The Business of Sports

Professional sports have grown too big for the sports pages. With the 107 franchises in pro baseball, basketball, football and hockey worth a combined $11.4 billion, sports developments also receive detailed coverage in the nation's business and financial press. Moreover, conflicts between team owners and players have made sports law an increasingly attractive specialty for attorneys. The recently ended National Hockey League lockout and the ongoing major-league baseball strike are only the latest in a long string of similar collective-bargaining showdowns. Sports fans, meanwhile, complain of neglect by both players and management. However, recent public opinion polls and the full houses that greeted the belated start of the hockey season suggest fans are eager to forgive and forget, as they have always done in the past.