http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...cuts-will-be-refunded-if-no-games-are-missed/ He explains that the 20% reductions in employees' salaries will be refunded if no games are missed, but warns that the longer this goes on the more chance there is that games will be missed. The fact that the money might be refunded sounds great and is admirable, except the net effect of it is that he's using middle class employee salaries as a pawn in the game being played between the billionaires and millionaires. Stay classy. Then he drops this nice one: Well, glad to see it's not just the players that occasionally see one of their own making outrageous statements about the situation see other players slapping their foreheads. Owners have a few loose tongues as well. Newsflash for Stephen Ross: there was a CBA in place that was negotiated and approved by 30 of 32 owners (only holdouts being notoriously cheap Mike Brown and notoriously old and unaware Ralph Wilson). The owners are the ones that scrapped that CBA, stopping football from happening, while demanding the players take a 20% pay cut at a time of all-time league profitability. His characterization of this as the players trying to see how much they can really get misses the mark by a country mile. This started with the OWNERS seeing how much they could get away with, and that includes illegally inserting lockout insurance clauses in their television contracts.
I'm done defending this Ross guy. Back when he came aboard, and everyone was all worked up about Carl Peterson being on the sidelines, I tried to chill everybody out. When sold little pieces of the team to b-level celebrities, I said, "who cares?". But when he effectively eliminated the September 1:00 home game, our only home-field advantage, I turned against him. I had season tickets from 1982 to 1994 (when I shipped off to college). I attended PLENTY of 1:00 games in September. I sweat my *** off, but I survived. And now this???!!!! Those employees have bills to pay! Screw that weird-looking old bastard!
That's so great...I miss having G4. But yeah, both sides are greedy, and I'm already not spending any money on football.
I read the Ravens cut employee salaries by 25%. So while Ross doesn't know when to shut up, he isn't the only owner cutting salaries.
That's the criticism though, the "doesn't know when to shut up" thing. There are other owners cutting employee pay. Classless move if you ask me, but regardless about a third of the league have engaged in this or other similar cuts (such as putting non-contracted employees on furlough) so nobody is trying to act like Steve Ross is alone in doing that...he's just kind of front and center for making dumb statements. And also PFT pointed out something which is that right after they announced that all these employees would get 20% pay cuts, they hired a guy to fill an executive position that is newly made. That's insult to injury, just a faux pas. Bad timing. Hire that exec after this gets figured out and you're not cutting middle class employee salaries. I don't really have anything against Steve Ross to tell you the truth. I thought he acted like a rookie with the whole Harbaugh fiasco, but...he IS a rookie. He's trying to get the Dolphins to be awesome with awesome sauce, all the hot celebrities coming to the games and making it the "in" thing, whatever. It's cool with me. I'm not going to sit here and pretend it detracts in any way from a team's focus on just playing football. Miami's kind of a fruity city anyway so running the team kind of fruity seems to fit. Biggest gripes I have with him are: 1. Consciously moving all 1pm September and October home games to 4pm. I realize the fans suffer, I've been through that heat too, but it WAS a homefield advantage. We were practically unstoppable in that September home heat. 2. The Harbaugh thing. Rookie move by a rookie owner. Not as big a deal as some make of it, but still. 3. This. The foot-in-mouth thing with the CBA negotiations. The fact that he's right in the thick of things as far as the ignorance rampant on both sides that keeps spinning this situation out of control to where gripes over $400 million in 2011 revenue can result in billions in 2011 revenue loss.
Ross is 100% correct and I see nothing wrong with what he said. There may have been a CBA in place, but times and situations change. Ross owns a business. A person runs a business in order to make a profit. If the employees of a business want partnership-like status and the same benefits an owner gets then they too need to risk their money and agree to the possibility of not getting paid if that business doesn't make a profit.
Heres what Id like to know..... How can someone who seems so obviously clueless when being interviewed.....naive enough to think that everyone isnt gonna follow every move he makes when heading outwest to hire Jim Harbaugh.... Make so much god damned money. I dont get it. Its almost hand slap to the forehead stupid with some of the things he does and says......
