Why This Collides With the People Paying
The resentment is not irrational and it is not solved by explaining physiology. A season-ticket holder buys a bundle of dates and cannot choose which ones the stars appear in. A family attending its one game of the year, often on a road trip built around a specific team, has no way to hedge. Broadcast partners buy showcase matchups on the assumption that the marquee players will be in them, and a league that markets individuals rather than institutions has effectively promised something it then withholds.
Leagues have responded with rules rather than persuasion, tying eligibility for individual awards to a minimum number of appearances, restricting the resting of healthy stars in nationally televised games, requiring that absences be disclosed in advance and discouraging teams from sitting multiple stars on the same night. Those measures raise the price of resting somebody without disputing the medical logic, which is the honest description of what they are: a rebalancing of who absorbs the cost, not a resolution of the underlying disagreement.
