What? Where does the deal say the union gets to look at the books?
There is no dispute over revenue calculations. If there were, then I would agree, but they have been 100% transparent with revenue. They have no obligation to be transparent with what they do with their 40%.
They have not alleged this. Now you are saying the NFL should turn over their financials willingly so that the NFLPA can pore over them and see if they can sue them for something else? Really?
What I'm saying is that recent legal precedent makes it clear that when one party promises another party a percentage of revenues or profits on a joint venture, the owed party has a right to dispute and verify the financial transactions and accounting relevant to their stake to ensure that a good faith effort was made to maximize revenue and profit.
So what I'm saying is that the NFL should have turned over their financials willingly during negotiations rather than wait until they're required to do so by the courts... which the above-cited precedent combined with the NFL already having been found to have failed to negotiate the TV deal in good faith makes pretty much an eventuality in any legal dispute.
And I do not believe that NFL has been 100% transparent with their revenue. The shared-revenue, perhaps -- though they were found to have negotiated in bad faith in that, already.
But owners haven't been forced to account for their non-shared revenue, so we have no idea to what degree that's been maximized in good faith. Have any owners sold the rights to paid parking revenues to their own subsidiary below value? Have any luxury suites been given below value to corporations engaged in non-football business ventures with the owners? Et cetera.
Source? Rooney says they didnt even look at them, how did there banks and accounting firms pass judgement on what they did not even look at? I think you made this one up.
Per PFT:The NFL’s offer on March 7 to give the NFLPA a single sheet of numbers was NOT financial disclosure. The players’ accountants and bankers advised that the “offered” information was meaningless: only two numbers for each year.
I would respond if I saw one.
Again, if the owners turned over the financials(assuming they did it before decertification), what do you think would happen after that?
Because the reakl answer is that it would divide the sides further, because now they would each interpret them differently, and with 320 annual financial statements there is a gap as wide as the Grand Canyon for interpretation, and would now have to stop negotiation the agreement while they argue over what the financials say.
What do you think would happen if they did turn them over, and how would it help anything?
Well, first of all, had the owners turned over their financials, the players would have agreed to a deadline extension, and the two sides would still be in mediation, with the transparency issues behind them.
Just as the owners didn't really need to justify their asking for an additional $1 billion off the top, the NFLPA doesn't need to justify demanding financial information. It doesn't matter why the players want it, they do, and the NFL chose to go to court rather than provide the players something at no cost to the owners, outside of some printer paper and toner. The general principle that it's not the NFLPA's business would be a monumentally stupid reason to tank negotiations over.
So why didn't the NFL want to turn the documents over? Well, according to the Peter King article Miguel linked to, King estimates that had the issue been put to a vote, 24 of the 32 owners would have preferred releasing the documents over tanking the negotiations. The Broncos owner has even broken with ranks and publicly said he'd have supported the disclosure.
What it comes down to is that, even assuming nothing that puts the owners' in breech of the initial CBA comes out of the disclosure, refocuses the negotiations on what many are calling the 'elephant in the room' during these CBA negotiations -- the tenuous revenue sharing agreement between the owners.
Essentially, the owners had to ask for the additional $1 billion dollars off the top can so they could present a unified front to the players. The teams that have maximized their non-shared revenue streams don't need it, but since their less profitable colleagues do, the flush owners will heartily support getting the money back from the players, rather than being forced to share any more of their own revenues with the less-industrious owners.
With the teams' finances on the table, the NFLPA could point to the fact that about half the teams' revenues are showing excellent growth, and turning operating profits of $50 to $150 million dollars, while the others show meager revenue growth in the non-shared streams. If the NFLPA accedes to the league's demands, this situation where half the teams are maximizing their revenues and half the teams are living off handouts from the other owners and the players will just continue. The chances of the revenues coming in short of the projections will be high, and even if they don't, the NFL will need to ask for another $1 billion off the top the next time the CBA expires.
Putting all of the financial information on the table allows everyone to recognize the elephant in the room - that the problem isn't between the owners and the players, its between the "have" owners and the "have not" owners. The owners' revenue-sharing system is established on as part of each CBA, and should absolutely be on the table in these negotiations. Forcing full financial disclosure seemed to be the only way to get the owners to break ranks and admit this.
The NFLPA would have been in better position to sell taking more off the top of revenues in the present to their constituents if they could point to changes the owners made in their revenue-sharing system that would ensure that all franchises start maximizing all their revenue streams, eventually increasing the total pot for the players, and making future 'off the top' concessions unnecessary.
