to hold out, demand a trade, refuse a trade, etc. You took what the club that owned your rights offered or you didn’t play. If you’re traded, you pack up and move your family or you quit and find a real job. If you get hurt, well...that sucks kid, but we pay you to play, so if you can’t we won’t.
It was a bad system, totally favored the owners. The only positive was that in those days it was such a raw deal that you knew the players really wanted to play.
These days, there aren’t many that I think want to play for anything but the paycheck. By the time they finish their rookie deals, I think they’re all there for the paycheck and for the groupies.
Honestly the best response to this that I ever saw came from Alonzo Mourning, who years ago pointed out that players didn't create the marketplace. TV money and merchandising and ticket revenue created the marketplace. I understand everyday people busting their butts resenting athletes getting paid crazy money to play a game. I do. But I think the owners get off light, because they aren't on TV much (except for say, Jerry Jones) but they rake in INSANE amounts of revenue. Back before the Super Bowl era, part of the reason players made jack is because there wasn't THAT much money to be had in owning a team either. Not a lot to go around after overhead. By the 80s things had changed, and eventually the unions forced a more equitable solution. Individual knuckleheads aside, I'm ok with players demanding 'market value' for their services (given that market value fluctuates, usually up), since they sacrifice their bodies and in some cases minds for a few years to be our gladiators and then have to go off and do something else that they may not always be equipped to do. I'm less sympathetic to an ownership group that never hesitates to hold a city hostage for a new stadium complex that they don't have to pay for, that rakes in crazy money off broadcast and merch rights, and that has very little trouble sabotaging seasons when they think it's in their financial interests to do so, because they know regular fans will throw their hate at the players because they're more visible.
Don't get me wrong.....I've got no problem with players making millions of dollars per year. When Klay got bumped to $15 million per year or whatever it was a few years back, I was fine with that. When he and his agent were hinting at leaving the team if he didn't get an EXTRA $30-40 million over 5 years? Yeah, I love Klay, but that is some greedy sh!t right there. The owners are culpable, but the truth of the matter is that every "elite" player in the league could walk away from the sport and in three years, nobody would really care that their asses were gone. Nobody wants to watch an NBA full of scrubs and the elite players do make the league better, but compensation for players has gone insane.
Pro sports is the only business where many of the employees make more than the owners themselves do. The main reason to buy an NBA team is to gamble that it's going to be worth more when you sell it. It's not uncommon for NBA teams to lose money. That doesn't mean that the owner is actually losing money, but it isn't a money printing machine for most owners. Greedy athletes are destroying sports for the normal person and the only reason that they get away with it is that television expanded to the point where their greed hasn't ended it yet. Over time, it's becoming obvious that TV deals are going to retract rather than expand....and that's going to be a problem for all pro sports soon.
I think in the NBA in particular and in pro sports in general, it’s the stars that put the fannies in the seats. Teams without stars don’t draw the same level of fan interest and hence aren’t as lucrative or valuable. So, I don’t really have a problem with star athletes negotiating the best contracts they can. It’s very much like bankable movie stars being able to command staggeringly large amounts for their services.
In the abstract, I suppose it’s unfair that people who only entertain us are paid many many times what the people who directly affect our quality of life are. But that’s an artifact of the free market that has existed for hundreds of years. Even if you wanted to fix it (I don’t), it’s not fixable. It could be and maybe is mitigated to some extent through taxes, I suppose.
Another thing about 'the market' for talent is that it's all relative. Star players asking for big money want the respect that confers, amongst fellow players, ownership, the league in general. Asking hyper-competitive elite athletes to not concern themselves with what they make relative to their peers goes against who many of them are as people and for some it might be what matters most. It's how they measure their worth in their chosen profession. Somebody making schlub money in a dead end job is going to think contract disputes over figures this high are ridiculous. Maybe they are, on the outside. You see the same thing with CEO pay, but at least athletes have consistent widespread public pressure to live up to the expectations they've put upon themselves...
I agree with what you are saying, but it highlights the douchebaggery of the players. They aren't playing for the fans....or the love of the game.....or frankly, the money to support their families. At some point, it quits being about fair salaries and equity and it transforms into egos and prestige and dick measuring contests. It's all pretty gross and frankly, I haven't missed the NBA because of that.
The point about elite players above is true, but only to a point. In the bigger picture, elite players only matter when they play for elite teams. NBA viewership collapsed when Jordan left the Bulls in 1999. It was down 14% with the Warriors out of the picture in 2019-20. Fans love a champion and a villain. When you don't have that, all of the athleticism and talent in the world doesn't matter.
I don't care that much about player egos. Every competitive enterprise has egos. They aren't my co-workers. Let their teammates and coaches and agents and support staff deal with that mess. I stopped watching the NBA after the '90s because it got boring. Frankly the offenses cracked the defenses and every game became 'spread the floor, isolate your best scorer, let star score or hit the open shot off the passes out of the double-team.' In a half court game it was just, dull. At least there's still passions to be aroused in the college game, and players with more limited toolkits that make for more interesting matchups.
does it matter?
At this point, everyone is presuming that being asymptomatic= symptomatic, carrying antibodies=being symptomatic, having heard the words SarsCov2 or COVID19 = symptomatic, which all equals quarantine and solitary confinement. There is zero risk management, just risk aversion, I'm guessing due to the fear of being held liable.
