Competitive sports is big business. I mean there is a lot of money to be garnered from these events. Thus, politics will inevitably get involved because there is a lot of money concerned. We in the Caribbean know all too well about politics being involved in sport.
Thus the NBA league in United States of America’s would be something new to us. But is it good business to let politics dominate the sport. I mean the NBA league was scheduled to start from late August but it will not begin until late December, because of contractual issues.
Thus, it is estimated that the losses will be in the billions. And not only that the fans will also suffer, because they are being cheated of a complete season of watching their teams perform. In effect, they will only get a “patch up” season of basketball. I know some local fans of these teams who will also have a strike of their own by not watching the “patch up” season of basketball.
We all know that politics is a part of sports and most people have come to
live with that. So when one particular player gets traded from one team to another, we understand that it is part of the sport. We will not like it if it is one of our favourite players leaving our team for a rival team, but we can’t change it. Although I am still crossing my finger in hope that Lionel Messi will stay at Barcelona indefinitely.
However I am not sure it can be business as usual when more than one hundred days of sporting action is being lost due to contractual issues. We are talking about one of the largest sporting franchises in North America!! Something should have been done at a more rapid pace to correct the issue. But then again the player’s concerns need to be ironed out.
We can congratulate the West Indies Cricket Board on one thing; when they had a similar contractual dispute with their players. They were able to put a second strong West Indies team together, who eventually lost the series badly against their opponent. And my point is politics cannot be divorced from sports; it is just something that the fans have to live with whether they like it or not.
