Think the owners are being the stubborn ones? Think again

[Ring 6]

First time posting.Not sure how to answer without stirring up the pot.The way it is set up now...owners make a killing..players get killed.The NFL is entertainment...not like the WWE...but not like college football either.300 million a team a year.One guy gets 170 million..the other 70 guys get 130 million.There are more players who make half a million dollars than those that make million plus.Average years of playing...3 to 5.Average years of ownership??In a ten year span an owner will make 1.5 billion...a player like Brady maybe 50 million??...there are a lot more Neils and Tates and Deadricks in the NFL than there are big time paychecks.Root for the jersey not the player...right?? I believe Troy Brown made 20 million playing for the Pats...after taxes agents..blah blah blah...chump change..he deserved more.Season ticket holder for 13 years....never...ever...ever..have seen Kraft catch a ball...make a stop...kick a feild goal.It is the players who make the game fun.

Out of every dollar the teams receive 50 cents goes to the players.
All the non-player expenses come out of the 50 cents the team keeps.
We have no facts to show what the teams end up with in profit, except the Packers, who are publicly owned.
The showed a profit of just over $5mill. Some players on the team make more money that the owner(s) does. And combined the players make about 25-30 times more than the owner(s).
Not sure how that is the owners making a killing and the players getting killed.

Your other point, that the disribution among players is unfair, is not really part of the issue at hand.

 

[Ring 6]

Im in real estate in Mass and live here, Im telling you how we do it here in Mass, I see your in NY, you do it differently there.
If you look at property record data here in Mass you'll see comparable sales that they have used to obtain a value.
And yes we do reassess every three years, this is on every town web site in Mass


You correct about the other part, all homes are not assessed at market value every year but they are consistent, if yours is not you have a gripe.

OK, so it is different in different states. I guess its really kind of irrelevant to the thread though.
I think its safe to say that property taxes are not going down.

 

[Buckley80]

Out of every dollar the teams receive 50 cents goes to the players.
All the non-player expenses come out of the 50 cents the team keeps.
We have no facts to show what the teams end up with in profit, except the Packers, who are publicly owned.
The showed a profit of just over $5mill. Some players on the team make more money that the owner(s) does. And combined the players make about 25-30 times more than the owner(s).
Not sure how that is the owners making a killing and the players getting killed.

Your other point, that the disribution among players is unfair, is not really part of the issue at hand.

If there's nothing to hide than the owners should open the books. If the owners are really experiencing significant losses of revenue because of the last CBA then they should advocate for a transparent process. Otherwise, why should the players agree to take a pay cut.

There's an agreement in place. If the owners want to tear it up, they can't realistically expect the players to take their word that it needs to be done. Would any of these owners accept such a deal if the shoe was on the other foot? Of course not. My personal feeling is that the owners have lost revenue on other business ventures and are trying to make more off the NFL at the expense of the players.

I am firmly with the NFL union members.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

If there's nothing to hide than the owners should open the books. If the owners are really experiencing significant losses of revenue because of the last CBA then they should advocate for a transparent process. Otherwise, why should the players agree to take a pay cut.

There's an agreement in place. If the owners want to tear it up, they can't realistically expect the players to take their word that it needs to be done. Would any of these owners accept such a deal if the shoe was on the other foot? Of course not. My personal feeling is that the owners have lost revenue on other business ventures and are trying to make more off the NFL at the expense of the players.

I am firmly with the NFL union members.

Great 1st post DeMaurice! Welcome to the board!

 

[BradyFTW!]

If there's nothing to hide than the owners should open the books. If the owners are really experiencing significant losses of revenue because of the last CBA then they should advocate for a transparent process. Otherwise, why should the players agree to take a pay cut.

There's an agreement in place. If the owners want to tear it up, they can't realistically expect the players to take their word that it needs to be done. Would any of these owners accept such a deal if the shoe was on the other foot? Of course not. My personal feeling is that the owners have lost revenue on other business ventures and are trying to make more off the NFL at the expense of the players.

