WP: NFL owners want guarantees no other business provides (by Sally Jenkins)

[TheGreatBuzz]

If you can't afford to own a team, don't buy it.

If you can't afford to build a stadium without tax payer money, don't build it. Sell the team to someone who can.

If you can't afford to go to the game because of the cost, don't go.

This is along the lines of what I'm feeling.

And I'd like to add that there seem to be so many people saying the owners get to make more because of their investment. Well they are making tons of their investment now. And I'd like to point out that investments aren't meant to be guarenteed. There is some risk involved. If you can't handle the pressure, fold. But I think it is ridiculous that all these millionares (players and owners) are complaining about the millions when so many people don't have a job. But to the "investors" look at the economy and accept the fact that your pay scale may go down a bit for a few years. Just the same as if you had instead invested in the stock market.

[hitmandm]

Without NFL players the ticket prices would plummet along with the quality of games. There is a reason some guys don't make it to the NFL. Oh and the players shelf life is 3-4 years on average and some don't ever see the big bucks and have health issues that last a lifetime. But go ahead and side with the 32 guys who reap the benefits in a highly slanted system. How many side deals and how many other related companies they own or OTHER perks do the owners get?

---------- Post added February-16th-2011 at 04:36 PM ----------

The price of tickets are just topline revenue. The important thing is profit. If revenue drops or plummet as you say, it is more than ok if player costs drop more. In a few years, all the college kids will come out and play and the old guard will be forgotten the NFL will be fine. And people will watch.

[Destino]

Sally Jenkins is an idiot.

Owners pony up billions (PV) to buy their teams. If they run into financial turmoil, like in baseball and the NBA, they lose their investment. They deserve to get compensation due their risk. If players don't like it, they can go somewhere else. They don't HAVE to play in the NFL. Its the reality every one else has in their life; the players are whining about it. The Players need the NFL more than the NFL needs the players. The owners should bust this fake union, offer a fair wage, and I'm sure all these college players whose choice is a 40k job or making millions in the NFL will still populate the ranks on the NFL in a few years and the game will be just as good as ever. And perhaps ticket prices will come down.

1 - Billions? No.

2 - Tax payers are black mailed into building their stadiums. Something that needs to be outlawed completely IMO.

3 - Every sport has a union because the players know that you can always find someone to pay the best athletes because they are an incredibly rare commodity. More rare in fact that people willing to pay them a PORTION of the profit they generate.

The players don't need the NFL at all. If the top talent went to another league the fans would eventually go with them. I've been a skins fan ALL MY LIFE. The top football talent goes to a new league and the Redskins are nothing more than a fond memory. I'm not watching the future euro-league equivalent because it has an NFL badge on it.

[hitmandm]

1 - Billions? No.

2 - Tax payers are black mailed into building their stadiums.

3 - Another league would pay them more and the NFL is done. Pro football doesn't need these owners or this league. It needs top talent and the fans and money will come with it. There is a reason ESPN shows more English premier league games than it does MLS games. It's not the owners.

Average value is 1.02 billion. That is how much they risk and is the opportunity cost on a financial basis. The taxpayer subsidy is a powerful team appropriating value from the cities to itself. It is jsutified because of the revenue the sports franchises bring to the area. It's just like an investment that cities spend to generate revenue. It's jsut like tax breaks states give corporations to have jobs in an area. Why cities and states do it is because it is usually a net benefit to their communities, in terms of jobs, tax revenue, business growth and so forth.

[Destino]

Each team gets $135M from the revenue sharing system. For a team like Buffalo, they might be turning a couple Mill in profit each year. Ralph Wilson is not making as much from football as his star players. Think about that.....

Not all revenue is shared like premium seats for instance. Also Ralph Wilson doesn't have an average 3 year ownership life time, can sell the team if he ever wants to quit for a MASSIVE PROFIT, or he can leave it to his kids. Players on the other hand are done when they are done. Nothing to sell, nothing to pass on, and a very short average career path.

Maybe on your planet the owners are getting screwed but if you told me to pick between:

1 - Do nothing and make a "millions" a year on an asset that increases in value that I can sell for nearly a billion whenever the hell I want to.

or

2 - Have my body destroyed and make "millions" a year never knowing when that time will end with no big payout at the end.

I'm taking option 1 a hundred times out of a hundred. Even if I did make less than some of my employees on PURE INCOME in a single given year. The over all actual wealth versus activity level is not comparable. Also I don't believe they make very little and I think that is why the cowards won't share their books with the world. They don't want people to know what they really make. Why tell fans pissy that players are making millions what owners make to essentially do nothing but sit in the owners box and smoke cigars are making. It would be a tremendous PR mistake.

---------- Post added February-17th-2011 at 01:51 AM ----------

Average value is 1.02 billion. That is how much they risk and is the opportunity cost on a financial basis. The taxpayer subsidy is a powerful team appropriating value from the cities to itself. It is jsutified because of the revenue the sports franchises bring to the area. It's just like an investment that cities spend to generate revenue. It's jsut like tax breaks states give corporations to have jobs in an area. Why cities and states do it is because it is usually a net benefit to their communities, in terms of jobs, tax revenue, business growth and so forth.

