You Got No Right

Just a brief rant here, because it's late-ish, but I want to get it out while I'm thinking about it. I know I occasionally talk about sports on here, and this pertains to sports, but it's kind of a common sense thing as well. One of the startling trends in the NFL recently is players holding out, refusing to report to training camp, preseason games and, occasionally, regular season games until their demands to have their contracts restructured are met. Their reasoning is that the team will have to pay them, because they are impact players, and the team will be substantially weaker without their services, and the pressure will mount on the team from the fans to just give the player whatever they want, so that the team will not suffer. The current big case of this involves New York Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis, a phenomenal player, perhaps the best in the league at his position. Revis' current contract is for three more years, and would pay him about a million dollars this season. He is believed to be asking for a contract in the neighborhood of ten years and $160 million.

Putting aside, for a moment, my personal belief that no athlete, professional or otherwise, should be paid $160 million or anything close to it, it can be easily argued that Revis ought to be among the most well-compensated players at his position. In an ideal world, each player would be paid in accordance with their contributions, and his are significant. In reality, though, a good player is paid essentially whatever he wants, because he will always be able to find a team that wants his services enough to give him what he wants. In this sort of system, the player has all of the leverage, because he plays to the fans, appeals to their desire to put the best possible team on the field, and it's easy for them to protest to the team to give him the money, because it's easy to spend money that's not yours. So if a player such as Darrelle Revis believes that he is not being adequately compensated, it is easy for him to say that he is going to hold out, that he will not play for the team until his demands are met. Of course, the team could always turn around and paint the player as greedy and ungrateful (they would be right), but that sours the relationship between the team and the player, and for whatever reason, the fans don't care, they just want that good player to be on their team!

You know what we call it at any other job if you decide you aren't being paid enough, so you're not going to show up until you get a raise? We call it, your ass is fired! We call it, breach of contract! That's not exactly right either, workers ought to be able to collectively bargain to improve their wages and/or working conditions, but your average worker is not complaining if he's making a million bucks a year (not that you ever see that). My real gripe here is not that players are demanding to be paid more money than you or I can even conceive of as a real number (though that is another disturbing trend itself). The real issue is that Darrelle Revis or whatever other player is holding out agreed to that original contract! If they are not happy with the contract, they should not have signed it in the first place. If they signed it anyway, they have no right to complain and should garner no sympathy from anybody. That player should damn well live with the contract he agreed to, be happy that he is still being paid so handsomely, and negotiate for more when that contract runs out.

You are not allowed to complain about a situation that you caused yourself to be in! That's the lesson for today, kids.