Yeh there is something wrong with what he said.....even if you agree with his sentiments. Saying something like that only serves to bind the solidarity between players even more....just at a time when a bunch of them are starting to talk about needing to sit back down to the table and get this thing done. And really....its not the same as a normal business. Players have alot more leverage with the owners....much more then a normal employee has. An owner cant find any Tom Dick or Harry to step in and be the teams QB. Probably 50 guys in the world have the ability to be an NFL QB.
And yet the owners did not want to tie player compensation to revenue. They wanted to peg the cap at set dollar figures increasing from $141 million in 2011 to $161 million in 2014. They arrived at those numbers by means of ridiculous revenue growth projections of an annualized 3.25% over the next four years. NFL revenues have been growing at 8% for the last decade, and in fact Moody's has projected the NFL's growth rate over the next four years at 8%. If Moody's is correct, they're asking the players to take a $3.6 billion pay cut over the next four years.
Wait till he brings Carl Peterson and starts talking even more. This team is going to be in worse shape than Japan from the Atom bomb.
So? Again, it's their business. I don't get to tell my boss that I want to see his financials and then tell him I'll decide what I get paid based on his profit. The players have all the right in the world to negotiate their salaries. However, in the end the owners get to determine the pay they give their employees. Have the owners been 100% right on everything? No, but the players, by not accepting a damn good deal, have caused this lockout to continue.
Current CBA in a nutshell: Team Revenue Sharing System - the 17 poorest teams are subsidized by the wealthiest 15 teams Owners get one billion dollars off the top as an Investment Fund for updating facilities, stadium costs, etc. The remaining money is split 60-40 with the players getting the larger chunk This gives 53% of the NFL's total revenue to the players What the players want now if the current CBA is no longer agreed upon: Accept a 50-50 split of the revenue Eliminate the one billion off the top the owners are given for the investment fund The owners can still apply to get money to cover expenses, however, guaranteed money will not be available A better pension system to take care of retired players and their medical expenses They agree to an NBA-Style "slotted" system making the salary of a rookie solely determined by where he is drafted In the players eyes, this would free money up for the older players to be paid more The players oppose an 18-Game NFL Regular Season for two reasons Concerned about injuries No additional pay for the two extra games players would be forced to play The owners would like to change the current CBA in the following ways: How the NFL Owners and Players share the revenue The owners want $2 billion off of the top for the Investment Fund Then, keeping the current 60-40 split of remaining revenue This would give the owners approximately 53% of the total revenue Some owners would like to change the Team Revenue Sharing System arguing the system doesn't take expenses into account when revenue is shared. Eliminating two Preseason Games The owners want and are pushing for an 18-Game NFL Regular Season NBA-style "slotted" system for Rookie Contracts that assigns a salary according to draft position. To me it looks like the players would still get 60% of all revenue, but they also want a cut of the INVESTMENTS that the owners put back into THEIR business. The players are idiots led by an ever bigger idiot.
You're failing to grasp the situation at hand. Your boss isn't part of a consortium of separate businesses that circumvent the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by means of getting to negotiate with a worker's union on a collective bargaining basis. Any of your attempts at country, real folksy wisdom by means of comparing the NFL's situation with your own are completely hollow and void of value, on that basis. Since you seem to like the whole real world comparison approach to this, let's pretend you're an electrician, and the electrical business in general has been flourishing to where there's more revenue and profit in electrical work than ever before in the history of...everything. Your boss comes to you and says times are tough, I need you to take a 20% pay cut. What do you do? Do you question why, at a period of all time profitability for the electrical business? Well, tough, the electrical business won't tell you why. So then you say OK well I'll go work for another electrical business. Except all of the electrical businesses in the country are banded into an association wherein they restrict your ability to stop working for one employer and start working for another. Effectively, your only choice if you don't like what's happening, is to stop being an electrician. Even that situation falls short of comparability, but it's a hell of a lot more complete of a comparison than what you suggested before.
