A Cheap Shot at Injured Professional Athletes

One thing I can say for California political leadership-it knows on which side its bread is buttered. Employees (i.e. voters, who outnumber manager voters by a considerable margin) have one of the most friendly legal environments in the country as result of California political largess. But the entertainment industry, long a source of California revenue, prestige, and political donations, has usually enjoyed a privileged spot with respect to California labor laws, employment rules, and the like.

And by entertainment industry, I'm including the National Football League, and professional sports teams generally. California has three NFL teams, four NBA teams, three NHL clubs, and five Major League Baseball teams. And that doesn't even include USC with its questionable amateur athletes.  Professional sports puts up a lot of ticket sales, television revenue, parking, and a much high-powered athletic talent to show up at your party, fundraiser, and film premiere. So it's perhaps not too surprising that the state recently modified its workers compensation law, one of the most generous in the nation, to cut off claims from retired athletes who did not work for California-based teams, but played some of their games in California. Specifically, because California's liberal standard allows workers to get compensation for accumulated trauma (that is, injuries that resulted from repetitive stress or impacts over a long period), approximately 4500 NFL players who played games in the state are filing claims for workers compensation under California law.

Now the state of California is not on the hook for these claims-they revert back to the individual workers compensation insurance carried by the various teams. But California law allows an avenue for injury compensation that is not available in many states, and so players who could not get compensated in their states of employment are filing in California (here are links to claims from the various pro sports leagues filed in California). Under heavy pressure from the major sports leagues, but particularly the NFL (which sees the repetitive brain injury issue looming large), the legislature and the governor passed a law closing out the ability of these players to file for compensation.

I find this highly troubling-this is not a situation where uninjured players are scamming the workers compensation system for money that is undeserved (California has a long history of this type of problem). Virtually all of these individuals are suffering the effects of athletic injuries that did not manifest themselves until years after their playing careers ended. This is precisely why states enacted workers compensation systems, and I think it's highly dishonest of the NFL, and of California political leadership, to cut off a perfectly ordinary and proper vehicle for these gentlemen to be compensated for their injuries.

UPDATE:  Remember when I said that California has a history of people filing undeserved workers compensation claims? Here is a somewhat sarcastic take on a classic example.

NHL Labour Woes--It's Different in Canada

So you're a big-time hockey team owner and you decide that you simply aren't making enough money.  You look across the street to where your NFL friends run their business, and enviously think about their restructuring their collective bargaining agreement with hard salary caps, reduced revenue percentages for the players, and a relatively streamlined discipline system. You also note that virtually every NFL team is in the black, while a number of your hockey team owning colleagues are either just barely breaking even or actually losing money.

You know the collective bargaining agreement is about to expire with your hockey union, and, taking a page out of the NFL and NBA owners manual, you decide to hardball the players union by threatening to lock out the players and force them to live on their savings for a while.

So far so good right? But there's a small fly in your union busting ointment-namely, that unlike the NFL and NBA, the NHL has a number of teams in Canada. Specifically, the NHL has teams in Québec, Ontario and Alberta, provinces that have their own labour laws that limit unilateral actions by ownership in these cases. In the United States, state laws cannot override or affect federal labor law; so local ordinances like this are not an issue. But not only do our Canadian neighbours spell "labour law" differently, their provincial legal codes are enforceable, even in situations where there is a nationwide, multi-province employer in question.

It looks like several of the clubs will not be able to lock out their players without either approval by provincial labour boards, or by taking steps to secure what's called a "lockout vote", as well as mediation, in Alberta  (the statute is here, the lockout provisions are in Division 13).  For teams in those provinces, at least, the players will be allowed to show up, and collect compensation. Whether the rest of the owners will collectively fund that arrangement remains to be seen. But it raises an interesting question for multinational sports leagues trying to adopt a consistent position with respect to their clubs and their employees.  Stay tuned.

Social Media - The Rise of Twitter in Pro Sports

I talked earlier about how pro sports leagues are moving to restrict the use of social media by individual athletes and coaches just before and during games, and for obnoxious behavior in general.  But what if a team was posting to the fan base?

The LA Kings, a wildly unlikely hockey success this year, have apparently mastered the art of snarky tweeting, something that endears them to sportswriters and sports blogs, and the fan base as well.  The tweet above, for example, shows a post following a King victory over the Vancouver Canucks, who I guess are not really well-liked outside of British Columbia.

I'm not sure how the NHL deals with this--I suppose the team could be fined since it's the front office representative that's doing the sassing, but it's hard to ignore the fact that the practice is driving a lot of interest to the site and the feed.  And that's the whole idea in the entertainment biz.

Does this undercut the League policy with respect to the players?  A little, but if it leads to more revenue, I suspect that the front office will turn a blind eye/ear to the occasional riling tweet from LA.