The Impending Sports Apocalypse of 2012

While the NFL mires in the early stages of a lockout, the NBA and MLB are also in the last years of their collective bargaining agreements. Each league will need to come to a new agreement at the conclusion of its respective season or we could be headed for sports apocalypse. Could you imagine the 2011-2012 year if the NFL, NBA and MLB seasons were all suspended? The Mayans may have been right about this 2012-end-of-the-world-thing after all.
While it’s unlikely all three leagues will become locked out after the summer, with the current state of the NFL lockout and a summer of bitter negotiations that will take place between NBA commissioner David Stern and Billy Hunter, the head of the NBA Player’s Association, the odds are high that at least one of the labor disputes will culminate in a substantial lockout. And it’s not too hard to imagine both the NBA and NFL seasons being cut short or canceled for the 2011-2012 season.
The National Football League averages nine billion dollars annually in profit. Under the recently expired CBA, one billion dollars automatically goes to the owners of the 32 teams. Now, however, the owners are claiming that inflated operating costs (see: greed) mandate that they receive another billion dollars. This second billion dollars would come directly out of the money that goes to pay the league’s nearly two thousand players. And while the league’s best players can eclipse the nine-figure mark in total salary, the average career length for an NFL player lasts around three to five years. With players more concerned about their financial security than ever, I think an extended lockout is probable but that a resolution will be made in time for a shortened season.
The risk of a lockout in the NBA appears high. Billy Hunter and the Player’s Association are ready to fight tooth and nail with David Stern over the substantial changes to player contracts that the Commissioner wants to make. I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t an NBA season at all next year.
Of the three leagues, the one with the most problems, the weakest commissioner and the one most negatively affected by the economic downturn is the league least likely headed towards a major labor dispute. Major League Baseball is unlikely to experience major turbulence as it pursues a new collective bargaining deal. In a league where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer MLB will continue to say “Play Ball!” instead of adequately solving its litany of problems. More than likely, Bud Selig will continue to push his problems under the rug for the remainder of his tenure as the commissioner.
In doing so he will probably save us from sports apocalypse in 2012.