Sports locks

Unions have been in the media a lot lately, and teachers’ unions in Wisconsin have come under fire from the local government and sports unions have been blocked by equipment owners. So what professional sports have had lockouts, and what have been the short-term and long-term results of them?

Hockey and the NHL never really took off in the US, and they enjoyed success the way other major sports have. That hasn’t been helped by the league’s financial mismanagement, labor disputes and lockouts. The first owner-imposed work stoppage was during the 1994-1995 season and resulted in the season being shortened from 84 games to 48 games.

In the 2004-2005 “season”, the NHL was completely blocked, becoming the first major sport to lose an entire season to a work stoppage. The NHL resumed operations the following year and with its new collective bargaining agreement it has been on a solid footing ever since, increasing attendance and revenue through better financial planning, management and marketing.

Basketball has long been a popular sport in the US, and the NBA has hosted the best players in the world. However, they have not been without their own work problems, the first of which occurred during the 1995 season. A second lockdown reduced the 1998-1999 season from 82 games to 50 games and canceled the All-Star Game. The San Antonio Spurs would finish as short-season champions in the first of several titles.

On July 1, 2011, NBA owners banned players for the third time in league history. At this time there has been no progress on a new collective agreement and many players are considering playing basketball in other countries if the season is lost.

Soccer has arguably supplanted baseball as our nation’s pastime, with spectator audiences and attendance records being set and then broken year after year. This year, however, there was almost no season.

In 2008, the owners chose to exit the last 2 years of the CBA with the players, which means that there was no agreement after the 2010 season. In March 2011, with the breakdown of negotiations and the decertification of the NFLPA, the owners excluded the players.

The lockout lasted until July of the same year and is the longest labor dispute in NFL history, largely because it took place in the off-season. The only casualty on the field of the lockout was the Hall of Fame Game, a preseason game between the St. Louis Rams and the Chicago Bears, which was canceled.

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