A billion is a hell of a lot different than "billions" isn't it?

The tax payer subsidy is a crime and frankly nothing more than welfare for billionaires that needs to be entirely outlawed. Those teams need the cities more than the cities need those teams. You think the NFL is going to set up teams in sheep herding country if the major cities of the US told them to go kick rocks? They need the major media markets. I hope congress outlaws this current BS. If they can't afford to build their own essential assets than find another business to be in.

[AzSkinsFan63]

I think players and owners should take a pay cut and make the game cheaper to watch and go to the games!

[panel]

So we have a players Union, and an Owners union, both arguing over money. Why not just bust them both, no salary cap, no minimums, no maxouts, just simply a player can get what an owner pays him, and owner only have to pay out what they think is worth paying. Simple.If owners can't control their spending for players, oh well. If player hold out for big money only to find no one wants to pay it, oh well. If owners decide that they are going to save some money by hiring some really cheap players to fill a lot of their roster, oh well.

Just let everyone try to do what is best for their own team, and leave this idea that we are all going to join together and set the rules up so we are forced into a deal that is better than we would have if everyone were left to fend for themselves.

[Destino]

I think players and owners should take a pay cut and make the game cheaper to watch and go to the games!

I think the owners and players should open their books and horrified tax payers should outlaw paying for stadiums they then have to pay ridiculously high prices to sit in.

[Mursilis]

I think players and owners should take a pay cut and make the game cheaper to watch and go to the games!

Owners and players don't make tickets expensive, fans do. Tickets to pro football games cost $100+ or more because teams know fans will happily pay those prices. The WNBA would charge what the NFL charges if it could, but they don't because fans won't pay that. The WNBA doesn't charge less simply because they like thier fans better - they do it because they have far fewer fans.

---------- Post added February-16th-2011 at 09:29 PM ----------

I think the owners and players should open their books and horrified tax payers should outlaw paying for stadiums they then have to pay ridiculously high prices to sit in.

We don't need laws to solve this problem - we need voters telling thier elected officials that they better not give welfare to pro sports teams, or they'll be gone come election time! As far as fans paying "ridiculously high prices" to sit in stadiums, there's a simple answer - don't do it if you don't like it. Football isn't healthcare - you won't die if you don't get some. Personally, I'd never pay what most NFL teams are asking for tickets, so I watch the games on TV, which is fine with me. I'm just one more fan, holding down costs. It's the season ticket holders driving up the costs by buying the product at inflated prices.

[Sellersfan]

$9.3B total revenue for 2010

$1.0B -> owners

$8.3B to be split b/w players and teams

$4.98B -> players pool

$3.32B -> owners pool

Players total = $4.98B (this is on top of salaries)

Owners total = $4.32B

4.32B/32=135

Each team gets $135M from the revenue sharing system. For a team like Buffalo, they might be turning a couple Mill in profit each year. Ralph Wilson is not making as much from football as his star players. Think about that.....

I am sure Wilson has made piss loads of more money than the players when you consider he has had the team for 50 + years. Average player lasts 3-4 years, and hopefully leaves healthy enough to do something else.

Just look at the Skins.

Danny paid Haynesworth how much? To throw that kind of money away makes you wonder how much does an owner have?

For other posters to suggest that getting cheaper players would trickle down to cheaper tickets for fans is absurd! These guys are trying to squeeze a BILLION dollars out of the current agreement. They will never pass that savings down to the end user who are the fans.

[clskinsfan]

Sally Jenkins is an idiot.

Owners pony up billions (PV) to buy their teams. If they run into financial turmoil, like in baseball and the NBA, they lose their investment. They deserve to get compensation due their risk. If players don't like it, they can go somewhere else. They don't HAVE to play in the NFL. Its the reality every one else has in their life; the players are whining about it. The Players need the NFL more than the NFL needs the players. The owners should bust this fake union, offer a fair wage, and I'm sure all these college players whose choice is a 40k job or making millions in the NFL will still populate the ranks on the NFL in a few years and the game will be just as good as ever. And perhaps ticket prices will come down.

Sorry, But only one NFL owner has ever paid over 1 Billion dollars for their team. So your argument is dead right there.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-did-nfl-owners-paid-for-their-teams-2010-10#

[Passepartout]

Owners want demands and guarantees. Keep in mind they also treat the league like all sports as a business. As they need to realize that players are human beings and with families to feed.

[cjbrown]

Sally Jenkins is an idiot.

Owners pony up billions (PV) to buy their teams. If they run into financial turmoil, like in baseball and the NBA, they lose their investment. They deserve to get compensation due their risk. If players don't like it, they can go somewhere else. They don't HAVE to play in the NFL. Its the reality every one else has in their life; the players are whining about it. The Players need the NFL more than the NFL needs the players. The owners should bust this fake union, offer a fair wage, and I'm sure all these college players whose choice is a 40k job or making millions in the NFL will still populate the ranks on the NFL in a few years and the game will be just as good as ever. And perhaps ticket prices will come down.

