Hockey Strike: The False Economics of Ego

The hockey world (at least in North America) is on strike right now.  Big news if you're a fan, and less so if you're not.  They're arguing about money, revenue splits and the like. All interesting if you're involved, but again - not in the least interesting if you're not involved.

All of it though is premised on the assumption of some growth - i.e. the revenue sharing future driven from the growing popularity of their sport.  That was a fine argument to have at the outset before they actually went on strike.  But, like any threat, the power was in the fear intrinsic in the threat itself, and not in the execution of the threat.  What I mean by that is that by actually going on strike and cancelling their games, they have placed the popularity of the sport itself into doubt.  That means any discussion about how to divide up the pennies because they're growing more popular is now based on an assumption that is no longer real.

Look at what happened to baseball from their strike in the mid 1990's.  The sport as a whole sunk and it's taken years to bounce back. By some accounts it hasn't completely recovered yet, as the NFL became the most popular and most followed professional sport in the US.

Hockey which already had seasonality going against it (the Florida or California teams contradiction of being on ice in the heat) as a whole sport will also be set-back significantly. 

The false economics of ego - the players and owners blindness to the fact that they will not maintain a potential fan's wallet-share of attention will result in a long term set-back to an otherwise interesting winter past-time.  It's a shame they don't see that, but I suspect they'll get what they deserve as the outcome.