Can't we all just get along?

Football has been one of the most successful sports businesses in this decade. The model is that of a great work environment on the outside; a great product, everybody gets paid, and there are fewer serious complaints about these business than the every day jobs the rest of us have. Yet as the lockout continues to dominate the summer sports news, there is quietly another sport looking to follow the NFL's summer schedule. The NBA's collective bargaining agreement expires June 30th; and like the NFL, if the players union and owners can not reach an agreement, the NBA's logo for the 2011-2012 season would look a little something like this.

Although the NFL has been so successful this decade, that doesn't mean that all other sports should follow this part of the blueprint. The labor situation in the NFL has dissolved into a public smear campaign masking the legal tug of war for nine billion dollars in television revenue. Also, all of us fans who pay the hard earned money to go see games, and buy team merchandise could care less who "wins" as long as regular season games are still scheduled to start September 8th.

This, Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith, is what we all WANT to see.

That being said, the NBA seems determined to follow in the NFL's footsteps by making this process as messy as possible. The NBA's players union has already complained of bad negotiating tactics from the owners, less than a month after the owner's initial proposal. These guys are not even being forced to have federal mediation for these negotiations yet, and they are already trying to sling mud at each other. If any of these owners or union reps have watched ESPN over the last two months, they have seen how NOT to handle their negotiations. And even if the NBA did follow the NFL's success proof lockout plan, they would not even receive the same amount of media attention. The reason for this is because the sports media would use most of it covering the NFL regular season. I'm no English major, but that sounds like a big, heaping pile of irony.

Yet the fact that the NBA's collective bargaining agreement is almost up is a fact that is lost on the majority of the league's audience. The playoffs are doing a great job of distracting most of us from this fact. These playoffs have seen stars such as Memphis Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph shine, while other stars, such as Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, become mortal.  But when the big two and a half and the rest of the Miami Heat are one game away from going to the NBA Finals; potentially against the best-players-never-to-win-a-championship Dallas Mavericks, who wants to be reminded that there could be no basketball this fall either?


So here are my parting words to David Stern, the NBA player's union, and the team owners: just because the NFL is jumping off a metaphoric bridge does not mean that you guys need should. These negotiations can be solved quietly, calmly, and everybody can play without the drama. But that would be too easy for so many big egos. The NBA's situation will play out just like in the NFL negotiations, it will get ugly fast. Get ready sports world, we are once again about to be drenched in collective bargaining madness. Everyone bring a rain coat.