If you holdout, you do not get paid until you come back. Period. That's invalidating a guarantee - not permanently (which, for the record, i did not say), but until you report again and perform. I'm not sure, as a result, why higher %s of a contract being guaranteed would provide any additional leverage to a player. It has no impact. It doesn't change the salary cap impact. It doesn't change the roster limitations.
I'd be open to an argument that maaaaaaybe guaranteeing it provides leverage because the team can no longer just cut you and say whatever, moving on...except that anyone good enough to actually hold out and have the team care (read: salary and talent are both high enough that it creates any kind of leverage to begin with) already has that, so I'm not seeing the change in leverage created.
Yep. That was my point and original thought. I'm not a dummy. I cleared 170 on the LSAT also. That's 99% of test takers. I'll take it. I went to a top 25 liberal arts school and Tier One law school after getting into some of the top ones also except that I got a full ride to the state one (state to remain unnamed). I can certainly read. I'm also smiling as I type this.
To the issue. You said a holdout would invalidate "guarantees" of some sort. You said, exactly:
"I'd be shocked if guarantees don't get invalidated by failure to perform your side of the contract,"
which I took to mean "any and all guarantees," "the guarantees," or "the guaranteed contract as a whole" and not "the part of the guaranteed contract the player isn't performing for." Because of course he's not getting compensated for no services. I'm thinking of year four out of eight and thinking of five, six, seven, and eight. He doesn't get paid for year four and his service time tolls but he's
guaranteed to get paid for five, six, seven, and eight so long as he determines or decides (at his discretion) to return.
I was indeed thinking that NFL teams have a lot of leverage with cutting a guy, especially if he doesn't count against the cap. It could have happened with Le'Veon Bell. I'm not sure exactly what amount of leverage that gives teams as it stands, but removing that option does give the player more than he had before because you cannot cut a guaranteed contract.
So what I was saying, which was:
"Right now, if a player holds out in the second year of a four-year contract there's no guarantee he's around for years three and four if he holds out. The team employs him at will. They no longer have that option. They no longer really employ him at will because they have to pay him those four years no matter what. He can blow off a year-and-a half, lose his money he would have gotten paid, and come back for the last half of three and four and get paid because it's guaranteed"
explicitly stated that was likely the leverage the player would have. You're sort of taking what I said, not acknowledging I said it, and then saying that the exact leverage I proposed the player would gain is the only increase in leverage the player would gain. I get there's limited time on message board, but that was pretty central to my point.
When you say I can see "an argument" maybe you mean "your argument" and not speculating that there might be "an argument" nobody has made. Because I had just made it. And the indefinite article leads one to believe you didn't read it or take it in, although that could be wrong.
It sounds like we're missing the communication boat. Perhaps Elena Kagan can teach us about language.
I also took Sports Law, Entertainment Law, IP stat/reg (Intro to the IP program, really), Copyright Law, Trademark Law (incomplete), and Patent Law. I audited Administrative Law after graduating, but that has no relevance here—I just feel like saying it because I knew
Chevron was toast if court composition changed in the slightest and Republicans were going after the administrative state back in 2012 (?) at the latest.
But I did not concentrate on sports like you nor have your expertise in sports. Our Sports Law professor was the guy who donated to Wesleyan, the Hartford Arts Independent Filmmakers (whatever they were called), and also successfully argued or proposed a counter-argument in a law review article he had written that was cited in the decision regarding the case for mp3 players to be legal under the DMCA (
Recording Industry ***'n. of America v. Diamond Multimedia Sys., Inc., 9th Circuit). He also got MSG channel in Middletown in the state we were in by threatening a class action against somebody (I think MSG or the cable company) and won that battle also, so not an agent or a GM but a sharp and very kind dude. His kid is a famous foreign affairs journalist (for that world), too, so the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.
And I did not do a quick internet search about baseball. I'd followed this up until around 2011, and the article I read was about Soriano and his holdout. And I qualified it by saying something like 'up until at least 2006,' which left a lot of wiggle room and undercut my own authority, so you know I'm not trying to pass anything off here.
You're an interesting debater. I hope we continue to add to the board together. Peace.
My best one is when R.C. Buford guest lectured one day and I walked him out to his car after and started with "I really hated the Spurs growing up," and he just got this blank "that's a really weird way to start this conversation" look on his face so I flushed red and explained the Bill Simmons concept of sports hate and how I was from Dallas and eventually tried to land it on "it was just frustrating because you've done such a good job for so long and Dallas always struggled to beat you." It wasn't a career ender, as I later worked for him as well down in SA. He probably doesn't even remember it.