I know some don't mind him but if King Carl finds a way into this franchise I will contemplate criminal action against him.
I believe that is an outdated an insufficient synopsis of the proposals. http://m.espn.go.com/nfl/story?storyId=6236556 The owners want to peg the cap at $141 million to $161 million from 2011 to 2014, and they're doing this based on revenue growth projections that work out to 3.25% CAGR, whereas Moody's projects them to continue growing at the 8% they've been growing for the past 10 years. The owners don't want to share ANY of the additional revenue they bring in above the 3.25% CAGR. They also want to lock in a salary cap for 2014 despite that being the year television contracts renew, with a Moody's estimate of tv contract values rising from $4 billion per annum to $8 billion per annum in that year. Under the NFL's current proposal, they just get to pocket that rise in tv contract revenues for at least one year. It's unclear if they would continue to pocket it beyond 2014 because they proposed a 10 year CBA without even proposing what player compensation would be in 2015 and beyond.
As I've mentioned in numerous other threads and posts, professional sports businesses get special considerations due to the special circumstances of this business. In order to keep parity, IOW competitivness, which is the only way to stay profitable there must be some leeway afforded to them that may not be afforded to McDonalds. The shrill whining by some don't seem to want parity in the NFL and instead the ability for one team to be the best...forever. I find it hard to believe that any fan of NFL football would want that. You saying that my "real world" comparisons are void of value proves one thing. You're living in fantasyland, because....wait for it...this is the real world. Again, I, as an employee, don't get to decide what my pay will be. (I wish I could) My pay is based off of what my employer thinks is fair for my services. I don't get to demand a certain cut of his revenue. NFL players get to negotiate their contracts with the owners, if neither party is happy, they can part ways. Your attempt to make it seem as if an NFL player can't play football anywhere else BUT the NFL is 100% false.
Please, cite these laws or statutes which you reference. Yes, your employer. Not your employer and 31 other businesses.
That's your opinion, but you're wrong. It's not outdated. And again, you seem very concerned about how much the owner, or RISK TAKER, of a business wants to keep for their own profits. Like the players don't make 100's of 1000's at the bottom to millions of dollars at the highest per YEAR. Yeah..boo-hoo. You act as if the players will be getting $50 per game, with no kind of medical or any of the other perks afforded to ALL NFL players.
I already have. Google...use it. The 31 other businesses are all franchises of the NFL. Again, the ONLY time they can be considered seperate is when each is trying to sell apparel with thier respective team logo. So, your point is moot.
If you had as much value to your business as NFL players had to theirs, you could and would demand to be treated this way. Chances are, you can be replaced. NFL players can't.
The following is part of an article written by James Williamson: In this case, the owners are unhappy with the scenario, so they are telling players that until a new deal is set, you are barred from coming to the facilities or talking to anyone affiliated with the teams. That is why players can’t talk to coaches, because coaches are direct employees of the NFL franchises, while the players are their own group called the NFLPA (National Football League Players’ Association). Now, I use the term NFLPA loosely because they have officially decertified, but don’t kid yourself. They are still a union together; it just isn’t an official thing. Why did the lockout happen? Simple, the contract the players play under, also called a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), expired and until a new one is reached, there is no NFL. When you get a job, you sign a contract that states your benefits, your wages, your obligations, and it outlines how the business relationship works. If there is no contract to follow, then there is no business relationship. The CBA also dictates the rules of player safety, salary cap procedures, free agency rules etc. The players and the NFL had an opportunity to make a new CBA before the previous CBA expired on March 4th of this year. The two parties held negotiations and talks, and for a while, it looked like there was hope because the parties asked and received an extra week-long stay so they can pound out the details. However, talks broke down, and on March 11th, the CBA expired and the owners proceeded to lockout the players. Obviously, the answer to the problem is to make a new CBA, but it isn’t that simple. There are a myriad of issues that make this matter complicated and perplexing. All of the issues can, in