Misc. Mental Musings

Summarizing Sports Stoppages

S. G. Lacey

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While off-season labor disputes are a perennial occurrence in major sports, cancellation of actual games is fortunately fairly rare.  With the 2022 MLB season having been recently saved, it’s instructive to look at the historical factors and politics which drive these recurring clashes between athletes and management. 

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For this discussion, it important to clarify the key combatants and relevant terms.  In general, stoppages of play in professional sports are a result of disagreement between the pair of primary participants, the players and the owners.  As such, there are two main reasons why work is stopped, in either the athletics realm, or industry in general.  

 

The first is a lockout, driven by employer, where the factory is physically shut down.  This means no locker room sauna, no lights on the field, no new uniforms.  Production activity ceases, as does payment to workers.  

 

The counterapproach is a strike, popularized by unions throughout history.  Here the employees band together, forgoing pay by not showing up for their job.  This protest continues until the workers list of cited demands is met by management.  [REF]

 

It’s surprising how often lockouts, strikes, and other negotiating ploys have been a part of professional sports in the United States.  Luckily, most of this banter has historically occurred in the off-season, when players are lounging on the beach or golf course, and owners are renovating their arenas based on investment portfolio returns.

 

However, as evidenced below, sometimes these petty misunderstandings end up bubbling over into full-fledged animosity.  These relatively rare occurrences are often black marks on the league, revealing hidden inequities between the rich, greedy, on-field participants, and the passionate, common fans who keep each sport vibrant and viable. 

 

Baseball:
America’s pastime, like the Detroit auto workers, and the UPS teamsters, have had their fair share of industry upheaval.  With by far the most games, and longest duration, per season of any pro sport, Major League baseball seems ripe for game cancellations.  However, this grueling schedule may actually be a blessing with regards to avoiding actual work stoppages, as both parties often use protests during the spring training period to leverage their positions.  Such posturing has occurred in 1973, 1976, 1980, 1990, and most recently 2022.  [REF]

 

1972 (13 Days – 86 Games): 
The MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), an industry first collaboration between players and owners, was established at the beginning of the 1968 season.  It took only 4 years for the contact to break down, and at the beginning of the 1972 season the players went on strike, citing a desire for inflation adjustments to their pension fund.  After just a few weeks, the owners realized the loss of revenue from ticket sales was untenable, and thus yielded to the player’s financial demands.   

 

1981 (59 Days – 713 Games):
With clear animosity in the years leading up to this season, some form of disruption was inevitable.  The last straw was the owners’ demanding compensation for any individuals lost as a result of free agency, which threatened to devalue the entire offseason player pool.  The timing and duration of the stoppage, right in the middle of the season, forced a change in the playoff format.  This is the only time the MLB postseason was tweaked mid-season, with 1st half and 2nd half winners meeting in the league championship round.  This system went against baseball’s core tenant of season-long consistency, and resulted in several mediocre teams making the playoffs.

 

1994 - 1995 (232 Days – 938 Regular Season Games + Entire 1994 Postseason):
The 1994 season started without a labor agreement, and by mid-August play was halted.  The owners’ insistence on a salary cap put negotiations at an impasse which would not be fully resolved until the next spring, when the U.S. Supreme Court was forced to intervene.  The entire 1994 playoffs were cancelled, the first time in professional sports history due to a strike.  This was the mother of all Major League Baseball stoppages, which shook the sport to its core, diminished the fanbase for years to come, and potentially put an end to the Montreal Expos.  Fortunately, the immense financial loss suffered by both the players and owners brought on almost two decades of uninterrupted baseball.  Until the recent hiccup in the spring of 2022, that is.  [REF]

 

Football:
The National Football League is one of the most profitable sports operations in the world.  With big revenue comes big egos, and lots of conflicting goals.  Like the MLB, the NFL players and owners inked their first CBA in 1968, and have been battling over the minute details ever since.  With a relatively short season, and just 16 games per team until recently, fans are aggravated by even the most menial cancellations.  Also, with an average career for an NFL player at just over three years, an untimely work stoppage can severely impair an individual’s earning potential.  While the NFL’s product has been relatively stable for years, as recently as 2011 a multi-month lockout threatened to affect the start of the season.  [REF]    

 

1982 (57 Days – 98 Games):
After a pair of token walkouts over the summer during the 1970’s, the growing division on a multitude of topics ranging from veteran player salaries, to required pension benefits, to free agent compensation, to health care coverage, finally came to a head.  After the first two weekends of play were completed, the players went on strike, cancelling subsequent matchups until a resolution was reached.  The 1982 season ended up being just 9 weeks long, with 16 teams making the playoffs, a drastic departure from the historical NFL format.  Not surprisingly, this was the first year when a team made the playoffs with a losing record.  [REF]

 

1987 (24 Days – 28 Games Cancelled + 84 Games With Replacement Players):
Caused by several motives of various ilk, this relatively short player strike was ended by owners rapidly taking matters into their own hands.  Ironically, a debate over free agency resulted in the recruitment of replacement players from various other athletic pursuits, some far afield from the traditional American football pedigree.  In addition to many Canadian Football participants, 15% of NFL players crossed the picket line to continue playing.  With plummeting attendance, and weakened physique, both parties were highly motivated to return to normalcy after 3 weeks of turmoil.  Since the late 1980’s, the National Football League has operated with a near flawless record aside from a few outlier events.   

