Greedy players and owners ruin sports

"Larry Bird" exemption in the agreements. The "Larry Bird" exemption allows for teams to re-sign their free agents even if they exceed the salary caps imposed by the league.

The owners want the exemption removed so teams can share the talent if they can only sign a certain amount of players.

RON D'ORAZIO

The National Basketball Association is finally following suit with what two other major sports have already done during this decade.

They are stopping a season from being started (or finished). In the 1990s, the National Hockey League has gone on strike and the players of Major League Baseball were locked out of their contracts.

This time it is the NBA owners who have shut the players out over their collective bargaining agreements.

Basically the players want to keep the

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The owners and players are arguing about the revenue-sharing process that spreads money earned from the big-market teams to the smaller-market teams.

The players want a bigger piece of the revenues while the owners want to keep a larger piece for the teams and themselves.

Really, what it comes down to is the fact that players want to make more money shooting a basketball and the owners want to keep it from them.

In a sport in which $100 million contracts are thrown out to players at random, one would think that money would not be an issue in keeping the season from beginning.

The thing that bothers me about this strike that did not seem to be as prominent in the earlier strikes is the players' attitudes and comments.

When Patrick Ewing, a player representative at the negotiations and center forward of the New York Knicks, said that the players were "fighting for their survival," it irked the heck out of me and, I am sure, out of a large portion of the sports fans in this country. Ewing only made $18 million plus whatever he made in endorsements last year, so it is almost certain that he will not survive.

Sixers' forward Theo Ratliff was heard complaining that he could have "trouble putting food on the table for his family."

Ratliff pulled down $700,000 for last season's work. This may not be as much as others in the league, but I doubt he will have trouble feeding his family unless he is mismanaging his funds.

Since the average fan working an average job would be considered lucky to clear $100,000 for the year, the players of the NBA seem like they have nothing to cry about.

Average people do not want to hear about the gripes of multi-millionaires who can't shoot a basket for money for a couple of

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Field Hockey

months.

Most of the people are really struggling to put food on the table for their families and put their kids through school.

The sports world becomes ever more tainted with each passing strike and lockout.

The fans are becoming more discouraged from shelling out money to see the games.

Just look at the attendance of the NHL games and MLB games after their laborstoppages. Both sports experienced signifi-~ cant drops in attendance. I will guarantee a drop in NBA attendance and income for the sport, especially if this whole season is cancelled, something that may just happen.

So, with no basketball until at least Christmastime, I will have to live with hockey. My question is, can the NBA players and owners live with themselves?

My answer to the problem is to quit the greed and play basketball for the sake of the fans, who pay the salaries.

RonD'Oraziois a seniormajoringin English/ communication.Heis oneof Loquttur'ssports editors.If hegrowsanotherfoottaller,hecan bea replacementplayerfortheNBA.