Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
They had ample opportunities to secure Olympic participation. They didnt take any of them.
And 'Because their employer wouldn’t let them go?'
Of course!
Their employer (<-Important term) had to pay their travel, accommodation, insurance and lose revenue from their primary business in exchange for......nothing.
|
Didn’t the IOC offer to pay the insurance premiums? In any event the league would have been more than happy to pay those costs had they signed the extension, the players simply didn’t agree to do so. But that didn’t stop the league from opting to participate anyways.
I think we’ve already been over the whole gate revenue from 82 games is the same if there is a 2 week break during the season.
Quote:
Yeah, I think thats an easy deal to pass on.
And then, magnanimously, they still offered terms for the players to participate in exchange for a lengthened CBA, etc, and the players (employees) didnt give so much as an inch.
|
Was the league’s offer negotiable? Hard to accuse them of not giving an inch if the only option was a yard.
Quote:
|
So yeah, they decided not to risk their business interests and pay for their employees to go to Korea in exchange for nothing.
|
Which they are well within their right to do.
Quote:
Seems pretty straightforward. The employees bargained collectively regarding what was important to them and they made it clear that Olympic participation was not included in that conversation.
Its 100% on the players. Nobody gets anything for nothing.
|
At the end of the day the league could have still opted to participate, had they offered to do so without the extension and the players responded by saying they’d only go if an extension with escrow language removed was put on the table as an offer then I’d agree it would be completely on the players. This however is a case where both(<-key word) sides couldn’t come to an agreement and so one side opted to use their right to deny the players the option to participate. I’m not even blaming the owners here, I’m just saying that putting all of the blame on the PA because they didn’t take a deal they didn’t want to take as if that was the only way they could have participated is a little misleading.