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An MLB Strike Threat Might Be The Players’ Only Leverage
There hasn’t been a strike in Major League Baseball for nearly 25 years. Not coincidentally, MLB’s owners and front offices are at this moment in arguably the strongest position they’ve occupied since before the Major League Baseball Players Association existed. They’re using it to implode free agen...

An MLB Strike Threat Might Be The Players’ Only Leverage
There hasn’t been a strike in Major League Baseball for nearly 25 years. Not coincidentally, MLB’s owners and front offices are at this moment in arguably the strongest position they’ve occupied since before the Major League Baseball Players Association existed. They’re using it to implode free agen...

Freelancing Sucks
You may have heard by now about Sports on Earth, the joint venture between MLB and USA Today that "laid off" a bunch of writers earlier in the week. Although the term "laid off" is a bit dicey: Technically speaking, the site only had a few full-time employees to begin with. Everyone else who wrote f...

The NFL Sacrificed Three Weeks Of Games On The Altar Of Bullshit Ideological Purity
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The NFL Lawsuit That Could Be Bigger Than The Bounty Scandal
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Minor League Baseball: The Last Bastion Of Acceptable Exploitation In Professional Sports (Not Counting The NCAA)
For every top-flight prospect apprenticing in the minors after receiving a multi-million dollar signing bonus, hundreds of players are drafted every year and get $1,000, tops. Salaries start at $1,100 a month, and the checks only come for half a year. As Lily Rothman says over at Slate, most of thes...

Last Night's Arena Football Season-Opener Was A Farce
Arena Football's 25th season kicked off last night, but it would be a stretch to call what was played in Orlando "football." A players' strike hours before kickoff meant both teams mostly used replacement players selected in a draft before the game, leaving NFL Network announcers without rosters a...

Your Guide To The Post-Lockout NFL World
The NFL lockout is supposed to end this week, possibly as early as today. And Lord help me, IT BETTER, or else I will personally void my bowels on Logan Mankins's head....

Exclusive: We've Obtained Audited Financials For The NFL League Office
These are audited financial statements for the NFL's league office, the nerve center of professional football, covering the years ended March 31, 2009, and March 31, 2010. The documents below deal with only one piece of NFL operations, and there aren't any obviously mind-melting revelations about th...

Roger Goodell Is Waving His Dick Around Only Because He Loves Us So Much
Roger Goodell said some bullshit yesterday that, I swear, the Serious Football Media would've tsk-tsked as "counterproductive rhetoric" had anything so disingenuous come out of De Smith's mouth. Here's what the commisioner told Tampa Bay season ticketholders in a conference call:...

The NFL Lockout Court Battle, Explained Via Pretty Word Clouds
Like bright colors? Hate the complexity of legal procedure? Well, not only are you the target audience for the NFL's lockout PR campaign, but you might also enjoy these visualizations we made out of the court documents from Brady et al v. National Football League. Above is a word cloud for all of th...

More Misplaced Rhetoric From Pro Football Talk
De Smith says the NFL is the "first league in the history of sports that has ever sued to not play their game," which, like a lot of slogans, isn't entirely accurate (the NFL hasn't sued), even if it accurately conveys the sense that the NFL is taking great pains to get its lockout. Mike Florio has ...

The Bizarre Cult Of Pro-Owner NFL Fanboys
Here's a tidy summation of how we've managed to get to where we are with the NFL lockout. A few years ago, the players and owners agreed to a new CBA, with only Ralph Wilson and Mike Brown voting against the agreement, in Wilson's case because he's old and easily confused by things....

NFL Lockout Back On (For Serious This Time)
First everyone reported that the 8th Circuit Court had issued a stay, putting the lockout back on. But then everyone said that, oops, no, nothing was decided yet. Well now they decided. Lockout!...

It's Only A Matter Of Time Before An NFL Team's Financials Are Leaked
Drew Magary's Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday during the NFL season. Find more of his stuff at his Twitter feed....

Dear Roger Goodell: This Is What A Typical NFL Career Looks Like
Roger Goodell recently took to the pulpit to debunk the popularly held notion that an NFL player's career lasts 3.5 years. The truth, Roger says, is that if you make an opening day roster as a rookie, your career will last almost six years; if you get drafted in the first round, it's nine years; and...

Here's What Confused NFL Players Are Doing This Morning
Showing up to work out, some of them. Except not really working out. And the ones that arrived are either union guys checking the lay of the land, or players openly concerned about their workout bonuses. Mostly, players walked in, hung around for a couple of minutes then went home. Everyone's pretty...

The NFL Lockout Is Over, At Least For A Few More Minutes
A federal judge has granted the players an injunction against the league, effectively ending the lockout. As soon as the decision is made public, the owners plan to request a stay of the injunction, effectively re-starting the lockout. [ESPN]...

What Does The Splinter Group Of Players Mean For The Lockout?
A group about 70 less rich, less famous NFL players are about to hire their own law firm to get them a seat at the bargaining table. What does this mean? Like everything else in tightlipped lockout land, who the fuck knows? But here's our best interpretation....

Could The 2012 NFL Draft Become A Double Megadraft?!
I had to go an '80s-themed party with my wife on Saturday night. And I have no clue how they do this, but women always seem to have outfits for themed parties ready on their person at all times. "Oh, there's an '80s party? Let me just grab my oversized Esprit T-shirt, leg warmers, and hair crimper! ...