Drew Brees Article In January 10, 2010, Washington Post

On January 10, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees took the side of American Needle in American Needle Inc. v. NFL in this article in the Washington Post's Outlook section "The NFL Shouldn't Call All the Plays". Briefly, American Needle is charging the NFL with an antitrust violation because it awarded an exclusive contract to Reebok to make and sell souvenir NFL caps, thus depriving American Needle of that line of business. The Supreme Court has heard oral arguments in the case. Lower courts ruled in favor of the NFL on the grounds that for the purposes of selling souvenir merchandise the 32-team NFL is one entity, not 32 separate ones. American Needle and the NFL both asked for Supreme Court review. The NFL wanted the review because it wants to be considered one entity, not 32, in all business dealings. The NBA and NHL have sided with the NFL and the major sports players' associations have sided with American Needle. MLB is not participating because it already has an anti-trust exemption.

Why are Drew Brees and the NFL players and players in the other sports leagues so concerned and why did the NFL ask for Supreme Court review when it had already scored a favorable narrow lower court ruling? Brees and the major sports players see this as strengthening the hand of the sports leagues and team owners. If the NFL succeeds, the rights the players have won through previous anti-trust lawsuits, strikes and hard bargaining to negotiate terms of their employment with individual teams, he says, will be seriously eroded. Leagues and team owners will be able to make take-it-or-leave-it offers of salaries and potentially cut players' salaries and benefits.

No matter what rationale the NFL and the other leagues may offer, I believe Mr. Brees sees the real reason behind the NFL's posture. I think the owners are concerned, and probably rightly so, that they must take action, possibly drastic action, that will enable them to curb players' salary demands because the current, long-term economic model of major sports is not sustainable. There are signs that engines that have been sustaining the multi-million dollar profits of the owners and salaries of the players--stadium naming rights, sponsorships, the sale of media rights and high game ticket and seat license prices--are eroding in this time of economic downturn, so I believe the NFL and its allies, the NBA and NHL, have seized on this relative minor legal case to get the necessary leverage to curb players' salaries.

I think the case is also a marker of a new trend for the major sports leagues to act in concert to safeguard and improve their economic interests and of the players' associations to act in concert to further their opposing interests. Late last year, there was another example of the leagues acting together. The NHL fought successfully in bankruptcy court to prevent the high bidder for the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes from moving the team to Ontario, and the other leagues supported the NHL. The NHL succeeded in keeping the Coyotes in Arizona by buying the team.

Might we see simultaneous or near simultaneous work stoppages in the 4 major U.S. sports in this new decade either in the form of strikes or lockouts? I think it's a possibility.

BTW, the MLS players and MLS are in contentious labor negotiations currently. In the U.S. we have been accustomed to speaking of the 4 major sports, but we really ought to speak of 6--the traditional 4, MLS and NASCAR.

2020 Vision for Professional Sports in Today's New York Times

Today's (January 3) New York Times carries this piece entitled 2020 Vision. Microsoft held a forum on what leading sports executives and thinkers about sports thought would be different about sports in 2020. The article didn't seem to reach any particular conclusion except that professional (and I suppose they would include Division 1 college sports as well) will have to come to grips with how to deal with digitization of content especially because the up-and-coming generation believes anything worth doing is digitized or digitizable.

I was surprised and pleased that two prominent futurists Nat Irvin and Glen Hiemstra were quoted in the article. Perhaps this is a sign that the sports industry like many others now recognizes that its future may very well not be much like its past.

Since professional and top college "amateur" sports compete for the public's money and leisure time. To me, the key questions the sports industry needs to answer are:

1. Are its current big money economics sustainable? In an age of relative scarcity, will the public keep paying very high ticket and seat license prices to attend games they can see better on TV? Will TV, radio and Internet providers keep paying the high fees professional teams and leagues demand and get for broadcast and Internet rights? Will corporations keep paying multi-million dollar sponsorship fees just to get their names on stadiums and player equipment? Will colleges and universities continue to pay multi-million dollar coaches salaries, build expensive stadiums and arenas, and construct lavish training facilities? The current recession has revealed weaknesses in sports economics, and I think pro sports will have to fundamentally rethink their business models or they will be in for some nasty surprises in this new decade and the next one. We'll see how much they are thinking about this in the coming labor negotiations in the 4 major U.S. professional sports. I think they'll have to cut into players' salaries. I also expect colleges and universities to question more the high prices they are paying to maintain athletic (especially football and basketball) programs.

2. Will professional sports continue to be able to compete for the public's leisure time? There are plenty of trends promoting what I call the "bottom up" sports culture. This is the one most people (i.e., those of us who are not elite athletes) participate in. In my opinion, the biggest trend in favor of participating in the bottom up sports culture is the medical community's strongly advocating more exercise for most people. Data I have seen shows the public may not always follow this advice. In fact, most Americans do not exercise enough for good health, but they believe they should even if they don't. In our busy 24/7 world, people who use their leisure time for the exercise they need may not have enough left to attend professional sports events in person or even watch them regularly on TV. Professional sports should see the challenge they face in competing against exercise and sports available to the average person at no or low cost for the average person's leisure time. I am not certain they see that yet.