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

[Penumbra]

It has been threatened by Smith,...he'll take it to Congress and the White House.

Funny,...Smith was saying $8 billion a year ago and now it's $9 bil he's after.

We're gonna miss Gene Upshaw.

[Paulitik]

(03-15-2011 10:11 PM)Penumbra Wrote:  It has been threatened by Smith,...he'll take it to Congress and the White House.

Funny,...Smith was saying $8 billion a year ago and now it's $9 bil he's after.

We're gonna miss Gene Upshaw.

You mean the guy that presided over the 1987 strike when the players were the ones threatening the NFL season, that helped set the precedent for the current share that the owners are disputing? De Smith isn't keeping us from a 2011 season, it's the owners.

[Drathdon]

Is the NFL in financial trouble... not last year, but looking at the landscape of the "recession" and changes disposable income, would you personally have a $1 Billion lifetime investment in a business where the future is so uncertain for everyone.

And frankly, you assume success, as do most people. Do you think the bankrupt Borders was looking successful 5 years ago? Businesses have to capitalize on their investments, and having expenditures of 50% just to the players makes for a really tough ledger sheet.

The players were making too high a percentage on the last CBA deal, and the owners were making less than before, even with the numbers supposedly going up. As an owner, you have to address an issue like that. Of course the players wanted to keep playing... they were "winning" at the team's expense. When you start to look at all the guaranteed money in contracts that are on the books (with numbers rising) and realize that most teams are on the hook for a large part of their entire value (God help if the value ever falls, like during a recession), and you will realize that something needs to be done.

The players are not the product. The NFL built the product to showcase the players. If the players were the product, the USFL would still be here too. People don't watch the Super Bowl around the world just for who is on the field. The NFL Brand is more than any player. You could replace them all tomorrow, and the ratings would still be the same in 3 years' time.

That the players think too highly of themselves is the problem here (see AP for a good example). If they think they are the product, then go sell themselves elsewhere. The Shield on the Helmet is the real attraction, and the owners control, and have marketed, that. To say that them wanting to cover their investment is greedy is a real slap in the face of what they have created.

The players should get rich riding their coattails, not hijacking the train.

[cooperbh]

(03-16-2011 03:55 PM)Drathdon Wrote:  Is the NFL in financial trouble... not last year, but looking at the landscape of the "recession" and changes disposable income, would you personally have a $1 Billion lifetime investment in a business where the future is so uncertain for everyone.

And frankly, you assume success, as do most people. Do you think the bankrupt Borders was looking successful 5 years ago? Businesses have to capitalize on their investments, and having expenditures of 50% just to the players makes for a really tough ledger sheet.

The players were making too high a percentage on the last CBA deal, and the owners were making less than before, even with the numbers supposedly going up. As an owner, you have to address an issue like that. Of course the players wanted to keep playing... they were "winning" at the team's expense. When you start to look at all the guaranteed money in contracts that are on the books (with numbers rising) and realize that most teams are on the hook for a large part of their entire value (God help if the value ever falls, like during a recession), and you will realize that something needs to be done.

The players are not the product. The NFL built the product to showcase the players. If the players were the product, the USFL would still be here too. People don't watch the Super Bowl around the world just for who is on the field. The NFL Brand is more than any player. You could replace them all tomorrow, and the ratings would still be the same in 3 years' time.

That the players think too highly of themselves is the problem here (see AP for a good example). If they think they are the product, then go sell themselves elsewhere. The Shield on the Helmet is the real attraction, and the owners control, and have marketed, that. To say that them wanting to cover their investment is greedy is a real slap in the face of what they have created.

The players should get rich riding their coattails, not hijacking the train.

What a load.

First off, people around the world don't tune in to the Super Bowl to see a shield on a helmet. They tune in to see the best of the best compete against each other. Without those star players lending it legitimacy, that shield on the helmet means squat. Check the attendance numbers and TV ratings for the scab games during the 1987 strike season if you have any doubt about this. Or just ask yourself why millions upon millions of people spend $60 every August for the exact same football video game they bought the year before, only with updated rosters and player stats.

Second, the USFL didn't fail because there was a widespread lack of interest. It failed because of a bad business model and, most importantly, the fact that its sole competitor held a monopoly on TV broadcast rights.

Speaking of competitors, the NFL has exactly zero - unlike the bankrupt Borders you mentioned, who lost market share to B&N.com, Amazon and various other online outlets after foolishly placing all their eggs in brick and mortor superstores. It should also be pointed out that Borders doesn't receive $1 billion annually from long-term TV contracts as well as hundreds of millions more in sponsorship/licensing revenue, which would ensure profitability even in the event they did suffer an operating loss. Really bad comparison.

The truth is that there is not a single NFL franchise that is in the slightest danger of facing bankruptcy, either now or at any time in the future. The owners are doing what they are doing not because they have to, but because they can.