some way, be traced to money though. The NFL makes about $9 billion a year, and from what I could gather, the owners would take $1 billion off the top to use for expenses and the rest of the pie would get sliced up between the players and owners. Now, everyone knows the economy is seeing hard times. Gas prices are going up, and we are in a recession. Well, the NFL wants to take an extra billion bucks to help with expenses and building stadiums. So, instead of $1 billion, the owners would get $2 billion and the remaining $7 billion would be divided up. At least, that’s the claim. Granted, it is hard to believe that the NFL owners, when the NFL is as successful as it is, would legitimately be affected by the recession. In reality, people go to ball games despite recessions because football is an amazing distraction from the drama that our daily lives provide for us. People need escapes from life and sports is one of them. Yet, stadium renovations that have happened are in the several $100 million price range. Lambeau Field received a renovation that was priced a $295 million in 2003 and a few others in that similar kind of price range. From one point, it looks like the owners are just using the recession as an excuse to get more money, but if you look at it from this point of view, you see that running an NFL franchise costs a lot of money, and each franchise would only get $31,250,000 each (that’s $1 billion divided by 32). http://www.nfltouchdown.com/the-nfl-lockout-in-laymans-terms/
ehh, either side you take you can find a fault. eventually this will end because of the profits lost if not would be substantial. I can see where you would take the owners side sense they are the "risk takers" but they don't risk that much in my opinion. They are going to make money whether their team looses or not. To actually own an NFL Team you have to be incredibly wealthy in the first place. Also players are drafted into the "league" with no say in the matter except slight bargaining with pay. I would argue that the players risk more when it comes to playing in the NFL. Also players have way more leverage than in any other business. The Peyton Manning's and Tom Brady's of the NFL have the owners by the cajones, they put fans in the stands. Either way I could care less who "wins" the law suit, just open the football season and dance monkeys.
Owning a football team is not a risk. It's high growth and stable growth (8%, as CK notes), which is highly unusual. That's why you see billionaires lined up 10 deep whenever one goes up for sale. Name me one person in the last 20 years who's bought a football team and lost money on it. You can't. If you've got the cash, it's as secure an investment as you can make.
Oh, please. Some players get old or get injured and are replaced. But there's always a new supply thanks to the draft. Roster limits are what drive the entire mechanism of players getting replaced. So let's not compare NFL players to steel workers as if finding a guy who can make bumpers for Chevy is anything like finding a starting corner back. The 1987 season was an abomination exactly because people know the difference between elite talent and ****.
Whoops, spoke too soon. http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/05/26/ravens-reverse-course-on-employee-pay-cuts/ Evidently the Ravens upon retrospection found the idea of using middle class employees as pawns in the game between billionaires and millionaires as distasteful as I do.
No, the only time its been ruled on has been in re: to apparel. If you're able to cite a law or statute that gives the NFL anti-trust exemption, for anything other than TV contracts, I will donate $100 to this website within the hour. I look forward to your response.
Because they refinanced their $235 million in stadium debt in order to put them in a better financial position moving forward. They actually increased their revenue by $9 million from 2008 to 2009. Or didn't you know that?
Ross is like a crow; drops in to chase anything shiney, whether its pop stars, flavor of the month college coaches, the spotlight through media interviews ...
And either way, year to year profits was not the point I was making. I was saying in total -- the entirety of the investment -- NO ONE in the modern NFL has ever lost money owning an NFL team. That's why I can't get behind this whole notion of the owners' risk. When you are guaranteed to make a very healthy return on your investment, there's no such thing as risk. It's only a question of whether you have the cash up front. It's why -- like I said -- billionaires line up 10 deep whenever one goes up for sale. What could be easier than running an NFL team? It's nothing like the risk and investment it takes to start a business, or even taking a failing one over. Nothing at all.
Only seven NFL teams have not cut their coaches salaries during the NFL's lockout. http://www.bleedinggreennation.com/...-few-teams-to-not-cut-salaries-during-lockout
