Owners have enough cash to sit out 2011, even after court ruling.

[illmusic]

(03-15-2011 02:16 AM)chazmataz Wrote:  I'm blaming the players union at this point. name ONE freaking business where the employees have the right to see open financial records for the company....anyone? go in to your boss tomorrow, and tell them you want to see the companies books so you'll know how much they're making so you can base your request for a raise on that. see what happens.

for now, i'm blaming the players more than the owners. each NFL team is a freakin BUSINESS, and a business that isn't out to profit as much as they can, won't be a business for long. screw the NFLPA and the smith who is in charge of them. they were making progress until that ass DEMANDED the owners open the books. what an asshole

Because of scandals like Enron employees, the SEC, and regular investors and consumers have the right to see the books actually. Now, you can write the books a certain way and I'm sure that's what ruffled the unions feathers, a top notch accountant hid some money, legally.

[Beef]

(03-20-2011 05:18 PM)illmusic Wrote:  Because of scandals like Enron employees, the SEC, and regular investors and consumers have the right to see the books actually. Now, you can write the books a certain way and I'm sure that's what ruffled the unions feathers, a top notch accountant hid some money, legally.

Ummm, this is only the case with publicly traded companies, not private companies. NFL franchises, other than the GB Packers, are all privately owned.

In addition, investors are completely different from contract employees. Investors are in essence part owners & therefore taking on a corresponding percentage of financial risk. Contract employees are subordinated & don't get the same rights.

[Penumbra]

Also fascinating is witnessing this all coming down to,...politics. Just what the the player's union is allllll about.

[Radical]

(03-20-2011 06:31 PM)Penumbra Wrote:  Also fascinating is witnessing this all coming down to,...politics. Just what the the player's union is allllll about.

Yeah... politics... and those "rich white owners."

[illmusic]

(03-20-2011 05:33 PM)Beef Wrote:  Ummm, this is only the case with publicly traded companies, not private companies. NFL franchises, other than the GB Packers, are all privately owned.

In addition, investors are completely different from contract employees. Investors are in essence part owners & therefore taking on a corresponding percentage of financial risk. Contract employees are subordinated & don't get the same rights.

Thanks for the clarification, just a sophomore business major trying to spout the little bit of knowledge I have...great debate between you and cooper, very informative. Right now you have me convinced the players are crying bitches lol. I do think at the end of the day, unless the players somehow contrive their own business and snatch some TV deals from non-NFL channels they've lost. But with people like Adrian Peterson having to put a share in, they'd likely fall out.

[Penumbra]

(03-20-2011 07:24 PM)Radical Wrote:  Yeah... politics... and those "rich white owners."

as our beloved aints fans once chanted when things went they way,...

CHA CHING!

[cooperbh]

(03-20-2011 05:10 PM)Beef Wrote:  I don't even get what you're complaining about at this point. None of it makes sense. There's nothing preventing Lehman or Circuit City or any company from making as much money as they physically can. There's no "profit cap" in existance, so I don't know WTF you're talking about.

This is America, the land of the free. Everyone has the right to do as they wish inside the confines of the law, including making as much money/profit as they possibly can. "Opportunity" is purely subjective & has nothing to do with personal freedoms.

If an opportunity presents itself, I have the choice/freedom (aka. right) to pursue it to it's limits. And if those limits result in enormous profits, well welcome to America & free market capitalism. At the same time, if that opportunity results in no profit or total losses, well thats the risk I took & i'm 100% responsible.

This is how the NFL owners work too. Some make a lot of money, some don't. Some may even lose money on occasion. Those decisions are their responsibility, period. If Jerry Jones loses money because he made a bad decision about the new stadium, it's his pocketbook that's effected. If Al Davis is an idiot & runs his team into last place every year & he loses money too, it's his pocketbook that's effected. If Arthur Blank sells out every seat in a new stadium & rakes in a billion dollars in profit, great freaking job on his part.

And if you think that none of these owners "pay a price for ineptitude", then you are very naive. I never said they didn't so I don't know where you even came up with this point. These teams are businesses, like any other.

As to how this all relates to the CBA negotiations, I stand by my opinions. The players have contracts that they agreed to be paid & BENEFITS are generous free GIFTS given to them above & beyond their salaries. The players are taking everything outside their salaries for granted. On top of that, the only purpose for them to want to know every penny the owners make is so they can take away the owners leverage & put negotiations in their favor when the time comes.

I don't fault the players for wanting to make as much money as they can. I'd sound hypocritical if I did. But since their financial risk & overall responsibilities are on a scale that's massively dwarfed by comparison to the owners, I think they're grossly overpaid already. And their attempt to manipulate this situation so they can eventually make even more just pisses me off. Especially when they also take so much for granted.

My main point of contention was when you made your statement that the owners had a right to make as much money as they can, as if the players were somehow violating that right by not accepting the owners' offer of less pay. If that was not what you meant to imply, then it comes back to the question of why the players - whose singular abilities are the very product that the fans pay to see - should accept a deal that would give them a smaller piece of the pie. Personally, I can't see one reason.

This act of owners crying poverty has been going on since MLB players first set forth to abolish the reserve clause. And yet here we are 50 years later with the Pirates pulling in annual profits of $20 million while riding an 18 season losing streak. And we're supposed to believe that the much more popular NFL with its salary cap and revenue sharing won't be able to sustain if owners don't get a larger share of the gross? Please.