[cooperbh]

(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

For those who keep regurgitating the above tripe, please write down the following and underline it:

NFL football players are not employees. They are contract workers.

As a former contract worker in the music business, I can assure you that if an owner of a venue that I was contracted to regularly perform in told me one day that he needed to start taking a larger cut of the door to cover "expenses," I'd damn well insist on knowing exactly what those costs were before I would even consider renegotiating my contract and taking that pay cut. Especially if my act was the largest draw in town and solely responsible for bringing in the vast majority of his customers.

Think it would it sway me one bit if this owner painted some sob story about how he needed that extra cash to build a brand new venue because he could make so much more money owning his own building than leasing the current one, and that eventually a slice of that money would trickle its way down to me? Would it sway anyone with a brain?

[Beef]

(03-17-2011 02:44 AM)cooperbh Wrote:  For those who keep regurgitating the above tripe, please write down the following and underline it:

NFL football players are not employees. They are contract workers.

As a former contract worker in the music business, I can assure you that if an owner of a venue that I was contracted to regularly perform in told me one day that he needed to start taking a larger cut of the door to cover "expenses," I'd damn well insist on knowing exactly what those costs were before I would even consider renegotiating my contract and taking that pay cut. Especially if my act was the largest draw in town and solely responsible for bringing in the vast majority of his customers.

Think it would it sway me one bit if this owner painted some sob story about how he needed that extra cash to build a brand new venue because he could make so much more money owning his own building than leasing the current one, and that eventually a slice of that money would trickle its way down to me? Would it sway anyone with a brain?

I definitely see your point, but there's still big differences between your story & the NFL one.

The owners have other reasons for not opening the books. If you think players & agents asking for big contracts is out of hand now, wait until they know how much is really available. And how bad will owner dissention get between small markets vs. big markets once they know each other's bottom lines? And how about when one of these owners wants to sell his team? Have you ever heard of negotiating power & leverage? They'll have NONE if their books are open.

And to show a contradiction to the "contract employee" argument... I've had construction contractors work on my house, finishing my basement & doing landscaping work. I didn't tell them how much money I had. If I did, I would have had no leverage & they would have asked for more. Actually, they would have demanded the limit I could pay, every single one of them & I would have had no leg to stand on to argue with.

Contractors do a job for a fee. A pre-negotiated fee that's mutually acceptable. "Negotiated" being the key word. The only reason for a Contractor to want to know the Contractee's worth is so they can take away leverage & ask for the limits, period.

The players obviously have a "number" that will certainly sustain them & take care of every need they could possibly dream of. But instead of finding out that number & asking for it, they're asking for more. They want to know what the max is that the owners can do without & that's what they want. They want to sit here & tell the owners they're making too much money & need to share more because that's "fair".

The owners have every right to lose money or make ridiculous & enormous returns on their investment. It's the whole concept of free market capitalism, which has 2 sides as well. This whole debacle reeks of the age-old battle between Conservative vs. Liberal, Republican vs. Democrat, or free market vs. Keynesian. And obviously you can see which side i'm on. As a business owner myself, I think it's BS if someone is telling me I make too much money so I need to spread the wealth around. Fuck that noise.

[cooperbh]

(03-17-2011 05:56 PM)Beef Wrote:  I definitely see your point, but there's still big differences between your story & the NFL one.

The owners have other reasons for not opening the books. If you think players & agents asking for big contracts is out of hand now, wait until they know how much is really available. And how bad will owner dissention get between small markets vs. big markets once they know each other's bottom lines? And how about when one of these owners wants to sell his team? Have you ever heard of negotiating power & leverage? They'll have NONE if their books are open.

And to show a contradiction to the "contract employee" argument... I've had construction contractors work on my house, finishing my basement & doing landscaping work. I didn't tell them how much money I had. If I did, I would have had no leverage & they would have asked for more. Actually, they would have demanded the limit I could pay, every single one of them & I would have had no leg to stand on to argue with.

Contractors do a job for a fee. A pre-negotiated fee that's mutually acceptable. "Negotiated" being the key word. The only reason for a Contractor to want to know the Contractee's worth is so they can take away leverage & ask for the limits, period.

The players obviously have a "number" that will certainly sustain them & take care of every need they could possibly dream of. But instead of finding out that number & asking for it, they're asking for more. They want to know what the max is that the owners can do without & that's what they want. They want to sit here & tell the owners they're making too much money & need to share more because that's "fair".

The owners have every right to lose money or make ridiculous & enormous returns on their investment. It's the whole concept of free market capitalism, which has 2 sides as well. This whole debacle reeks of the age-old battle between Conservative vs. Liberal, Republican vs. Democrat, or free market vs. Keynesian. And obviously you can see which side i'm on. As a business owner myself, I think it's BS if someone is telling me I make too much money so I need to spread the wealth around. Fuck that noise.

