No. If your company was generating record profits, and your boss asked you to take a pay cut, would you be greedy if you didn't want to take a pay cut?
I agree that Smith is a major player for the "bad side" of individuals, but really he is playing to his major strength. The NFL will "negotiate" sure, while essentially demanding what they are now. Frankly, negotiations at this point are just a publicity stunt - and don't forget the NFL went back to court to try and keep the lockout in place. I think getting Smith was a bad move for the NFLPA and that he is primarily interested in building his name rather than the Union or the players, but when the owners went and hired Batteman the NHL Union buster, the players saw the writing on the wall and needed to prepare for possible legal action.
This is because you appear to equate profit to greed. Record revenue, not record profits. We actually don’t know what the profits were, because 31 of the 32 teams do not publicly disclose financial information. The Packers are publicly owned and so they do, and their numbers were down. That actually is a negotiation, where you give up one thing to get something else, and you compromise on an issue to make something work. For example, the owners’ last proposal bumped the salary cap up something like $30 million immediately, with pretty good increases each year after. In other words, the actual amount of money the teams could spend on players increased, and likewise the salary floor went up to accompany. So the real, actual amount of money the players make from their checks would increase, because a larger salary cap means teams can spend more on players. Combined with more money for retired players, bigger pensions and more money for health care plans for all players, the owners asked in return for $1 billion off the top of all revenues to meet their expenses. I don’t see why that’s unreasonable, since the owners have overhead, while the players do not. This isn’t nearly as clear cut as you make it sound.
The problem here is the uniqueness of the spectacle, which is what pro football is. If the spectacle were a circus; if I had abilities so unusual that only one in a million people could do what I do; if I had spent my entire life single-mindedly developing those abilities to the exclusion of everything normal in life; if I risked life and limb every day doing what I do so you could sell tickets for people to watch me and be entertained; if you were making billions selling tickets; if we had a deal; and if after the deal expired you wanted to give me a worse deal so you could take more of the pie home at the expense of what used to be my slice of the pie, you bet your life I would be upset. The difference is that I could go to another circus. The NFL is the only circus there is. Reminds me of a so-called partner I once had who told me that an inventor deserves nothing; the only one who deserves money is the capitalist who brings the idea to market. I'm no socialist, but I called him a pig then. Being a pig eventually landed him in jail. Same concept, with all due respect to the risks a venture capitalist takes.
I believe that the owners have been making record profits as well as record revenue. They're just not happy with the profit/revenue ratio. Sometimes it really is simple.
Yeah, but the Pack are not a good representative because they are in a tiny market and have a weird ownership structure. That's why the owners should open their books!
Without looking at the books, are we sure they didn't have some voluntary extra expenses that may have kept their profits down ? That is a distinct possibility, so again using one, and albeit, strange ownership at that, as the example is probably not indicative of what happened with profits for even most of the teams last year.
The owners offered to show 5 years of audited financial statements, even though they’ve never shown financial statements in previous CBA negotiations. The NFLPA wanted 10 years. I find it interesting that you completely disregard the only public NFL numbers we have, but then go ahead and claim that the owners are making profits hand over fist and just want more. How exactly did you arrive at this conclusion despite disregarding the Packers’ numbers?
Why aren't the Packers a good rep? They sell tons of jersey's and fill their stadium on a weekly basis.
If you think the players are not greedy you're fooling yourself. It's been said that without revenue sharing there are a few teams that would actually show a loss!
