The social and cultural landscape of our world is ever-changing both outside of sports and inside sports. However, much of the changes seem to happen more rapidly outside of the sports world. The easy finger point to the culprit would be to extend an index finger in the direction of the owners and front office. In most cases, that assertion would most definitely be the correct one. For decades we have seen owner after owner mismanage their roster, waste players’ careers and destroy what positive culture was surrounding the team in the first place. There is an owner up in Washington D.C. that comes to mind. However, we have also seen players put their respective teams in terrible situations. We have seen players under contract refuse to play until they get a much bigger and longer contract. We have also seen plenty of players put their teams in cap hell by garnering a large contract only to never bring back that value or even play the entirety of their contract. The fact of the matter is, there is an issue in sports and both sides (the front office and the players) believe that the other is at fault. Of course, there are a multitude of other issues at hand in sports; social justice, team names, criminal justice, etc. The main focus here is to zero in on the general divide between players and owners and how to, in essence, attempt to bridge that gap. Although I don’t foresee anything below as generally groundbreaking, some things just need to be said.
The Owners
The people at the forefront of many issues within professional sports are, in fact, the owners. They are, so to speak, the money. They make the money and they pay everyone involved with their franchise. I am sure it is a much more stressful job than many would believe. We can all understand an owner wanting to make and keep their money, every move and transaction is “strictly business” as many would like to say. As humans we tend to fondly look back on how things were when we were growing up and refer to them as “the good old days”. For my generation it is the big hits in football or the 24/7 around the clock sports highlight driven Sportscenter of old. What is important to understand, though, is that not everything in this perceived “Golden Era” were truly positive things. The ginormous, bone-crushing hits of the early 2000s, for example. Was it exciting to see Brian Dawkins screaming upfield to annihilate a defenseless Reggie Bush? Absolutely. However, the last effect those brutal collisions have on both players is simply not worth it. Yes, we miss the hits. But the growth we have made is much better for everyone involved. I believe many owners live in this mindset as well. They may not refer to it as “The Good Old Days” but they may use phrases similar to “how things should be”. At the onset of most leagues in America the roles were clearly defined. Players play, coaches coach and the owner and front office take care of everything else. This is where the infamous phrase “shut up and play” began to coalesce. The phrase may not have been coined at the beginning of these leagues but the idea was simple enough. Players play, if they have an issue keep it quiet and bring it up with someone. The owner is paying them to play, not raise awareness of issues that could lose the owner money. It is these days that many owners look back on as “how things should be”(although there are most assuredly a handful of owners who are thinking more about when every team was the same color and I’m not talking about their uniforms). They write the checks so they dictate what the players say and how they should behave. After all, we do live in America and last time I checked most Americans believe money is power. I believe that there is a power imbalance in professional sports. In the fact that the owners have too much of it. However, the owners still deserve some power. As stated above, it is their money being spent on various people and improvements around their team. In addition the owner needs to cover their end as well and stay secured with the overall size of their investments. Now, stick with me here as I attempt to do the impossible. Make you feel sorry for owners of professional sports teams.
Carl Crawford, Gilbert Arenas and Brock Osweiler are three examples across three different sports of lucrative contracts that didn’t pan out. When I say they didn’t pan out I am by no means saying they sucked. Players with large contracts like Albert Pujols, Robinson Cano or Michael Vick (Eagles) are examples of players who signed very large contracts but weren’t utter failures. All three brought value to the team, just not the value they had been hoping for. In one of the most famous cases Bobby Bonilla has handcuffed the Met’s for years with a contract that has been continually paid out to him although he isn’t even playing in the league. There are countless times where teams are put in horrible situations because they are paying a player on their team almost a quarter of the team's total salary. Now, oftentimes in these situations the teams have made these beds and they must lay in them. When these large contracts are written up and signed upon there is an expectation between both parties. The team is signing this contract to pay the player the desired amount and to not make their lives or careers miserable while they do so. The owners are shelling out this cash because they are paying for a successful player both on and off the field, if they don’t get that they are often stuck with that player until the contract expires. Chris Davis with the Orioles is an example of that in the current MLB landscape. Year in and year out almost every team has a player on the books that fans will describe as a “terrible contract”. Your team either has one currently or had one recently. These contracts are terrible for at least two reasons, the team overpaid or the player underperformed. Sadly, both can be true and it happens a lot. Sometimes, when a contract is bad but not to the point of putting a team in “cap hell” a team will simply cut the player without the completion of their contract. If a contract is too large a team has to simply keep the player or hope a team will trade for them (Carson Wentz comes to mind right now). The first situation is hurtful to the player. The second situation negatively affects the team. This is not a one way relationship, though. The owners are only fifty percent of the equation.
