Outline of the proposal rejected by the NFLPA

The players do not make the NFL. They only average 3-5 yrs in it. They lay there bodies on the line and get a pretty good salary to do so but the owners and players make the NFL.

 

I guess that qualifies them to make the special sauce for big macs.

 

This is all really simple.

As an employee a person is not entitled to any profits. If the players want partner status they need to pony up some dough and give some back to their team.

 

All the easy comparisons don't apply. The NFL is, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly; the players have nowhere else to go. That, of course, is no fault of the owners. The players, on the other hand, are not fungible labor; compared to the general population they are prodigies. Rare as hen's teeth. They are playing a children's game for a lot of money, but at a speed and intensity (without which there is no NFL) that gets them paralyzed or brain-damaged. If you want to oversimplify, what they want is profit sharing, but if you look at the issues, what they're really asking to be is equity partners. It troubles me when labor tries to muscle into ownership. Smacks of Communism a little bit, and we all know how well that socioeconomic model works. Clichés; I know. Maybe the way of the world is becoming the recognition of unusual service as a capital contribution.

Maybe what makes sense is to have a parallel "ownership track." You take much less money during your career in exchange for a non-voting, non-managing equity interest that pays you a piece of the pie. Only the players with really rich contracts would be able to afford to buy in; the run-of-the-mill players get some muchless rich kind of profit sharing. That mirrors reality. If you breach your contract or don't make performance benchmarks repeatedly absent injury you forfeit your equity option, and you need to meet minimum career performance standards whether you're hurt or not: Reality again. You'd see a lot of superstars playing their butts off and a lot less divas.

Capitalism. Great stuff.

 

The part I bolded and underlined is just wrong on every account. There are other professional football leagues.

Also, for every "average" player in the NFL there are many more not in the NFL. They just don't get the chance because they either went to a very small college, or no college at all. It happens all the time where the local bag boy becomes an NFL star because he got that rare opportunity to showcase his skills. There are 1,000's of people in this country not in the NFL who can run as fast, jump as high, and hit as hard as your average NFL player. Of course there are those who have rare abilities, Barry Sanders, P. Manning to give a few examples.


I agree 100% with your second paragraph.

 

The NFL is a monopoly, remember the USFL and its lawsuit against the NFL? Theres no arguing that the NFL isn't a monopoly, it is a monopoly and its been established so lets stop that nonsense its not a valid argument here.

 

I find it hard to read some of the comments here blasting the players, a lot of the comments are just so ignorant. Very few players in the NFL make 20 million a year, most get close to the minimum and have about 2-4 years in the league. Many of those players are injured for the rest of their lives. The Peyton Mannings and Drew Brees,and Tom Brady's are not fighting for an extra few million a year, they are fairly compensated, they are fighting for the guys that don't make their kind of money. ALL of the owners are wealthy and have teams worth WAY more than they paid for them. Many of them have had the taxpayers build stadiums or provide sweetheart deals to make them 100's of millions of dollars. Then the owners are crying that they are poor......and we have people here that actually believe this, its amazing.

The owners are making a powerplay for more money, good for them thats their right, but the players have a lot of leverage on their side too and are fighting for themselves as well. I think the notion that the players are greedy is laughable when people in the same post are giving the owners a free pass. Both sides are fighting for a chunk of 9 billion dollars, theres no easy way to do that when there are hundreds of people involved and a lot of bad information.

I watch the NFL for the players I couldn't tell you who half the owners are around the league and I don't care. If every single owner was replaced tomorrow I'd be at the next game I could get to and be watching all the games on TV. If the players were replaced I'd find another sport to follow. I watch the NFL for the Peyton Mannings and the other great players. Good for the owners that they want to make more money but I'm firmly on the side of the players who sacrifice their bodies so I can enjoy a game I love watching. A bunch of billionaires and guys that have hundreds of millions in the bank (no NFL owner is even close to poor and if they are they can simply sell their team to literally a line of guys waiting to buy them for much more than they paid for the team) don't get any simpathy from me when they make millions and millions off of guys that destroy their bodies, most of whom do not retire wealthy from the game, thats the thing I dislike most about a lot of the posting here is that people don't seem to understand that most of the guys we grew up watching and watch now are NOT making 20 million a year and if you think about it making a few hundred thousand dollars a year for 3-5 years doesn't make you wealthy and certainly doesn't make you wealthy when you have medical problems for the rest of your life. I don't see the players requests being outrageous at all.

That said, I think both sides will find some middle ground here soon, I would expect this to last a while, maybe a couple of months but I think the season starts on time.

 

no it was n the usfl proved it, back then the nfl did try to and succeeded, n running out the usfl. they got caught, they lost. now there has benn several start up leagues and some still exist.

a monopoly created through free trade is allowed ir is monopolies created thru restrant of trades n using ur power deny anorther opportunity to compete. if a league cant compete thru free trade then thats too bad. the nfl is not required to make less money so other leagues can compete easier

 

i find it hard to believe that anyone goes out of his way too defend the players.


the min salary in nfl is still more than many see in 5 years so just because you fall on side of players doewnt make u right.

the issue is oth are wrong, the owners created their own mess and they are= greedy if not more. but no matter what excuse you come up with, the players hwve no pegal entitlement to the revenues other than what THE OWNERS r willing to pay.

 

It's not a monopoly and deciding that there is "no argument" that it isn't is plain silly. The NFL is maybe an oligopoly, but by definition it's not a monopoly.

