Labor relations in pro sports

Players don't want real economic competition any more than owners do. For example, unions have never supported completely unrestricted free agency.

Collective bargaining means that players are allowed to act as unit and owners are obliged by law to recognize that right.

The National Labor Relation Act guarantees three essential rights for labor:
(1) The right of labor to organize and form unions
(2) The right of labor to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing
(3) The right of labor to use pressure tactics such as strikes and picketing

Appeals of unfair labor practices go to the National Labor Relations Board for a ruling. Bargaining in good faith means that opponents must be striving to reach an agreement rather than striving to drive a wedge in negotiations.

The essence of collective bargaining is that both owners and players have relinquished some of their individual bargaining rights to their representatives, leagues, and unions.

In a nutshell, the goal of unionization is to offset owner power over MRP in order to drive payment closer to the level that would be determined under a competitive situation.

Salary exploitation= (MRP-Salary)/MRP
Obstacles to Organization
Although some players may immediately recognize the value of organization, not all will. Therefore, the potential union incurs start-up education costs.

Free-riding, owner retaliation, political sentiment and illegal league behavior

The logic of collective action:
(1) rational ignorance: on any given policy issue, details are left to team representatives and leadership. As a result, any given player knows nearly nothing about almost everything that the union does. Rational ignorance is fueled by the fact that it is difficult for any individual players to tell how any given choice will affect them. It is also expensive to discover any particular representative's role in any given policy. Thus it is rational for players to be ignorant about union policy because it is expensive to be informed. 

The players who are not rationally ignorant are those who stand to gain or lose the most from union choices and have lower participation costs--a characterization of established veteran stars.

Union leadership will produce concentrated benefits (concentrated in the sense that they are large relative to the small group of star players who receive them) and dispersed costs (dispersed over the majority of nonstar players in the league) 

powerful players control the fate of union officials