One way or another, both the NFL & NCAA FB will have a a season in 2020/21.

It would take something terribly epic to stop that.

I really hope & pray something terribly epic doesn't occur (FB or no FB).

As long as most or all of the governors of the states in which SEC teams are located are on board, I don't know why the SEC couldn't just have the SEC football season. Same with Big12. NCAA would throw a fit, but in the end I'd think they would back down (as they are already starting to do).

And as jt has said NFL can be played anywhere.

sports.

The SEC calls the shots; the NCAA commissioner has already backed off on the idea that students need to be on campus for fall sports to commence, and he's already basically left it up to the schools.

I do know that sports are among the last things on their list as they "open up" and I do know that a Santa Clara state supervisor (Santa Clara is where the Niners play) said that he couldn't envision professional sports until Thanksgiving at the least.

with that said, Newsome met with Rob Manfred (commissioner of MLB) and the discussions were seen as positive and while certain places might not be open for games at the beginning of July there was optimism that they would be by the end of the month.

Of course the key thing is that there wouldn't be fans at those games.

consequences of the pro sports and their athletes not playing in their state. California has 17 pro teams with many high paid athletes. They get no tax revenue from teams or athletes unless the games are played in the state. Newsom has changed his tune recently as other states have said his teams can play in their states (Arizona, Florida).

hard to disagree.

brain fart.

Ultimately, the Owners, Commissioners, Presidents, Athletic Directors & Coaches will not have a say in where & when sports will come back & when. That is up to individual jurisdictions. MLB, the NBA & the NFL have been gung ho to get going, but Mayors & Governors have already said that the White Sox, Cubs, Giants & As won't be having games. & most of the plans I've read about, including Baseball & Basketball include no fan participation. I just don't see the possibility of having fans @ games in the Fall. The Budesliga started today & it was eerie, somewhat painful and completely bizarre to watch without fans. The experience just isn't the same. It's like watching 6 year olds & kind of made me wonder, wtf is the point???

is that professional teams (your examples--White Sox, Cubs, Giants, and A's--I could include Dodgers, Angels and Padres as well) can all play in a different state until their facilities are ready. There aren't going to be fans there anyway.

I don't know why you choose to ignore that, as it seems to be a pretty big thing. Now, as it relates to college sports that is indeed a completely different story. San Diego State, for example, is unlikely to practice and play in Phoenix while CA gets ready. That's a very legitimate concern. However, IMO you need to start thinking about pro sports and collegiate sports differently.

As to the fans, they have talked about having limited numbers of fans at events in the fall; baseball players are pretty used to playing in front of no crowds as they mostly come up through the lower minors with games on back fields of spring training complexes, etc. I'm not as confident about basketball, but they'll likely work through it for a month or so without much trouble.

Professional athletes are employees of the states where the team is located. If they start having their players play games when the states are not open, they are going to be opening themselves up for employment lawsuits and likely contractual lawsuits if anything goes wrong. They might be able to get themselves some protections through negotiating with the players' associations, but that is unlikely to do much on an individual player basis.

they are most certainly not state employees.

And this is all governed by a collective bargaining agreement anyway. The individual players agree to go with the union and the cba and the union would litigate on their behalf.

In other words, moot point or not, your entire post is not very good and completely incorrect.

I think this is one point where having unions/collective bargaining will end up being very beneficial to the owners.

In order for professional sports to come back, the league involved and their player association will have to come to a deal that includes everything from financial issues to safety procedures. I would assume that as long as the organization holds up their end of the bargain in terms of meeting whatever safety requirements were agreed upon in the deal (and any state/local law, of course), they will end up being much more protected than in a non-union situation (especially in a blue state, where many professional teams are).

remaining hurdle, and they are substantial.

It's by far the biggest issue in baseball, where the CBA has no connection between revenue and salaries. Then not to mention the league/PA signed an agreement on how to proceed with a shortened season in March, but didn't include any per-game salary reductions in case of a crowd-less (or crowd-light) season.