The definition of a monopoly is : a commodity controlled by one party . So is Payton Manning the commodity being controlled. There is only one Payton Manning, so how could there ever not be a monopoly. There is only one Mark Zuckerberg who is a flat out genius, but Facebook has the monopoly on his talents.
The NFL controls no such commodity, I have the ability every day to go out to the field and play with other friends. I could organize my own league and compete at a professional level. The only thing the NFL has managed to win over is the Fans through excellent product marketing, and more importantly the product they put out. That product is entertainment. For 3 hours at a time you have the choice to go to the park, watch cartoons, listen to music, download whatever you do. All those things are competing for your entertainment. This is not the same as a single company having full control over the oil of the world. Nobody needs NFL Football we just love it, we need oil, and don’t have substitutes.

http://talkofliberty.com/nfl-monopoly/#

 

The players are legally entitled to whatever their contracts entail. The ones that the owner's willingly entered.

 

The players CHOOSE to play a child's game for 100's of 1000's of dollars and they know the risks. I doubt, however, that any of them would decide not to play (even for the league minimum) and instead get another, more dangerous job for much, much less money.

 

And the owners are only obligated to give the players what was in their contracts. The ones the players willingly entered. However, how many holdouts do we see each year?

 

rght thats an agreement, but that agreement s done term expired. so entitlement expired

 

I disagree. If the best players played arena football it would be the more popular league. Dan Marino is the reason I am a Dolphin and football fan, not Joe Robbie.

 

Then the player holds out if he thinks he can get x amount of dollars more...

 

Ummmm...Dan Marino hasn't played in 20 years. And Joe Robbie is dead. lol..

Seriously though, if not for the owners the Dan Marino's of the world wouldn't be able to play at this high a level.

 

The contract between the player and the team is not expired.

 

With no CBA the owners have the right to "lockout". And if the players aren't playing they don't get paid.

 

Do you really not get the point of the Joe Robbie comment?

That not true at all. I pay my money to watch the players perform, not the owners. If the NFL folded tomorrow I'd find a CFL team to support, and it wouldn't be long before new owners in a new league cashed in on the players performances. The Dan Marino’s of the world will be able to play as long as people like me are willing to pay money to watch them. There is a reason that top-level actors get guaranteed money and a share of the profits of their movies.

 

The owners have the right lockout the NFLPA. They have no right to lockout individual players.

 

lol= "Laugh Out Loud"

Seriously though= I was kidding about the first part of my post


If the NFL players make the NFL why don't they go and start up their own league? I'll tell you why. They're not smart enough or rich enough. Thus, the OWNERS are the reason there is an NFL.

 

And the decertification is nothing more than a sham. When this thing is all worked out do you think the union will once again certify? Of course. They can't just flip flop back and forth. This decertification will probably hurt the players worse in the long run.

 

The question isn't if they are smart or rich enough. You could surely find replacement owners that could do as good of a job. The biggest problem is that there are owners who do a terrible job that face no competition.

 

If that is true then there won't be an issue. The last time the courts ruled on decertification, they sided with the players though. Either way, its in the best interest of the owners for the NFLPA to re-certify.

 

And if there is no CBA, Free agent restrictions and the draft are not legal.

 

The owners face competition. That's just wrong. the NFL faces competition from the AFL, UFL and CFL, along with college football and every other pro sport. The NFL is the best sport in the U.S. because the owners market it and run it exceptionally well.

 

Because they are under contract and up until now the NFL was the best option for them. There is too much money to be made for the owners to let this happen, but if this lock out were to extend for a long time I’d lay you odds that another league would start up with basically the same rules as the NFL, and it would start getting the top talent. That would lead to a settlement in a hurry.

 

And I bet this "new league" would be started up by the current owners of the NFL.

Doesn't matter though. The NFL is not going anywhere. The players, for the most part, are too stupid to do anything else and most haven't saved a dime. They will give in sooner rather than later because they don't want to get a real job and can't afford to miss even one paycheck.

The 2011 season won't miss a game.

 

Again, you're characterizing the NFL as one business. It is 32 separate businesses. Most of the leagues you mention aren't in many NFL markets. I'm not currently aware of any AFL, UFL, or CFL teams that can play the Dallas Cowboys if Jerry Jones wanted to.

 

The NFL players are smart enough to realize that owners like Jerry Jones, Dan Snyder, Paul Allen, Stephen Ross, Bob Kraft, etc. would be more than willing to meet their compensation needs.

 

Even if you believe that the NFL is 32 separate businesses all 32 owners have agreed upon who they will and won't play. That is a business owners right.

 

Absolutely not. Business owners cannot collude to lock out certain individuals from employment.

 

No they aren't. Lawyers and agents, who stand to gain a lot of money from a lawsuit, are the ones doing this. 99% of the players in the NFL are just happy to get "paid" and attend their local strip club in order to "make it rain". Other people put these thoughts into their heads. In fact, the NFL has a lot to do with educating players on money, investing etc. with MANDATORY classes. If they weren't madatory how many players do you think would attend?

 

If they are that hard up they could go play for the UFL or AFL or even the CFL. Which I kind of hope happens. Their contracts are not valid during a lock out, I think... any one know for sure? Could they go play and not violate terms of their contracts?

 

Who's locking someone out of employment? I'm talking about the 32 owners deciding on their teams playing schedules.

 

I would tend to think your characterization of NFL players is a little excessive. I seriously doubt Jake Long or Chad Henne or Ronnie Brown are "making it rain" at a strip club, or are somehow happy being paid less than market value for their services.

 

The 32 owners don't individually decide their own schedules. Do you really think Jerry Jones could play an exhibition against a CFL team if he chose to?

 

They won't go and play football for $35,000 per year. Which is the average salary for a UFL player.

 

The 32 owners definitely do decide who they play. Who made up the scheduling rules, Martians? lol