I am firmly with the NFL union members.

Agreed. People seem to forget that it's the owners who opted out of the CBA, because they said that their costs were too high. If they expect everyone else to play ball and follow along, then they'd better be willing to prove as much. If they're not, then you end up where we are today.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Out of every dollar the teams receive 50 cents goes to the players.
All the non-player expenses come out of the 50 cents the team keeps.
We have no facts to show what the teams end up with in profit, except the Packers, who are publicly owned.
The showed a profit of just over $5mill. Some players on the team make more money that the owner(s) does. And combined the players make about 25-30 times more than the owner(s).
Not sure how that is the owners making a killing and the players getting killed.

Your other point, that the disribution among players is unfair, is not really part of the issue at hand.

The Packers play in the smallest market in the league, by a large margin, and are the only publicly owned team to boot. It's quite a leap to assume that they're representative of the rest of the NFL.

 

[Metaphors]

Minor issue, but I think the numbers are for total compensation, and not the cap. There's usually another $20M+ allocated for benefits on top of the cap, except for last season when the owners didn't have to pay certain ones, and I believe that is factored into the equation.

If you are right, then the players initial offer was:

$9.3B x 50% = $4.65B / 32 teams = $145M per team - $20M benefits = $125M cap

That would be lower than the 2009 cap even though the revenue pool would be higher. If the benefits were more than $20M, then the cap would be even lower.

The owners 42% offer would result in about a $100M cap which would be a stunningly low figure. Every team in the league would be in cap jail at that figure.

So if you are correct and those percentages include benefits, then the players talk of "not giving anything up until the owners opened their books" doesn't make sense. Their offer would result in a cap decrease of over $10M per team versus what the old CBA would have paid in 2011. Somehow I can't see them being that generous and the owners not taking that generosity straight to the bank.

 

[Ring 6]

If there's nothing to hide than the owners should open the books.

Because they are being asked to by their adversary who no doubt will try to manipulate them to use against them.
The agreement is based on revenues. The only reason for the union to request full financials is to find a way to manipulate them and use them against them.
Why dont you show your hand when you play poker?

If the owners are really experiencing significant losses of revenue because of the last CBA then they should advocate for a transparent process. Otherwise, why should the players agree to take a pay cut.

They are not saying they are losing money. They are saying they find their profit margin unacceptable. They would be morons to allow the union to tell them where they should set their level of acceptable profit margins.

There's an agreement in place.

No there is not. Thee has not been for over a year. 2010 was uncapped.
They are negotiating to reestablish a cap. There is none in place.

If the owners want to tear it up,

They already have

they can't realistically expect the players to take their word that it needs to be done.

Why? And they arent asking them to take their word on anything, they are telling them the only way they will sign a new agreement is if it is better for them than the one they chose to no longer be a part of. How do financials 'prove' that. Again you are asking them to have the union bless their decision of what profit margin they require on their investment.

Would any of these owners accept such a deal if the shoe was on the other foot? Of course not.

They negotiate deals all the time. They negotiate with the NFLPA, the networks, advertisers, vendors, etc. Want to guess how many of them they asked to provide 10 years of financials before they would agree on a price?

My personal feeling is that the owners have lost revenue on other business ventures and are trying to make more off the NFL at the expense of the players.

And if you are right, that is their prerogative.
If you owned 4 factories and were accustomed to an annual income of $100,000 from them, and the econommy changed so that you could not make profit in 2 of them but could in the others are you seriously telling me you would not take steps to make the 2 profitable ones even more profitable and instead just accept half your income?

I am firmly with the NFL union members.

Yes that is clear. Unfortunately you are with the union before analyzing the data rather than after.

 

[cmasspatsfan]

Agreed. People seem to forget that it's the owners who opted out of the CBA, because they said that their costs were too high. If they expect everyone else to play ball and follow along, then they'd better be willing to prove as much. If they're not, then you end up where we are today.

