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- Oct 16, 2007
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Please don't misunderstand me. I think that if 2 regular season games are added, each player's salary should be divided by 16 and each salary should be increased by 2 times that amount. I spent the last 30 of my 34 year working career in management and before moving to a management position I was a union official, so I have had experience on both sides of the aisle, so to speak. Goodel's assertion that the players already get paid for a 20 game season is misleading, disingenuous and insulting. Then again, I wouldn't have expected anything less from him.
The problem is the overall revenue will not increase ratably. There will be little or no extra ticket revenue. There will be increased televsion revenue from the networks to the extent that advertisers are willing to pay for more regular season games. This increase will be offset in part by reduced local revenue from preseason games (payable directly to the teams rather than being shared).
There's no way that a 12.5% increase in the number of regular season games (18 over 16) translates into a 12.5% increase in league-wide revenues. The players may insist that they are entitled to a 12.5% increase in salary, but where is that money going to come from?
We can argue over whether lengthening the regular season is a good idea, but it seems to me that the economics of it suggest that it's never going to happen. I'm not taking sides, but the numbers don't likely add up.