Barnes: Explaining the NFL, NBA lockouts

The Steelers take over Pittsburgh during football season. From black and gold jerseys to the… The Steelers take over Pittsburgh during football season. From black and gold jerseys to the endless chatter about the team on sports radio, there’s no doubt that the City of Champions is truly a football town.

So what happpens if the Steelers don’t take the field this season?

With the National Football League and the National Basketball Association enduring labor disbutes, that just might happen.

The lockouts can seem difficult to understand for those of us on the outside, but the fights between the players’ unions and the owners are akin to the sort of strikes or labor disputes one might witness between food service union employees and their employer.

NFL

To understand the NFL lockout, let’s look at a hypothetical example of unionized restaurant employees and the owners of a restaurant.

Right off the bat, the head honchos pull $1 million of profit off the table to cover what they refer to as “miscellaneous operating costs.” No one is quite sure what that means, But everyone just goes with it because, hey, there’s still $8 million worth of real money left, right?

Wrong.

Only about 60 percent of remaining profit is allocated to paying the employees of the restaurant. And this 60 percent remains a point of heated contention between the owners and employees. Instead of $1 million, the owners now want to pull $2.4 million off the table. Such a move forces the employees to take an 18 percent cut in salary.

This cut will not impact the more tenured employees, but rather the younger, more recently hired crowd.

In addition to the pay cut, the powers that be want to extend the hours of the restaurant and have the employees work extra days, without extra pay.

Now at this restaurant, there is also the question of injuries. Sharp knives, hot stovetops, acidic onion fluid, wet floors and stampeding crowds lead to a high probability of injury while on the job. This are not conditions the employees want to accept, especially if they are not receiving any extra compensation for the hazards.

Meanwhile, those in charge of the restaurant complain that, with the loss of funding from the state, they are having difficulty paying for operating necessities. These necessities range from food supplies to tables and chairs to the condiments and napkins scattered throughout the eatery.

As a result, the owners have to pay these expenses themselves, and the new costs contribute to their growing sentiment that they are losing control of their establishment. In order to regain that control, more money needs to be siphoned from the employees and pumped into the dining hall itself.

Reread that changing restaurant workers to football players and restaurant owners to the NFL owners, and you basically have the NFL lockout in a nutshell.

NBA

The NBA lockout isn’t quite as complicated.

The recently expired Collective Bargaining Agreement allowed owners to sign players to contracts which exceeded the salary cap prescribed by the NBA, by way of exceptions in trades and free agency.

Now the owners are discontent with the amount of money they are spending.

The owners are asking players to take a pay cut in order to compensate for making decisions such as giving players like Brian Cardinal $37 million over six years, which the Memphis Grizzlies did in 2004.

In reality, the NBA is still profitable. In 2009-2010, its operating income was $183 million, and the operating margin was roughly 5 percent. As revenues increased over this past decade, salaries naturally increased as well.

The league’s primary expense is indeed the salaries given to players. However, league profit and player salaries have grown at nearly an identical clip over the course of the past 10 years, each at roughly 24 percent.

But salaries and revenues have plateaued since the recession.

According to NBA agreements, if salaries come to more than 57 percent of the league revenue, the players have to return a percentage of their salaries to the league. Because of the recession, this stipulation has been enforced multiple times in recent seasons.

It’s understandable that some fans side with the owners in this instance. Many make the argument that the players make astronomical amounts already and should take what the owners offer them and be happy.

But these players have salaries tied to their league profits, and the players are who draws the fans. Right now, the NBA is in an epoch almost comparable to the 1980s — the golden era of the NBA — in terms of talent and entertainment.

The league has never been as competitive as it is now, and it has more players that are known in the average household than arguably any other league. Young talents like Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose, John Wall and Blake Griffin are in prime position to replace the old guard of legends like Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan and Steve Nash when they retire over the next few years.

Maurice Evans — a player for the Washington Wizards and Players Association vice president — told ESPN’s Chris Broussard, “If we were to agree to their deal, it would be the worst collective bargaining agreement in sports history.”

With the NBA in such a state, players have begun to explore options overseas.

All-Star point guard Deron Williams of the New Jersey Nets signed a contract to play in Turkey until the lockout runs its course.

Five-time NBA champion Bryant is attempting to round up NBA players and go on a barnstorming tour of China to stay in playing shape.

Even Pitt’s own Gilbert Brown has agreed to a contract to play overseas in Germany and has a clause in his contract allowing him to play in the NBA once the lockout ends.

Unfortunately, between the two leagues with lockouts, it seems that the NBA has the greatest chance of losing a season.

With plenty of talks occurring between the NFL Players Association and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in Minnesota — and with the standard start date of training camp looming at the end of this month — one can expect the NFL lockout to end soon.

On July 19, Fox Sports’ Alex Marvez wrote that a 10 year collective bargaining agreement will be presented on Wednesday.

In order to end the lockout, however, the NFL must also satisfy the plantiffs in the Brady v. NFL antitrust case, who are accusing the league of conspiracy and anticompetitive practices.

The NFL Players Association representatives and the players suing the NFL in  Brady v. NFL antitrust case will then vote on the CBA.

If both sides approve, NFL owners would vote Thursday. If 24 of the 32 team honors approve, the lockout could end by Friday.

In the NBA’s case, the owners are attempting to alter the fundamental structure of the league. This will cause more problems than the NFL lockout, because the football owners are satisfied with the basic structure of their league. In the NFL, there is a hard salary cap. no guaranteed player contracts and revenue sharing between teams.

NBA owners, on the other hand, want to fix the system. They claim that the current system allows big market teams to greatly outspend small market teams, therefore destroying any competitive balance. In a sense, the NBA wants to mimic the NFL system. NBA owners are also asking the players to take pay cuts in order to make their plan work.

For the NFL, it’s about making a few tweaks in the system but for the NBA, it’s about changing the system completely. That’s why Steelers fans might have a better chance of watching the black and gold take the field this season than Dallas Mavericks fans do of watching their team defend its title.