The Players
With social media and a much stronger voice the players are being more vocal on these tough to speak about issues. This truly contrasts the leagues of old where players just shut up and play. Many owners would prefer if their players continued to keep their mouths shut and helped their teams win games. The reasoning behind this is that it oftentimes causes unrest between the teams and their fans. If fans are unhappy with players on their favorite team then they won’t support the team and that, of course, affects the owners and their wallets. This, in turn, puts the owners in quite the predicament. Who’s happiness means more to the owner? Their fans or their players? The fact of the matter is, it should be the players. That is who you are paying and who is a part of your organization. Also, in all reality, if your team is good fans will show up. Almost every empty stadium is due to poor scheduling (middle of the week day game for MLB) or terrible teams. Too many times, the owner and front office will side with the fans in hopes of not losing out on any money. When the front office does decide to side with the athletes it is often too little, too late or even a tad tone-deaf. It can be pretty obvious that the athletes get the short end of the stick a majority of the time. However, this does not totally mean the athletes are always right. Again, we have seen plenty of players demand a large contract and fail to produce remotely close to the value necessary to defend that contract. We also see players hold-out and refuse to play or practice until they either get an extension or get traded. Both demands stem from different issues. If you don’t understand the importance of a contract extension, look at Dak Prescott. He didn’t get one and lost his entire season due to injury. Luckily for him, the Cowboys looked lost with any other quarterback. This is rare where oftentimes the player is left in the dust to try and find a new contract in free agency. Or, they receive the label “injury prone” to lessen the contract. The second reason, players wanting off a team can get a little more murky and mainly where this article comes into play. More times than not a player wants off of a team because there is either terrible culture or the team has been historically bad and criminally wasted said player’s career. So, let’s zero in there.
The Fix
“It’s a business” is one of the most tired excuses given to teams who treat their players poorly and waste their career. But, since there is such a large crowd who wants to throw that around we will roll with it. Since professional sports is a business, a large one at that, what do a large majority of businesses talk about when you apply for a job there? One of the first things they will highlight is their culture. The fact that employees love working there, they are a part of a family and they give all their employees the support they need to succeed. They say this because all companies work best when the people who work there are happy and want to be there. More importantly, if they don’t enjoy working there so they will quit. Hiring new employees to replace them becomes difficult because they begin to earn the reputation of having a bad culture. You know what many businesses cannot do? Refuse to allow an employee to quit. However, on the other side, if someone isn’t producing to the ability they are hoping for a business has no issue cutting ties and feeling zero remorse. Essentially, if we look at professional sports through the lens of a business then it truly should go both ways. I believe there needs to be more of an emphasis on overall team culture and organizations need to begin viewing their players as equals and ensuring their satisfaction with being a part of the organization. Now, by no means am I suggesting teams start throwing pizza parties to raise morale. Even worse, I don’t propose buying everyone DoorDash gift cards. It should be a simple strategy and all the exceptional businesses do it. Be transparent with what you are trying to accomplish (most would call this a mission statement) and what you are going to do to get there. Almost every team will have the same goal, winning a championship. The only thing that should alter across teams is the “how”. Remember, everyone in the organization wants to win a championship and if they don’t they probably shouldn’t be there. This message needs to come from the top, down. The front office needs to be as transparent as possible. Back to the business side. If you are in a job and you don’t see a vision of growth or evolution, how long will you stay there? Nothing great can be achieved with only a parcel of your group on board. If you are a team looking to rebuild, let the players know that by explaining how you are going to build something that will last. Get the organization on board and you can accomplish great things. The Rockies and company have seen the writing on the wall. How can you truly believe they are in a position to compete when you have seen what the Dodgers and Padres (in the same division) have put together. Do the current players on that roster have an understanding of their vision to win a World Series? If they didn’t before they do after seeing them ship off, cornerstone, Nolan Arenado. With it becoming increasingly clear they are in a rebuild of sorts, will other players ask to be traded? It is what teams do with these players that can have a lasting impact on the league’s view on them as an organization.