A Q&A with Art Rooney II

That was one of the strange things in the negotiations, because the previous week when that subject came up, we said – after a long time of not being willing to provide anything and really feeling like it was one of those things that wasn’t going to lead to anything – then we felt like, OK, maybe if we agree to give them something and try to provide them some insight into what has happened to the teams, maybe that would lead to a breakthrough. So we offered to provide them some financial information through an auditor, we offered to go through a third party and have a third party look at the information. It was a very strange reaction. They didn’t take the information, after asking for it. They said it wasn’t good enough. I don’t even know how you can make that judgment without accepting what was offered. Certainly we would not have been surprised if they came back after they had seen it and had questions. But they never even looked at it. To me, that was a little bit of a tip-off as to where they were really headed with this thing.

 

[Ring 6]

The Packers play in the smallest market in the league, by a large margin, and are the only publicly owned team to boot. It's quite a leap to assume that they're representative of the rest of the NFL.

When it is the only one we have available, so the only one we can base it upon.
But, what impact does the market have?
They sell out every game, and I believe their ticket prices are at or above the average.
The TV revenue is the same for all teams large market or small.
I would assume the Packers do very well in merchandise sales, certainly better than larger market teams with less popularity.
They may be at a disadvantage in other areas, but there is also revenue sharing.

I dont think their small market has a huge impact.
The small market disadvantage is much less in the NFL than other sports because of the TV contracts. The biggest reason the Yankees have more revenue than anyone else is their YES network contract.
What factors do you think it hurts them on?

 

[Ring 6]

Agreed. People seem to forget that it's the owners who opted out of the CBA, because they said that their costs were too high. If they expect everyone else to play ball and follow along, then they'd better be willing to prove as much. If they're not, then you end up where we are today.

Thats is not sound logic.
They opted out because they had the right to and for whatever reason they felt the deal was not good for them.
They are(were) negotiating for one that was acceptable to them.
Why would that add up to them needing to open their books to their adversary.
They are not saying they want to make the CBA dependent upon profit.
It would be moronic for the owners to allow the negotiation over how to divide revenues to turn into a negotiation over where they want to set as an acceptable profit margin.

The owners may just feel they are in a position of enough strength to demand more. There is nothing wrong with that, it is their right. The idea that they have to document their business decision to your, my or DeMaurice Smiths approval is ridiculous.

AND, they did turn over financial information, the union chose to not look at it.

By the way, I will ask you what I keep asking everyone who is approaching this from the same viewpont.

If the owners turned over the books, what result would you expect would happen that would improve things?

 

[Wolfpack]

The Packers play in the smallest market in the league, by a large margin, and are the only publicly owned team to boot. It's quite a leap to assume that they're representative of the rest of the NFL.

The Packers are probably not a good representative of the rest of the league - because they're better off.

The fact that they are in a small market is irrelevant because TV revenues are shared equally amongst all the clubs. This isn't baseball where the Yankees' TV contract is worth more than the Royals' TV contract based on market size.

The Packers do very well with merchandise sales and they sure don't seem to have any problems selling out the building every week. So I'll bet the Packers are in better shape financially than, say, the Jaguars or Chargers or Vikings.

 

[JoeSixPat]

If there's nothing to hide than the owners should open the books. If the owners are really experiencing significant losses of revenue because of the last CBA then they should advocate for a transparent process. Otherwise, why should the players agree to take a pay cut.

There's an agreement in place. If the owners want to tear it up, they can't realistically expect the players to take their word that it needs to be done. Would any of these owners accept such a deal if the shoe was on the other foot? Of course not. My personal feeling is that the owners have lost revenue on other business ventures and are trying to make more off the NFL at the expense of the players.

I am firmly with the NFL union members.

It's far from that simple - there's a lot of reasons why the NFL owners aren't interested in sharing their books with each other, let alone opening them to the players and the world.

Anyway I think the NFLPA already blinked on this one - and the "we need to see the books" argument is acknowledged as just posturing.

