I haven't written about this in a while, but I feel I should. I'll start with a brief summary of what's going on then get into my usual rant. The NFL and NFLPA*(technically a trade association now) can't agree on squat. Why not?
Well it goes back to 2006. The late Gene Upshaw and the now retired Paul Tagliabue agreed on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. One of the stipulations of the agreement was a change to the way the salary cap worked. Under the previous agreement, the players received 64.5% of all SHARED revenue. Shared revenue is the revenue received from TV deals, league wide ads, licensing agreements, ect. The new deal shaved about $1 Billion off of the $9 Billion pot for the owners to split evenly to use towards capital investment. The rest of the $8 Billion was split 57% players 43% owners. The problem arises from the fact that the number now includes both shared and unshared revenue instead of just shared. Why is that a problem?
Unshared revenue is different for each team. A team like Jacksonville may have a much smaller unshared revenue than the Cowboys, yet they must allocate the same am out of money to the players. The current system is unsustainable to certain teams. The owners need to change this and in order to do so, they need to take some from the players. In 2008, the owners opted out of the CBA for after the 2010 season claiming that the current model is unsustainable. The players responded with this statement: show us your books.
Understandably, the owners didn't feel the need to release every single financial document to the players. What is intriguing though is that the Packers are publicly owned. This means that by law they HAVE to open their books. What came wasn't surprising. They had record revenue, but also low profits. The season before the new CBA, they realized profits of close to $40 Million. This number dwindled. 2008-2009 profits were $20 million. 2009-2010 profits were $9 million. What's going on? Well to see that, we have to go to the player costs. In the same time span, costs have gone from around $110 million to $150 million. Still this evidence wasn't enough. The players demanded to see more. Even after the NFL gave an unprecedented amount of financial data to a 3rd party financial auditor and gave the NFLPA an offer that included several concessions, the NFLPA chose to stop negotiating and decertify.
What is decertification and why is it such a big deal? Decertification is the union ceasing to exist. This is significant because the NFL is protected from antitrust lawsuits because of the union. Because there is no union, they players can now sue the NFL under antitrust law. The NFL is countering that by locking the players out, and submitting a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board claiming the NFLPA was not negotiating in good faith and that the decertification is a sham to gain leverage. This all culminates to an April 6th hearing. If the players win, the lockout could be lifted. There would be football under the last rules while the two sides fight in court. This outcome sounds appealing, but it may drastically change the game. The other outcome would be the union forced to come back to the negotiating table. This will delay things from getting done but would most likely end in a new CBA deal.
Now after that "brief" explanation...on to my rant. Many people think that the players "deserve" everything they get. They deserve more money because they bring in the money. People forget a fundamental detail here. The owners invest their capital. They spend their money on the logos, stadium, marketing, practice facility, transportation, coaching staff, grounds crew, training staff, front office guys, weight room, security, insurance, player pension, player healthcare, retired player pensions and healthcare, scouts, equipment, water boys, taxes...the list goes on. Now remember...this comes out of the OWNER'S pocket.
Without the things above...there is no football. Without the owners providing these things and giving the players a forum to display their talents, they would be really athletic guys working normal jobs. People forget this. They say "the players are partners! Without them there is no football". That's only half true. Sure without them there is no football, but without employees at any job there is no product. But they are not partners. Partners share a financial risk if the company tanks. If a team folds, the players aren't going to help the owner pay his debt. That's all on him.
I'm not saying don't pay the players or that they don't deserve anything or that they don't sacrifice their bodies. They do deserve to be compensated and they do sacrifice their bodies. My point is they don't share the financial risks that the owners do. I don't think it's right to tell the owners, the guys who fun the league, how to spend their money. The player's sense of entitlement needs to stop. The owners have demonstrated a need for reform and the players have given them stubbornness. If the players were really "partners" they would understand this and help the owners out. Instead they're suing them.
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