And just to let you know that I'm not a complete "liberal nut," I stood with the owners during the 1994 MLB players strike and still do in regards to their stance on a hard salary cap. With no controls to keep player costs in check, the inmates are truly running the asylum in that league, which has led to the situation in Pittsburgh I cited above.

[cooperbh]

(03-20-2011 07:51 PM)illmusic Wrote:  I do think at the end of the day, unless the players somehow contrive their own business and snatch some TV deals from non-NFL channels they've lost.

Yeah, the players' only real chance in this fight is that the courts deem the owners' lockout illegal.

[Beef]

(03-21-2011 02:44 PM)cooperbh Wrote:  My main point of contention was when you made your statement that the owners had a right to make as much money as they can, as if the players were somehow violating that right by not accepting the owners' offer of less pay. If that was not what you meant to imply, then it comes back to the question of why the players - whose singular abilities are the very product that the fans pay to see - should accept a deal that would give them a smaller piece of the pie. Personally, I can't see one reason.

Because they have contracts with set salaries that they agreed upon & they will get paid in full as long as they do their jobs. The "pie" you speak of is ancillary monies above & beyond their actual paychecks for stuff unrelated to their contracted salaries.

They're not actually "losing" any money if the owners want more of the pie. They're not "making less". They're just not getting as much free shit above their agreed upon salaries as they were.

I don't know how to put it any better.

Look, the players get the best insurance/health coverage in the universe & they don't have to pay for shit. Hotels, airfare, food, safety equipment, medicine...... and the list could probably go on & on. And on top of this, they get lifetime health coverage even after they retire, they get pre-tax investment matching (like a 401K but slightly different), they get a lifetime pension after they retire, & they get an organization & staff (ie. the NFLPA) managing all their football related business affairs for free.

All that shit is not part of their agreed upon contracted already massively bloated salary. It's all free benefits provided by the owners. And it's extreme, which makes it unreasonable & foolish.

Now if the owners believe that they're being too generous with all that shit, then they can take some of it away if they wish. And if by taking some of it away it means they add even more to their profit margins, then so be it. They've lived up to their end of the deals with each of these players & then some. And the players in return have done nothing but take it all for granted.

[cooperbh]

(03-21-2011 08:30 PM)Beef Wrote:  Because they have contracts with set salaries that they agreed upon & they will get paid in full as long as they do their jobs. The "pie" you speak of is ancillary monies above & beyond their actual paychecks for stuff unrelated to their contracted salaries.

They're not actually "losing" any money if the owners want more of the pie. They're not "making less". They're just not getting as much free shit above their agreed upon salaries as they were.

I don't know how to put it any better.

I do.

It's like this: The amount of money available to pay players is determined by the salary cap. The salary cap is determined by the amount of revenue remaining after the owners take their $1 billion off the top for expenses. If that expense credit were increased to the $2 billion sum that the owners are asking for, then the cap allowance from which to pay the players would shrink significantly, amounting to a nearly 20% decrease in player salaries.

Does that mean a player like Matt Ryan would be subject to a pay decrease in 2011? No. Would he be when it came time to negotiate a new contract in 2014? No doubt about it.

Regardless of how the owners try to spin it, it's a pay cut.

(03-21-2011 08:30 PM)Beef Wrote:  Look, the players get the best insurance/health coverage in the universe & they don't have to pay for shit. Hotels, airfare, food, safety equipment, medicine...... and the list could probably go on & on. And on top of this, they get lifetime health coverage even after they retire, they get pre-tax investment matching (like a 401K but slightly different), they get a lifetime pension after they retire, & they get an organization & staff (ie. the NFLPA) managing all their football related business affairs for free.

All that shit is not part of their agreed upon contracted already massively bloated salary. It's all free benefits provided by the owners. And it's extreme, which makes it unreasonable & foolish.

Now if the owners believe that they're being too generous with all that shit, then they can take some of it away if they wish. And if by taking some of it away it means they add even more to their profit margins, then so be it. They've lived up to their end of the deals with each of these players & then some. And the players in return have done nothing but take it all for granted.

This actually applies more to an earlier post you made, but making a laundry list of expenses does not in any way prove the owners' assertion that their profitabilty is being undermined by the current CBA. You think we don't realize that large corporate entities have to cut a lot of checks to a lot of different people in the course of doing business? By your logic, Harry Potter movies aren't enormously profitable since there are so many expenses involved with a production of that size.

And exactly what determines whether someone's salary is "bloated" or his benefits "extreme" anyway? The market? Or was that just your decidedly biased opinion?

The fact is that, despite playing the most dangerous game in the world for the lowest average salary of all the major sports, NFL players are not asking for anything other than to continue playing under the terms that have been in place since 1993 - a request that has been turned down on five separate occasions by the owners since 2006. They are not asking to raise the salary cap nor are they asking for the guaranteed contracts that professional baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer players all receive. Oh, and that "organization & staff managing all their football related business affairs for free?" Annual NFLPA membership dues increased from $10,000 to $15,000 in 2009.

And you're seriously talking about these guys taking for granted how good they got it because the company they work for offers a 401K plan and springs for hotels on business trips?