Will you go back?

[letekro]

It's more than that. Sports are part of the fabric of society, and Kraft himself has said he considers himself the custodian of a public trust. Whether you believe he's sincere about that is up to you. But if he's not, he should be. The Green Bay Packers are the ultimate example of that philosophy in action.

Again, his legal duty is to the corporation, which operates solely to make a profit. I haven't seen the Packers' organizational documents, but their Board likely has a duty to operate in the best interests of its members (its "shareholders", i.e., its fans), which is a wholly different legal reality. Of course if you're arguing that moral responsibility takes precedence over legal duty, that's a whole different argument.

 

[sbpatfan]

Definitely. The reason why I stopped watching hockey after the lockout was because they changed the sport to complete crap. I liked watching the Red Wings and Avalanche beat the living hell out of each other with guys like Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic. I don't enjoy watching the league protect Cindy as he ****yfoots around the ice.

 

[Armen Da Pats Fan]

The fans haven't missed anything yet. It will probably be business as usual come September too. We'll all be in our seats and in front of the widescreens.

As far as Millionaires Vs Billionaires.....we see that every time a player holds out for more money with a club. Who's losing their football fandom over that?

Well, I was really just asking, but to answer your question, "one player, one club" is a whole heck of a lot different then the entire league and ALL the players, isn't it?

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

Yes I'll go crawling back like a little *****

 

[convertedpatsfan]

I find it absurd that fans would take this personally and especially absurd that some of you are already plotting your own form of protest/revenge against Bob Kraft. Were any of you under the impression that Bob Kraft or any other owner bought into the NFL to promote peace and harmony among mankind? Sure, a business owner may derive satisfaction from having a satisfied customer base, but he will always negotiate and operate with the interests of his business first and foremost in mind (even if it upsets his customers), and in fact, he owes a fiduciary duty to the business and its other owners to do just that. Some of you just sound unbelievably naive.

As a counterpoint, I find posts like yours incredibly apathetic and defeatist, no offense.

Many fans know and understand it's a business. And we also know we have no direct impact on how negotiations are done or how the two sides conduct business.

Sure, it's naive to think the players and owners care about the fans. But it's equally naive to think fans have zero influence on the finances of the game. There was a time baseball was king, and we've seen that popularity decline. The NBA saw huge growth stagnate quite quickly. Individual sports which used to rule the US like boxing and tennis gave way to team sports in just a few decades.

There was a time IBM ruled computers, and AOL ruled the internet. Just because something is dominant now doesn't guarantee it's dominance forever.

I also think people tend to feel powerless to impact large situations. It's not about hurting the owners or players to the point they go bankrupt. That's not going to happen. But considering the last owner's offer projected a 20% growth in revenues over 4 years, even stagnant revenues would send a significant message to both sides before the next CBA. A 10 to 15% drop in viewership numbers would seriously impact the record TV deals the NFL received last time around. Season ticket sales were already declining due to the economy, which continues a 3-year trend of declining season ticket sales for the league. That was before the lock-out.

You can go on and on and on about how it's stupid and pointless to discuss such things and naive to think it will matter at the end of the day. But that would ignore a lot of reality.