 

Hockey:
Often considered the little brother of the big-4 major U.S. sports, the National Hockey League still isn’t immune from labor disputes.  In fact, the smaller, more passionate, fan base makes stable athletic activity even more important.  The NHL was able to smoothly operate uninterrupted for 85 years coming out of its 1917 founding.  However, all good things come to an end.  Having expanded broadly from the 4 initial Canadian teams to 24 squads across the two large nations which comprise North America, it was inevitable that labor relations devolved.  The timing of the league’s first strike, in 1992, resulted in a 10-day hiatus from the ice, with all games conveniently made up later in the spring.  This short holdout, resolved by a 4-game expansion of the regular season slate going forward, with the increased revenue funding larger playoff bonuses, was a harbinger of deeper underlying issues between players and owners.  Unfortunately, in recent years, the NHL has registered some of the most notable disruptions in sports history, from both a timing and duration standpoint.  [REF]

 

1994 - 1995 (103 Days – 468 Games):
Clearly, the concessions from a few years earlier were not a long-term solution.  This stoppage, in the absence of an approved CBA, primary due to salary cap level discrepancies, was over 10 times longer than the inaugural dispute, most of the season’s duration, and cancelled the All-Star festivities.  The parallels between this lockout initiated by NHL owners, and the MLB players’ strike spanning the same two years, are substantial.  This pair of labor disputes highlighted the increasing animosity between athletes and their keepers.  These major cancellations also brought to the forefront the most important participant in professional sports; the fans, who provide the financial lifeblood which all the teams’ constituents rely on.

 

2004 - 2005 (306 Days – 1230 Regular Season Games + Entire 2005 Postseason):  
After nearly a century of relatively seamless operation, the turn of the 2nd millennium proved to be quite challenging for the NHL.  After the existing collective bargaining agreement ended in the fall of 2004, the owners locked out the players again.  This led to an ugly standoff, resulting in cancellation of the entire NHL season, including the playoffs and draft, an unprecedented occurrence in major sports history.  The negotiating failure brought the entire league to the brink of insolvency.  There’s a valuable lesson to be learned here about chopping off one’s nose to spite one’s face.  A team salary cap, the core element of the bargaining, is a moot point if no one is earning, or paying, a salary.

 

2012 (112 Days – 526 Games):
This lockout, the 3rd in 19 years, gave NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman the infamous record of presiding over a trio of major hockey stoppages.  Similar to 1994, the NHL season was reduced to 48 games, again incurring all the revenue losses associated with shortening the season.  Becoming increasingly familiar with this circus, players quickly joined onto other leagues in North America and Europe, to maintain their income.  With another half season down the drain, both sides finally realized that these frequent stoppages were untenable.  The hidden loser of these repeated disruptions were the various businesses, either directly or ancillary, who relied on the hockey industry.  [REF]   

 

Basketball:
The National Basketball Association has a near stellar record of nearly continuous operation.  With the fewest number of players per team, and the most prevalent sport globally, it could be argued that the increased supply of proficient basketball players limits these athletes bargaining power.  Still, with huge salaries, and lucrative endorsement deals, there’s plenty of financial considerations to negotiate over.  As it turns out, when everyone in getting rich, everyone is happy.  Except the overcharged and exploited fan base.  [REF]

 

1998 (204 Days – 414 Games):    
After an impressive run of efficient business relations, and coming off debatably the most engaging NBA Finals of all time, political differences between NBA players and owners, as well as agents, lawyers, and officials, finally bubbled over.  It quickly became clear that the reason the league had run so smoothly throughout history was due to the absurd profits all participants were generating.  While disastrous from a fan optics standpoint, the lockout could have been worse; a resolution on the last day of negotiations avoided this entire season being wiped off the map.  This hastily drafted agreement, which included clauses to address maximum salary and rookie pay scale, left many unresolved issues, as evidenced by the combativeness between players and owners over the subsequent decades.  [REF]

 

2011 (161 Days – 240 Games):
The start of the 21st century was riddled with turmoil for the National Basketball Association, but for a while play continued on uninterrupted.  However, the situation got ugly quickly at the beginning of the 2011 season.  This lockout started early, and looked bleak for a while.  Classic industry issues of revenue sharing and small-market parity were at the forefront.  With 4 billion in annual income generated by the NBA, it seemed like there was plenty of money to go around.  In a rarely used tactic, the players actually evoked class-action antitrust legislation in order to recoup their lost wages, citing irrevocable career damage in an industry where average tenure is quite short.  The owners finally caved, realizing that there might not be any fans left to buy tickets if an entire season was cancelled.  In total, the schedule was shortened from 82 to 66 games, with the playoff format remaining standard.  

 

Others:
Player disputes aren’t the only concern for professional sports team owners.  On several occasions, the governing entity, be they named umpires, judges, referees, linespeople, or officials, have boycotted for improved working conditions.  It’s difficult to have games without anyone around to maintain order.

 

Most notable in recent memory is the mass resignation of MLB umpires in 1999, and the back-to-back NFL referee lockouts at the beginning of the 2011 and 2012 seasons.  Even the minor league baseball umpires got into the action in 2006, executing a strike based on the actions of their senior counterparts less than a decade earlier.  These unionized activities have been met with varying levels of negotiating success; the salary and benefit asks are typically menial as compared to the professional athletes these individuals are tasked with chaperoning.  [REF]

 

Sporting events also require a multitude of employees for the proceedings to go off smoothly.  Parking attendants.  Concessions personnel.  Ticket staff.  Maintenance crew.  All these services are essential for providing an enjoyable experience for the fans, who’s ticket purchases keep the entire business financed.  Several of these industries has fought to unionize and align over the years, but in most cases, front-office management maintains the upper hand.

 

Overseas:
American sports leagues aren’t the only organizations which experience labor disputes.  Any industry where disagreements occur between workers and their employer are ripe for strikes and lockouts.  Besides the quartet of U.S. professional leagues, the majority of the other profitable athletic endeavors are based on the sport of global football, better known as soccer to the North American contingent, as evidenced by the revenue breakdown in the graphic below.  [REF]