Vancouver Province
for August 27, 1999

When is a professional athlete not a professional athlete? The answer? When he plays in the Ryder Cup, Golf’s famous biannual test between the United States and Europe. And who is making a fuss about this? The very wealthy Tiger Woods and not nearly so wealthy but still very rich Mark O’Meara. Defending the status quo is the much loved, two time Masters champion, Ben Crenshaw, who feels that playing for one’s country should be compensation enough. Well, folks, I’m with Tiger and Mark.

This is labour dispute much as we have seen in major team sports. We bitch about the high salaries paid to players, especially hockey players, but let’s remember how the owners behaved when they had all the hammers. They screwed the players, that’s what they did, while they pocketed nearly all the dough. Even when they paid Babe Ruth $80,000 in the Depression and Ted Williams $100,000 in the post war era the owners made sure that this didn’t in any way ratchet up the wages of other players. And, even given the times, these salaries were miserly compared to what the stars were worth in added revenues. It was Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale’s "strike" in the 60s that told the story. Koufax noticed that whenever he or Drysdale pitched there were 50% more fans in Dodger Stadium. When this was forcibly brought to owner Walter O’Malley’s attention the two-man hold-out ended with big hikes to the pay packets in the pitchers pockets.

But it was TV revenues that really distorted the picture. The major players’ unions noticed that big league owners were making a lot of money out of TV and it occurred to them that no one at the ballpark or in front of the idiot box was there to see the owners in action. In fact, whenever owners showed their faces to the telly they invariably made horses’ asses of themselves. It took a couple of strikes to make owners understand that what they were selling was their stars’ performances. It was no different than the movie business – it was the performers, not the lechers pointing young virgins to the casting couch, who filled the theaters.

It can be fairly argued that the pendulum has swung too far the players’ way and shows no signs of swinging back. This is because many teams are owned by huge corporations who can write off losses as promotion costs meaning that a few rich franchises only have a real chance of winning and poorer franchises are cannon fodder. But that’s no argument against paying performers what their performances are worth – which is all Tiger and Mark O’Meara are asking.

A great lesson can be drawn from International Rugby which, until recently, was amateur with a few of the better players getting a bit of beer money under the table. Superb athletes playing for famous teams like the All-Blacks, Springboks and Lions were paid peanuts – all the money went back into the "game", meaning that hundreds of hangers-on got crested blazers and first class overseas travel for international matches. Rugby players have woken up and now make decent money.

Olympic athletes likewise cottoned on to the fact that there were television moneys floating into the corrupt pockets of blue-blazered and white-flanneled Olympic officials and they demanded and got money to perform.

Before big TV revenues – huge since Tiger came on the scene (Tiger, like Ella, Duke, Louis and Jackie requires no surname) - the Ryder Cup was a relatively ignored part of the golf year. The event is now making big money – about $15 million in 1998, probably about $25 million this year. This is because the event became more competitive after the format change (where the US played against all of Europe, not just the UK) and Tiger arrived (yes him again, his impact has been incalculable) with his charisma and incredible skills.

So where should the money go? Woods and O’Meara say a good chunk should go to the players.

Tiger promises his share would go to charity - he just wants to make a point.

But to a hell of a lot of Ryder Cuppers a half a mil or so is real money and isn’t the labourer always worthy of his hire?

Woods and O’Meara think so and I’m hard pressed to find any reason to say they’re wrong.