The Houston Texans have had many hands dig them into a hole. Every day they spend refusing to trade Deshaun Watson they are digging themselves a deeper and deeper hole. Their first step once they found out he was upset was to address the problem immediately and attempt to rectify the relationship. If they found out through the media and not from Deshaun himself then that is an issue in itself. Based upon what they have done with their team. Somehow managing to flip their team from one that had the future Super Bowl champion Chiefs on the ropes in the playoffs, to a near bottom feeder. There aren’t many players that would be pleased with this turn-around. If, in time, they failed to sort out their situation with Watson then they would need to move forward and look to trade him, which is what he is asking for. I understand they still need to get value for a player of his caliber and it may be hard to do. However, it is their fault they are in this position in the first place. As a front office, here is why the Texans now HAVE to trade Watson. When it comes to players, especially the talented ones, an organization's goals should be to retain them and attract more of them. By failing to do number one (egregiously I might add) they are also putting themselves in a position to fail at number two. In Super Bowl 55 the Buccaneers scored four touchdowns against the Chiefs. Every single one of them was scored by a free agent signing and three were thrown by a free agent signing. Now, you can attribute the signings of Antonio Brown and Rob Gronkowski to Tom Brady (you could make a case for Fournette as well). But, why did Brady decide on Tampa Bay? They hadn’t been to the playoffs for THIRTEEN years. Many would say they were perennial losers at that rate. For starters they had a solid roster (some bottom feeders cannot say the same) but they also had a culture that a guy like Tom Brady felt confident in. The same case can be made for a guy like Peyton Manning. In many cases a player will choose a team because of the money and in some cases, predominantly baseball, money is synonymous with successful teams. However, there are many times where a free agent doesn’t go to a team that is a consistent winner and sometimes will even take less money to go to a team. This is simply because they believe in the culture and the vision that the organization has. If the Texans force Watson to miserably play through the entirety of his contract they will struggle to get any free agents to take a pay cut to play for them, or even come at all. The Jaguars went through a similar issue when nearly the entire defense either walked or demanded to be traded shortly after the championship run.
With the recent idiocracy that happened surrounding the Seattle Mariners it is clear to see that there is absolutely an issue and with every passing day the problem lies more and more with the owners. There were absolutely a handful of things said by Mather that were both dumb and close-minded. However, the problem isn't in what he said. The problem is that he felt comfortable enough to openly discuss these inside topics. Not only that, but he BRAGGED about these things, to the Rotary Club. Without them even asking him to. The other problem here is that much of what was said isn’t from a new topic. Everyone knows that teams toy with players ‘careers to benefit their own pockets. It is known that teams will low-ball players and take advantage of ANY situation that will benefit them financially. The fact of the matter is, there are loopholes in the system across the board in professional sports. Sadly, these loopholes tend to benefit the owners and management of the team. That needs to change, the owners have the ability to try again with new teams, new players and new coaches. If they fail, which they often do, they don’t get fired or “resigned”. They just pick up the pieces and try again, like it is some sort of game. These players only have one career, to make a living and make an impact. If their career is wasted by incompetent management they can’t pick up the pieces and ask for a redo. Their career is just... done. To put it plainly, the players main goal is to play the game and play the game well. However, they need to be able to do that without the owners playing with their careers and lives.
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