I agree that the analogy isn't perfect, but then it's impossible to make a true apples-to-apples comparison involving the NFL due to its anti-trust exemption.

I also agree that it is unheard of for a union to ask ownership to open up their books to them during the course of negotiating a deal. Almost as unheard of as ownership telling a union: "Thanks to you, we are making exponentially more money than we ever have before. I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to take a pay cut."

Speaking of pay, I missed where the NFLPA ever demanded a larger share of the pot than what they were already receiving under the most recent CBA. The only people I have heard expressing such a sentiment are the owners.

[Penumbra]

Fascinating to read the blamers of the union, blaming the owners. Seems to be a majority blaming the owners.

In perspective,...without the players the NFL could go on after a strike season. Without the owners the NFL would not exist. It has been said by Smith without the players the NFL would not exist.

All those rich white owners can give up more money. So let's go after it while we can. We have a majority of public sentiment in our corner and we're in such a bad economy,...well not us on welfare,...that we can villify the owners as selfish and as the bad guys. The evil, rich owners who are in essence slave owners as Adrian Peterson said.

Smith is an angry man. And I will repeat,...we will miss the great Gene Upshaw.

[Beef]

(03-17-2011 11:01 PM)cooperbh Wrote:  I agree that the analogy isn't perfect, but then it's impossible to make a true apples-to-apples comparison involving the NFL due to its anti-trust exemption.

I also agree that it is unheard of for a union to ask ownership to open up their books to them during the course of negotiating a deal. Almost as unheard of as ownership telling a union: "Thanks to you, we are making exponentially more money than we ever have before. I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to take a pay cut."

Speaking of pay, I missed where the NFLPA ever demanded a larger share of the pot than what they were already receiving under the most recent CBA. The only people I have heard expressing such a sentiment are the owners.

I think you're either being naive or just biased towards the players so exagerating a bit.

We all know that the players sign contracts to get paid $x amount of money. That's the set amount THEY agreed upon to do their job. And if they perform up to standards & don't fuck up, they get to keep getting paid. And with the full understanding that if they don't do their job up to expectations, they can be fired just like anybody else in any other job (thank goodness for no guaranteed contracts).

Now we also know that a portion of league profits are pooled & then divided evenly among the teams & set aside by the player union/NFLPA to subsidize health benefits, insurance, stipends for related expenses, retiree pension, & miscellaneous NFLPA overhead. Which by the way, under the previous CBA, when combined with player salaries which continue to rise by nearly 6% EVERY YEAR, was MORE than what the owners were left with to pay for all their overhead and make a profit. And yes, paying thousands of employees, from coaches to hotdog vendors, along with practice facilities, the GA Dome, rookie housing, air/ground trasportation, maintenance for everything, & ridiculous amounts of liability insurance, it's impossible to grasp it's enormous expense.

The previous CBA was drawn up before the player salary curve went exponentially nuts. Not to mention benefits like insurance, which have increased about 5x inflation rates in the past 10 years must be considered. Add to that, 2 down markets & a full blown recession, the pension fund & any other retirement programs are surely way under-funded by now.

The owners have been more than generous. First of all, they have every right in the world to make as much money as they can. Player salaries are grossly out of wack & only going higher. And "benefits" are exactly just that, BENEFITS. They are not a mandate. They are not God's given right. They are a courtesy & FREE, on top of their exorbitant salaries. Yet the players continue to take benefits for granted & are too stupid to understand how much they really fucking cost.

And oh yeah, I haven't even mentioned taxes.

Second, the players ARE asking for more. They want money set aside for increased health benefits & a bigger pension for retirees. Mind you, some of these "retirees" are 40 year old guys who just got done getting paid millions for a bunch of years. And they obviously can't ask for more on their existing salary contracts because those are set. But if you don't think they will ask for more once the books are open & it's time to negotiate/re-negotiate their contracts, you're being naive. And once they know exactly how much the "limit" is, like I said, the owners don't have any negotiating power at this point & the players/agents will want the max or we'll have hold-outs left & right.

The owners aren't the bad guys here unless you're some liberal nut who thinks people who are good at making a ton of money are evil. They players have it made. Even the guys making league minimum. They don't pay for shit, they have the best benefits in the universe, & even at league minimum they are in the top 20% of income makers in the country. And I don't care that they only get to do this job for a short time. Most people have to work for 45 years & don't make anywhere near what these guys make in a fraction of the time. And the fact it's dangerous is not our problem, it's their choice to do it.

And now we got some 82 year old liberal as hell judge making the decisions. The owners are fucked. I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to go without the 2011 season completely just to really prove their point & make the players really understand how good they have it & how badly they take it all for granted.

[Penumbra]

(03-18-2011 10:08 PM)Beef Wrote:  The owners are fucked. I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to go without the 2011 season completely just to really prove their point & make the players really understand how good they have it & how badly they take it all for granted.

Damn right on.