I’m stuck in the middle with you

Sean LaFavor

As a sports consumer, I have a few complaints to lodge with the Better Business Bureau.

Well maybe not the Better Business Bureau, but somebody. You’ll do for now.

I use the phrase consumer because that is in actuality what I am. None of us are fans anymore, at least nobody involved with sports sees us that way anymore. We are all consumers.

But perhaps no industry in America takes for granted or abuses its consumers as much as pro sports. Owners and players know that no matter what they do to us, we will always watch our sports, though the definition of we has changed dramatically in the past decade or so. If you don’t believe me, try getting tickets to a Wild game. If you don’t know somebody whose parents, or company, or wealthy friend has season tickets, or unless you’ve staked out the game you wanted to see months ago, it’ll be a tough buy – and expensive.

Take baseball for a moment. Baseball has all kind of problems because everybody involved is arguing with everybody else for a bigger slice of the economic pie. But make no mistake about it, all sides involved are making a killing.

Alex Rodriguez makes $250 million. Carl Pohlad is a billionaire – not a millionaire, a billionaire. The MLB Players Association is one of the most powerful unions in the United States, and the owners have one of their own – former Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig – as commissioner. Sure, Selig was forced to give up controlling interest of the team before taking the post, but he turned it over to his daughter! Conflict of interest? We won’t get into that one, but you tell me which team would benefit most from the vacuum of consumers created if the Twins were contracted.

So now, despite these two groups being among the wealthiest people in the country, a strike looms somewhere just over the horizon, and Selig and owners are pushing as hard as they can to fold two teams – you know which.

Exactly when did baseball players – men playing a child’s game – become Teamsters?

Psst! Hey fellas, let’s have a quick chat. You’re not carpenters. You’re not construction workers. You’re not police officers or firefighters. You play a game meant for kids, and you get paid ludicrously to do it. Quit your bitching. We’re all sick of hearing it, and nobody feels sorry for you. Grab a bat and glove, shut your mouths and play ball.

Hey, owners! You want to confront baseball’s problems? Well, remember all those people in the stands around your private luxury box? Those are the consumers who provide all that money you guys are throwing around. Open your soundproof door and ask one what he thinks you should do.

I’ll tell you what he might say.

If players get a union, how about one for the fans? What if fans had a strike of their own? How many nights would these whiners play in empty, echoing stadiums before some concessions were made? Our strike would be far shorter than theirs – you can bet your personal seat license.

You don’t want to play today, Alex? Well okay, but…

I hate team owners slightly more than I hate millionaire athletes who loaf on plays, then sulk and complain on the sidelines, but baseball players are going to have to accept a salary cap. And owners, you’re all going to come up with some sort of revenue-sharing scheme.

Baseball lost a lot of fans when it went on strike in 1994 – many of whom never came back. Another one now, when people’s disgust with the greed of sports is approaching a boiling point, would drive away even more.

Business people in this wonderful capitalist society of ours have sunk their talons into everything fun and entertaining and turned it into a source of revenue.

It’s time to face facts, fellow consumers. Sports is nothing but a dirty prostitute, and everybody’s a pimp. Owners, players, agents, and worst of all, the television networks: “Welcome back to the Nokia Sugar Bowl. Rex Grossman has just thrown a three-yard pass to Jabar Gaffney for a Qwest Wireless First Down, and now here is Lynn Swann with Gators coach Steve Spurrier and tonight’s Dodge Keys to the Game. Dodge. Different.”

Corporate logos on caps and helmets cannot be far off.

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Sean LaFavor can be reached at: [email protected]

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