In the NFL and NHL, the salary cap is tied to league revenues (in the NHL, players actually have part of their salary held in escrow until the actual league revenue for that season is known...they could lose some/all if revenues are below expectations, get it back if revenues match expectations, or get extra money if revenues are above expectations), so although there can be some minor issues to take care of, the big issue of "what do we do if revenues are slashed" pretty much takes care of itself. I don't follow the NBA nearly as closely, but I understand their salary cap is based on league revenue as well.

The winter sports were reaching the conclusion of their regular seasons, and the owners and players had received a substantial amount of the revenue and pay. Obviously missing the playoffs or having no fans would have impact.

MLB and the NFL face an uncertain revenue stream, depending whether fans are allowed to attend games to any degree. Most of us have suspicions that some MLB and most NFL teams make a good deal of money.

That's around 150 million per team.

Baseball is in trouble. Baseballs national TV contract with ESPN is
1 billion, about 32 million per team. Without fans in the stands, most teams will lose a ton of money.

which is the same as the NBA split. The NFL player share is 47%. The MLB players are pushing back against the revenue split for a variety of reasons. I don't follow MLB that closely, but I've been reading some opinion columns suggesting the players may choose to sit out 2020 if a deal isn't reached. The collective bargaining agreement expires after next season.

they leaked it out there and the players and Scott Boras got pissed off, as they see it as a way around what was already negotiated. The owners supposedly have an email chain from March which shows that the union agreed to negotiate more if the games went on without fans.

It's a tough and complicated situation.

When players enter into bad deals (either collectively as a CBA or individually in contract negotiations), the general mindset is "Hey, it's business. You agreed to a bad deal. It's on you." There obviously is some reality to that. But it never seems to go the other way.

Along with those splits that the NFL, NBA, and NHL have, the books are essentially open. That is not the case in the MLB, and owners still aren't willing to open the books. Also, there is a salary floor that all teams must adhere too. There is no salary floor in MLB either, and they don't want one. So the MLB owners are asking for all the benefits of a revenue-sharing agreement with the players, but aren't doing any of the other things that go along with it. They want the best of both worlds.

Listen, this is a unique situation. I'm not saying the players shouldn't be willing to negotiate and give some. But a huge part of this is on the owners. THEY agreed to a CBA that did not tie salaries to revenue. THEY have always refused to open the books. THEY signed a deal about the 2020 season that did not include per-game salary reductions in case of no or limited crowds.

But this is America. If you're rich enough, profits are always looked at as good, smart business and capitalism (while anything that costs them money is shouted down as socialism), but losses aren't their fault need to be fixed by socialism.

the players don't want a system where the pay is tied to revenue as they see it as a salary cap and they'd never agree to a salary cap. What is basically being said at this point is that the players agreed to a pro rated salary based on number of games played (true) and the owners are saying that, while they did agree to that, both sides agreed to continue to negotiate if fans couldn't attend the games (in dispute).

Nobody has made any formal proposals as of yet and the owners are again negotiating in bad faith by leaking things to the press before taking it to the players. I believe that the owners see an opportunity here with the weaker (than in the past) leadership in the mlbpa.

never would have happened in the Don Fehr era.

I agree with all that.

But I also think that if the owners want the cost certainty of the players getting a certain percentage of the revenue, they also need to do the other things that the other leagues are doing. Opening the books is a huge one.

Is this a true "employer/employee relationship" or is this a partnership? If it's an employer/employee relationship, the players have no right to the books...but risks like economic issues like this also fall on the owners (until they choose to pass it on to the players via future individual contract negotiations and the upcoming CBA negotiations). If it's a partnership, then that's a different issue.

But who in their right mind would agree to revenue sharing if the other side isn't showing you the true revenue?

this is decades of mistrust.

so the whole thing is moot

Which will be interesting to see. There's actually a fairly decent write up about that too. & sure, the players may be used to playing in front of no fans, but those watching on tv may have a hard time wrapping their head around it. Maybe we'll get used to it. I do agree with you about basketball, it's going to be harder, especially considering the close contact & sweating, which is why they shut down so quickly. But, if there's a way to do it safely, for the sake of the $, they'll find it.