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Message: [QUOTE="The Yakk, post: 4842711, member: 9988"] I'm sure that's true from the owners' perspective. The fans' perspective is probably mixed. Maybe depends on which team you root for. Do you think it's true from the players' perspective? And whom do we need more, the owners or the players? The last 50 years of labor negotiations in pro sports is answering that for us. There is truth in this. The massive fan interest and revenue generated by pro sports has to be partly due to the perception of parity in the leagues, and to some level of roster continuity. It helps fans form attachments to teams. If you did away with the draft and made everyone in the world a free agent, for example, then who in their right mind would want to play in Oklahoma City? (Although maybe that's an argument that in a truly free market there would not be a team in OKC. But that's a different discussion. :)) Anyway, I tend to agree that if you made the player labor market completely free and unfettered then there is probably a lot less money to go around for everyone. But where is the fair balancing point? I think the athletes have a lot more to gain before we get there. It also strikes me how many fans take the owners' side in this as a matter of reflex. Is it really that simple? Do we feel the same way about our own jobs--that the boss is always right, and whatever they deign to pay us is fair? [/QUOTE]