If there is a strike, the players will lose.


It doesn't matter what side you're on, whether you think the players are greedy and spoiled and the owners are white knights trying to keep this frail little operation afloat, or whether you think the owners are corporate fat cats reaping huge profits and living high on the hog off of the underpaid backs of working class dreamers, the reality is simple enough. If there is a strike, the players will lose.


The MLS Players' Union has drawn free agency as its line in the sand. The owners have said it's not happening. If there is no agreement, there will be a strike. If there is a strike, the players will lose.


In the other big American sports leagues, it's billionaires versus millionaires, and the billionaires win. Most MLS players are trying to keep up with their car payments, not buying fleets of Bentleys. The players simply do not have the financial wherewithal to outlast the owners. If there is a strike, the players will lose.


One after another, the League has been rolling out the owners to say they won't give in to a strike. This is not a stupid group of men. This is not a naive group of men. If they thought that their best interests would be served by giving in, they would have given in in January. They think that they can outlast the players in the event of a strike. They're right. If there is a strike, the owners will win. If there is a strike, the players will lose.


Now we could all be getting the wrong idea here. Maybe the players are making a big stink about free agency, knowing it won't happen, and at the midnight hour, they'll coyly offer to settle in return for guaranteed contracts. Maybe. I hope. But if they're actually this serious about free agency, they'll have to strike. If there is a strike, the players will lose.


I'd be willing to bet money that the owners have a contingency plan in case of a strike. Mostly really, because that's exactly what Dave Checketts said:

"We have a plan if the players strike"

I'd be willing to bet monopoly money on that plan involving alternate players. Grab some out of season European players on loan, some cheap Central American players, undrafted college players, unattached former MLS-ers (hello, Khano Smith!), and pretty soon, you've got enough bodies to fill out a few team-sheets, and it wouldn't take more than a couple of weeks. You'd have to call off a couple games, and it might not be ideal, but it'd make the fans happier than no soccer at all, and increase the pressure on the Union to cave. Kasey Keller might be able to hold out for a while, but how about players like Mike Chabala, or Wells Thompson, who each made a whopping thirty-four grand last year? Even a relatively well-paid player like Dema Kovalenko, who made $130,000, will give in eventually. If there is a strike, the players will lose.


And until the players realize that they have lost, we will all lose, and the longer they hold out, the more we lose.