This month’s ‘Itchy’ goes to a collection of very rich men whose contribution to my peace of mind has been a disaster this past week. Making money hand over fist, they now insist that the percentage of revenue going to the players does not move from around 56%, where it’s been for quite a while now already. Nobody will dispute that NFL players have it worse than any other American professional sports atheletes. No guaranteed contracts, restrictions on movement, club’s ability to franchise one player per year and of course, the fact that once injured badly, the team has ways to get out of paying in the long run.
With this in mind, a compromise of 58% would have been acceptable last week most likely, but when you’re dealing with people who look like this:
I’m counting on Bob Kraft to take one for the team here and figure out how to get a deal done, but he’s only one man. Having taken the lowest revenue franchise, a perenial laughing stock – the Patriots – and doing what he’s done with it, I can completely understand his reluctance to further cut up the pie with owners who have no clue, but the league is only going to survive if those with more not only do what’s best for themselves, but for the NFL as a whole.
Issue #1 is the player revenue percentage and Issue #2 is big markets kicking profits to teams like Arizona. Since the league is showing no signs of slowing down popularity-wise, assumption should be that revenue will increase year to year, and by 2011 (the next labor talks), 58% might feel like a bargain.
Seriously…if half of the NFL owners died tomorrow, there would be businessmen there to take over in no time. Without the players, there is no league!
I think that professional athletes in the NFL,NBA,Nhl,and MLB do quite well. Even if they have a short career they still make a damn site more than Joe the ragman or a fireman, policeman et cetera. The owners have a right to most of the profits, because after all if there were no teams there would be no professional athletes. The players didn’t put their money into staring a team. They can’t have all the pie-a piece will suffice.
One of my favorite movies is the replacements. Maybe realty will imitatae “art”.
Chris I would not lose to much sleep over this, neither the players or the owners are as dumb as hockey players and hockey owners. Both sides would have to be really dumb to let this get to a work stoppage. One thing that would be interesting would be to watch the NFL without a cap. If Snyder went stienbrenner It would be interesting to see who he would try to buy.
If the NFL got rid of the cap, the league would turn to shit soon afterwards. The reason it’s working now is the structure in place makes the product competitive. One team can’t break the bank every year and gain an unfair advantage.
Americans are more apt to trash an athelete for what they make than they are to do the same to a trust fund baby or executive who runs their firm into the ground.
My take…these atheletes go through a hell of a lot more than the 40 hour a week worker. Do thousands come to your job and hollar at you? How about playing hurt?
No sympathy for the atheletes, fine…I think it’s a sign of the times to be quite honest. They’re in the spotlight, so let’s dump our emotions on them.
Nobody seems to care about the fact that a guy like Allen Iverson generates more revenue for Philly than any 5 guys wearing suits.
With the owners, there would be no league?!?!?! Paul, everytime a big market team goes up for sale, there are people lining up to buy the team.
Why does all the sympathy go to the owners? It’s this ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds’ mantra.
Lack of a salary cap usually means that sports leagues tend to shoot themselves in the foot. A handful of teams gobble up all of the talent, the rest of the league shrivels, and the annual postseason becomes ho-hum. Baseball fans are nothing but lucky that the NYY and ATL have not been to the WS 9/10 times. God must smile on baseball fans giving us the CWS, HOU, and AZ.
Wisenheimer:
So you attribute God to baseball. What a revelation.
On God and baseball – – – – I take Pedro Martinez and Carl Everett at their word…it’s all about God and nothing else.
Unless they lose of course…
Wisenheimer’s point is well taken…Arizona and the White Sox winning is a breath of fresh air.
God smiles on certain baseball fans = God helped them to win over more supposedly robust teams. It’s a joke.
Major League baseball players get a lot more than high salaries. They get a lifestyle that most of us can only imagine, perks and in some cases cult-hero status. How many CEOs can you name ?
and they get to play a fun game for an incredible living.
It is a fun way to make a living. I agree that the White Sox and Diamondbacks and also the Florida Marlins throw baseball a curve when they go out and win.
Yeah, and football is fixed anyway. It’s a much better game to watch but baseball seems to be damaged on an individual level, i.e. Pete Rose, rather than a global level, i.e. rigged superbowl.
Right:
Are you still mad about the seahawks losing the superbowl?
I read this book called first and fixxed, it is fiction but it is written by an former NFL running back and he lays out a pretty easy scheme to fix NFL games. You might be on to something.
Are you still mad about the seahawks losing the superbowl?
Me? Bitter? Bitter about the biggest ripoff of 2006? Not really….
I read this book called first and fixxed, it is fiction but it is written by an former NFL running back and he lays out a pretty easy scheme to fix NFL games. You might be on to something.
I’ve heard of this book, it’s called the NFL Referee’s Manual.
Right:
I sort of admire your ability to not let things go.
Atheletes have to work just as hard, if not more than many others for what they get, and for every multi-millionaire, there’s plenty of average players who don’t have their own helicopter and rocket car.
I look at Curt Schilling doing what he did on that ankle and ask myself…who else in our society would we expect to do something like that? Besides the military, who else does that?
We complain about athelete salaries to take our mind off of the top 99.9% of wage earners. We complain about that so we can get our mind off of the fact that things cost more each year, but salaries don’t budge.
The stingiest bastards on earth (nfl owners) recently HAD TO raise the cap.
I sort of admire your ability to not let things go.
That would be my superhero power, The Amazing Re-iterator!!!
Atheletes have to work just as hard, if not more than many others for what they get, and for every multi-millionaire, there’s plenty of average players who don’t have their own helicopter and rocket car.
But the compensation for the performance is skewed. I’m all for giving the players a cut of the franchise pie but my issue has to do with the quality of the game and the quality of the player. It bothers me when half the team is on parole or bitching about one thing or another like T.O. It’s a game and if the players don’t care that comes out to the fans who make these players millionaires.
The best part about sports is that they are fun. Seems like the obsession with winning is ruining this for a lot of participants. The Nike commercials featuring Bode Miller were trying to point out that people should still participate even if they cannot win, because their are other benifits to sports, like not being obese and enjoying yourself. Of course Bode Millers message was lost because he performed so badly at the Olympics.
Rumor is TO is coming to Denver, can hardly wait to hear TO bitching about Jake Plummer. I don’t think it will bother Mr Plummer but it should be really funny.