| When I think of big-time sports
these days, the first thing that comes to my mind isn’t outstanding athletic
specimens or expanding fan bases. The first thing that pops into my head is money. If
dollars are the determining factor as to whether a sport has hit the big time, then the
Arena Football League passes the test. Apparently, now there is enough income to fight
over.
That fight led the Arena League to cancel its season last month. The league’s
owners called "game on" again yesterday, but the fight isn’t over.
As one of the late-night copy editors at the paper I used to work for often asked,
"What the heck is going on?"
I won’t claim to be an expert on this whole rigmarole, but I spent some time
trying to decipher the battle that’s under way. Here’s what’s clear: The
players aren’t happy with their salaries, rights, benefits and the absence of free
agency.
The league doesn’t entirely discount those claims, and owners say they would enter
into good-faith bargaining with an Arena League players union. The first problem is that
there isn’t such a union. The second problem is that there’s a group of players
of a questionable size trying to prevent a union from being formed.
This is where things get complicated. A group of players, headed by James Guidry, a
quarterback who suffered a serious injury in an Arena game last season, has sued the
league for antitrust violations. That group’s spokesman is attorney Jeffrey Kessler,
whose name often pops up in such suits against professional sports leagues, and it is
being supported to some degree by the United Food and Commercial Workers union. The suit
basically alleges that the league has colluded to keep salaries down, in part by
prohibiting free agency. The group says it will also work to improve the players’
injury benefits.
That group of players doesn’t want a union because it would stop their suit. The
Supreme Court has ruled that unionized workers cannot file antitrust suits.
Another group of players has tried to organize a union, called the Arena Football
League Players’ Organizing Committee. This group, aided by Chicago Teamsters Local
781, is willing to negotiate with owners to get what they want instead of suing to
accomplish their goals.
The rub is that there are a lot of different stories about which players group has more
support. The league says a majority of the 450 players have signed on with the union
forces. Kessler says many of those players were coerced by owners to sign union cards and
that his group has the support of a majority of players.
The courts will sort out which group is right and whether a courtroom or a conference
room is the proper place for owners and players to haggle. What’s clear is that the
league has been making a lot more money is recent years and that players haven’t
necessarily shared that wealth.
The most important thing to Arena fans is that the season appears to be a go again. It
would have been a shame for an up-and-coming league that has found a nice niche to see its
future scuttled by these disagreements. Fans can only hope that everyone involved realizes
that if the league dies, there won’t be any money to fight over anymore. |
