Lockouts and Collective Bargaining in Professional Sports: A Case Study of the National Hockey League

Abstract I sought out a project that would be able to intertwine the topics of business law and the business of sports. After reading and researching a few different options, one combination of law and sports that stood out to me was the frequent labor disputes between NHL owners and the players' union. The main goal of this project was to examine whether or not the lockouts that were instituted by National Hockey League owners during the labor disputes that occurred in 2004 and 2012 actually left the league with a better long term financial and social landscape. Through the examination of the stakeholders that were involved in each dispute and their resulting situations, I presented my answer to the above question. In order to properly study the overall situation, I also discussed the history of sports business, the history of the National Hockey League's business landscape, and collective bargaining in sports amongst other topics.