As you’ve probably heard, this Sunday could be the last NFL action you’ll see for awhile.
Over the past few months, you’ve heard a lot about 18-game schedules and player safety. But really, truly, it’s about the money. It’s always about the money.
Just like the ugly and embarrassing baseball labor dispute in 1994, it’s not the players that have a problem with their piece of the pie. It’s the owners.
And it’s the commissioner, Roger Goodell, spinning his weave in order to maximize his brand and get the most money out of our collective pockets.
Goodell and a group of owners (Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, Pat Bowlen, Jerry Richardson to name a few) are see the opportunity to make the NFL even more profitable than it already is. They each want their own Scrooge McDuck “Money Bin” and they’ve come too far now to turn back on it.
This group wants a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that “accounts” for the investments they’ve made in new stadiums and other capital expenditures.
They think they got a raw deal when the current CBA, which they opted out of in 2008, expires next month.
They think the players receive too much of the revenue share of their adjusted gross revenues.
They think this is about them.
What’s perplexing is how these clearly successful entrepreneurial figures feel like they are being scammed. Revenue sharing does not address the fact that some teams have or have had favorable stadium deals that call for little or no expenditures from the organization, while others, ironically Jones’ Dallas Cowboys and Bowlen’s Denver Broncos, had to take out massive loans for new or renovated stadiums.
In turn, this upsets owners like Richardson, who owns the Carolina Panthers, because he has to write an eight figure check that subsidizes another team, say the Cincinnati Bengals, who’s owner (Mike Brown) is making a fine penny or two because of low overhead.
To make matters worse, there are owners who intentionally keep revenues and overhead low to maintain their spot in the bottom half of revenue-generators in order to ensure they will receive a subsidy.
All of this leads to this question: and this involves the players how? Sounds like the owners and the league need to figure out some new rules on playing nice and essentially cheating the system.
In regards to the stadium issues, the response to that would be simple. Isn’t that the cost of doing business? Of being an NFL owner? Why does a city, state of its residents have to foot the majority of the bill for a new stadium? The fans use the stadium, but they pay for tickets in order to use the facilities. They’re already paying for the use of the stadium, correct?
Let’s look at it like this: why don’t the owners pay more for player’s health insurance so they are taken care of long after they retire? Don’t the players get their ailments from playing for the NFL and it’s teams?
If you want the people to pay for your work office that aren’t employed by you, how can you use the logic that you won’t pay for healthcare of your former employees who, had they not played football, might otherwise be healthy?
It’s a twisted little game to play when you start bringing money, logic and sport together at the same table.
They don’t usually make good dinner conversation.
In order to make-up the difference of what this group of owners feel they are losing, they are seeking a proposed 60 percent cut of a smaller revenue pie.
Under the current CBA, owners get a credit of more than $1 billion for operating and investment expenses off the top of the annual revenue pool – that’s currently around $9 billion – before the remainder of the money is divvied up.
Now the owners want about $2.4 billion in credits, citing the changing economic times. These additional credits include – and this is straight from the proposal – “professional fees”, practice facility costs and travel.
Um, what company asks for employees to pay for overhead and maintenance?
The players have tried to call the owners’ bluff, repeatedly asking the owners to open their books to prove the financial crisis they face. And the owners have always refused.
In addition, the 18-game schedule is nothing more than a slight of hand. If Goodell gets his way, it’s more revenue for the NFL and stretches the season. The players don’t want it for two reasons: 1) Naturally, they won’t get paid anymore than they already do and 2) Injuries.
Look at the New Orleans Saints, who used something like 235 running backs this season. The Green Bay Packers, NFC Champions, had 15 players put on injured reserve this season. They are currently fighting over whether or not those 15 guys will be in the team picture.
And while clearly the players aren’t inescapable of the blame, the owners seem to be playing some mystifying game called “Vagueness.”
Back in training camp last summer, Goodell made the rounds to all the teams. When he got to Cleveland, current Browns linebacker Scott Fujita, who sits on the player’s union executive board, called him out: “What is it going to take for us to get the deal done?”
Goodell’s response: “I don’t think there’s any sense of urgency right now. I don’t think there’s going to be one for a long time.”
Goodell went on to say that these things have a way of working themselves out.
Except when they don’t.
That baseball strike of 1994 is always remembered bitterly and all history remembers is the “greedy” players. However, the ordeal began because the owners were unhappy with the deal they had. Baseball player’s union head Donald Fehr severely misread the situation and ordered a preemptive strike by the players with seven weeks left in the season.
All that did was cancel the 1994 World Series (sorry, Expos).
Is that where we are headed? Perhaps there won’t be a Super Bowl in Indianapolis next year at this time. Perhaps there will be no fantasy football, no Sunday afternoon Red Zone, no Madden ’12.
And that’s the real story, as it always is, with labor disputes. While the owners and players, who are already far richer than the NFL’s average fans will be in 10 lifetimes, argue and fuss over credits and billions of dollars and who’s paying for state-of-the-art facilities, the fans will be without the sport they love more than both the owners and players ever could.
Face it: we care more than they do.
We always have.
We always will.
Bob Seger once sang about a “beautiful loser,” someone who want both sides of the coin, security and freedom. That’s what comes to mind when Goodell says if there’s not a new deal done, he’ll cut his own salary to $1. Fear not, he’s been banking $10 million a year since he became commissioner of the NFL in 2006, so I think he’ll survive the work stoppage.
Question is, will the game and its popularity survive?
We’ll all answer that question, collectively, soon enough.
worldbetweenlines.com 