when you are under a contractual agreement to share a percentage of income, why shouldn't the owners open the books? it looks like a hollywood movie that is a smash but somehow all the money is gone for those wondering where the profit went. more power to the players if they can expose sham accounting.
There is no debate over verifying the revenue.
The NFL and NFLPA have an agreed upon process to verify the revenues and how they are calculated.
THERE IS NO DISPUTE ABOUT THAT.
The dispute is that after the revenue is split, the players want to see, analyze, comment upon, argue over, and make central to the negoatiations, what the owners do with their share.
Frankly, it is really none of their business, and the most surprising part of this entire process is that people do not see through this ploy as a way for the union to publicize the profit level as one big lump sum and make the owners look greedy.
If revenues are 9billion, and the players receive 4.5 billion of it as payroll, and the owners make a combined 1 billion in profit (including any form of pay to ownership) that would mean that the players receive 4 1/2 times what the owners do, after the owners pay all of the expenses, or about 80% of the after expense money. If that were the real true case, the NFLPA would shout from the rooftops that the owners MADE A BILLION DOLLARS AND THOSE GREEDY BASTARDS WANT MORE.
Of course, on top of that, they will identify expenses that they can spin as illegitimate, further driving public opinion against the owners, without full disclosure of all the facts.
Would many fans even pay attention to the fact that this is only 11% of the revenue and that the players make 4 1/2 times more? Nope, they would criticize the greed of 'the billionaires'. Its already happening here, without even knowing the numbers.
I don't know how people cannot see through this tactic.
It is simply ridiculous for owners to turn over such information so that their adversary can go tell a story that only includes facts it wants to include.