The New York Times, July 26, 2011, Tuesday

The New York Times

July 26, 2011, Tuesday

The New York Times (full article)

Avoiding the Next Sports Lockout

By GEORGE YORGAKAROS

George Yorgakaros is a 2011 graduate of the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

ON Monday the owners and players of the National Football League finally came to a revenue-sharing agreement, narrowly avoiding the cancellation of the 2011-12 season. Had the season been canceled, one study estimated, the economic hit could have been as high as $160 million and 3,000 lost jobs to each home-team city.

Given the high stakes involved in professional sports negotiations, it’s unlikely that we’ve seen the last owner-athlete labor dispute — indeed, there’s already a lockout in the National Basketball Association. But if we can’t prevent another lockout, there is a way to drastically reduce the risk of harm to the industry, fans and sports-dependent cities: change the rules of the pro-sports negotiating game.