Keep in mind that the NFL players are primarily representing the players of TODAY - telling an employee that they should take a penny less so that the owners can reinvest and grow the "company" to double profitability for owners and player alike AFTER you've retired doesn't exactly resonate with the current NFLPA membership.

 

[Ring 6]

The Packers are probably not a good representative of the rest of the league - because they're better off.

The fact that they are in a small market is irrelevant because TV revenues are shared equally amongst all the clubs. This isn't baseball where the Yankees' TV contract is worth more than the Royals' TV contract based on market size.

The Packers do very well with merchandise sales and they sure don't seem to have any problems selling out the building every week. So I'll bet the Packers are in better shape financially than, say, the Jaguars or Chargers or Vikings.

Good or bad, its the only one we have.
And the fact that the owner(s) of that franchise made less money on thier investment than they paid to individual players pretty much destroys the owners are greedy scumsuckers trying to take food of the mouths of the poor players argument.

 

[lamafist]

Out of every dollar the teams receive 50 cents goes to the players.
All the non-player expenses come out of the 50 cents the team keeps.

We have no facts to show what the teams end up with in profit, except the Packers, who are publicly owned.
The showed a profit of just over $5mill. Some players on the team make more money that the owner(s) does. And combined the players make about 25-30 times more than the owner(s).
Not sure how that is the owners making a killing and the players getting killed.

Your other point, that the disribution among players is unfair, is not really part of the issue at hand.

Ok, first of all, it really needs to be mentioned that the 50% only applies to the league-shared revenues, comprising the TV rights and basic ticket sales.

Naming rights, team endorsements and corporate sponsorship, concessions, parking, media rights for local television, luxury suites, and anything else the owner can think of to cash in off the franchise, all goes 100% to the franchise. For the owners who've invested money into maximizing these non-shared streams over the past ten years, this now amounts to the lion's share of their revenue.

If a team is only clearing $5 million in profit, it only has its own failure to maximize its non-shared revenue to blame.

Another point that needs to be made is that much of the money the owners expend in terms of non-player expenses isn't lost at all, as it increases the overall value of the owner's asset, the franchise. Most franchises at this point are valued at around $1 billion dollars. So a franchises operating profit is only half of the owner's net gains, when you consider the appreciation of his biggest asset.

 

[jsull87]

Agreed. People seem to forget that it's the owners who opted out of the CBA, because they said that their costs were too high. If they expect everyone else to play ball and follow along, then they'd better be willing to prove as much. If they're not, then you end up where we are today.

What you seem to be forgetting is the NFL gave permission for the Union to have an independent auditor go through and look at the books of the NFL teams then they could either dispute or accept the NFL's claims. This way the NFL owners keep their privacy and the Union gets the confirmation that they wanted that the figures are correct. The Union didn't accept that proposal, that is ridiculous if your going to make the "we need to get accurate financial data" as your cornerstone to your argument.

 

[jsull87]

It's far from that simple - there's a lot of reasons why the NFL owners aren't interested in sharing their books with each other, let alone opening them to the players and the world.

Anyway I think the NFLPA already blinked on this one - and the "we need to see the books" argument is acknowledged as just posturing.

Keep in mind that the NFL players are primarily representing the players of TODAY - telling an employee that they should take a penny less so that the owners can reinvest and grow the "company" to double profitability for owners and player alike AFTER you've retired doesn't exactly resonate with the current NFLPA membership.

This is a really good point and one i hadn't thought of

 

[lamafist]

Thats is not sound logic.
They opted out because they had the right to and for whatever reason they felt the deal was not good for them.
They are(were) negotiating for one that was acceptable to them.
Why would that add up to them needing to open their books to their adversary.
They are not saying they want to make the CBA dependent upon profit.
It would be moronic for the owners to allow the negotiation over how to divide revenues to turn into a negotiation over where they want to set as an acceptable profit margin.

The owners may just feel they are in a position of enough strength to demand more. There is nothing wrong with that, it is their right. The idea that they have to document their business decision to your, my or DeMaurice Smiths approval is ridiculous.

Simply not true. The owners' gave up their right to keep their books entirely secret when they made a deal with the NFLPA involving percentages of revenue.

Between Celador v. Disney and a handful of other major court decisions in the entertainment industry these past two years, as well as Doty's decision over the NFL's lockout insurance in the TV deal, it's fairly clearly established that the NFL is obligated to deal in good faith to maximize the revenues it splits with the NFLPA, and if the NFLPA feels the NFL has failed to do this, the NFL will be forced to defend its operations in court.

AND, they did turn over financial information, the union chose to not look at it.

The financial information the league offered was deemed opaque to the point of uselessness by the banks and accounting firms advising the NFLPA.

By the way, I will ask you what I keep asking everyone who is approaching this from the same viewpont.

If the owners turned over the books, what result would you expect would happen that would improve things?

I've given several answers to this question. I don't think I've gotten a response to any of them.

 

[jsull87]

Simply not true. The owners' gave up their right to keep their books entirely secret when they made a deal with the NFLPA involving percentages of revenue.

Between Celador v. Disney and a handful of other major court decisions in the entertainment industry these past two years, as well as Doty's decision over the NFL's lockout insurance in the TV deal, it's fairly clearly established that the NFL is obligated to deal in good faith to maximize the revenues it splits with the NFLPA, and if the NFLPA feels the NFL has failed to do this, the NFL will be forced to defend its operations in court.



The financial information the league offered was deemed opaque to the point of uselessness by the banks and accounting firms advising the NFLPA.


I've given several answers to this question. I don't think I've gotten a response to any of them.

1st the Union didn't even accept the offer for an independent Auditor to look at the NFL team's books how is this not dealing in good faith, along with the other concessions the owners have made, listed earlier in this thread.

In my opinion i think the courts will find that the NFL was negotiation in good faith. As we have talked about earlier i don't think the union has a leg to stand of asking for 10 year audited financial statements as they have no rights to them, the owners offered for an independent auditor to go through to verify the financial info for the Union and they said no. This was admitted to by both parties

 

[Ring 6]

Ok, first of all, it really needs to be mentioned that the 50% only applies to the league-shared revenues, comprising the TV rights and basic ticket sales.

No, its 60% of included revenues minus 1 billion which equals about 50% of all revenues.

Naming rights, team endorsements and corporate sponsorship, concessions, parking, media rights for local television, luxury suites, and anything else the owner can think of to cash in off the franchise, all goes 100% to the franchise. For the owners who've invested money into maximizing these non-shared streams over the past ten years, this now amounts to the lion's share of their revenue.

I believe this is incorrect.
My understanding is that these items were added, and then the $1billion deduction was put in place.
That is why the SRSP happened specifically because the non-shared revenue drew the cap up and reduced profits of smaller revenue teams.

If a team is only clearing $5 million in profit, it only has its own failure to maximize its non-shared revenue to blame.

How do you get to that without analyzing where the money went?
And regardless, if they are not able to generate more nonshared revenue why does that make their need to keep a higher percentage of the revenue less valid?

Another point that needs to be made is that much of the money the owners expend in terms of non-player expenses isn't lost at all, as it increases the overall value of the owner's asset, the franchise. Most franchises at this point are valued at around $1 billion dollars. So a franchises operating profit is only half of the owner's net gains, when you consider the appreciation of his biggest asset.

So. Investing revenue in a company to increase its value is part of what a company needs to do. It still needs to make a profit.

It seems we are going down a slippery slope where you want to be allowed to tell Bob Kraft wha profit margin he is allowed to require on his investment.

You appear to be saying the following:

Bob Kraft should be happy with the amount of profit that is left from the unions proposal, because it gives the union what they want, and hey, he's making a buck.

Bob Kraft should turn over his financials as part of the negotiation so the union can look again and decide if they should set the profit margin he is allowed to get any lower.

I simply and wholeheartedly disagree. Bob Kraft is the only one who can determine what level of profit Bob Kraft needs to make for his investment to be worthwhile, and where he sets that is not a moral issue.