When was the last time and NFL franchise went bankrupt. Forbes calculated that the average worth of an NFL team had gone up 25% a year for about 2 decades (if I remember correctly). Players deserve a fair cut of the revenue they generate. Just because someone wants to work in a field does not mean they give up the right to a fair cut of the money their labor generates. The owners get rich by virtue of being "in" enough to buy a team. Very little risk and you can run a business that is not competitive and still make money (See Bengals). The owners get very rich from the players efforts, why should the players do this for pennies on the dollar.

[88Comrade2000]

You know if they turned all the college football teams into a pro league, that would probably trump the nfl and put it out of business.

Instead of suffering in Buffalo, Cam Newton could spend his entire professional career at Auburn. The money made from having college teams become pro teams could easily solve all the revenue problems many athletic departments have and still make a tidy profit.

[scruffylookin]

What have the owners done? The men who actually built the league, George Halas, George Preston Marshall etc, are long gone. The current owners are just stewards who are reaping (raping) the benefits of the most popular sport in the country. They did nothing to cultivate that. It's been there. They are just enjoying the fruits and looking to have others pay the bill whenever and as much as possible.

The players are the ones who go out and play. Their services is what fans and in turn advertisers are paying for.

Force the owners to open their books. Let's see how rough they have it. Until they do, I hope the players bury them.

[REEGSKINS]

this is my stance as well.

Sally Jenkins is an idiot.

Owners pony up billions (PV) to buy their teams. If they run into financial turmoil, like in baseball and the NBA, they lose their investment. They deserve to get compensation due their risk. If players don't like it, they can go somewhere else. They don't HAVE to play in the NFL. Its the reality every one else has in their life; the players are whining about it. The Players need the NFL more than the NFL needs the players. The owners should bust this fake union, offer a fair wage, and I'm sure all these college players whose choice is a 40k job or making millions in the NFL will still populate the ranks on the NFL in a few years and the game will be just as good as ever. And perhaps ticket prices will come down.

[Burgold]

Haven't read the thread, but I thought this was a ridiculous article. Did she actually write that there was no other business where the owner demanded to and desired to increase their profits every year? Has she ever even owned a stock!

[Taylor 36]

Before the owners even start paying the players, they have $31,250,000 in their pocket. They START with 31 million dollars. After the split, each owner walks away with another $100,000,000. I dont want to hear them wine. $131,250,000 just to start? and they each want another 31 million? For what? Cry me a river. lets just get the nfl back and stop whining about 131 million dollars isnt enough.

That 131 million looks great and greedy, until you factor in all of the EXPENSES that need to be covered with that money. Things like loans that the owners had to take out to buy the team in the first place, salaries for everyone (not even including players) like the folks who work at the stadium, the parking lots, security, etc. on game day, maintenance to upkeep the fields and the stadiums/centers, insurance payments, advertising, the PR crew, the FO crew, etc. And don't forget that every penny of that money is taxed. Let's not pretend that they get to just put all of that 131 million in the bank and drink champagne to celebrate it.

I think the key here is for people to stop assuming who is in good shape financially and who isn't. There really is more than one side of the story, but that is all that Jenkins has offered in her article.

[SWFLSkins]

$9.3B total revenue for 2010

$1.0B -> owners

$8.3B to be split b/w players and teams

$4.98B -> players pool

$3.32B -> owners pool

Players total = $4.98B (this is on top of salaries)

Owners total = $4.32B

4.32B/32=135

Each team gets $135M from the revenue sharing system. For a team like Buffalo, they might be turning a couple Mill in profit each year. Ralph Wilson is not making as much from football as his star players. Think about that.....

Again, Ralph Wilson has owned the team how long? His players play for how long? Do the math, take a look at the accumulation factor. You got one Raplh Wilson for how many players that have came and went. Look at the historical earnings of say Andre Reed, Thurman Thomas or Bill Kelly. Who has much more money then them? Ralph Wilson.

[mattsb84]

That $131M is revenue. There are no figures regarding profit.

What is lost in all this is the players want a share of revenue and not profit. Doing that is a large expense for the owners. It doesn't allow them to balance there sheets correctly, because they have to forfit a large portion of revenue without even knowing if they will even MAKE a profit.

Snyder spent $800M with a large portion on a loan that goes against the books every month. He and every other owner (lots of them brand new) have large expenses on the books for the purchase. The Rooney's and long time owners have no expense for that because they bought the teams for close to nothing.

There is a lot more to this than many realize. Us fans don't care to understand because we don't see anything out of it.

But...the reallll fishy thing to me is how the owners will not share the balance sheets. To me, if they can show them, it changes everything.

Yep. I agree. The owners opening up the books to show how much profit is being made (or not made) is key. I understand that they have major expenses and maybe it's true they aren't turning a profit or enough profit, but they need to open the books to show that.

[MariusVT]

But...the reallll fishy thing to me is how the owners will not share the balance sheets. To me, if they can show them, it changes everything

The crux of it is, until we see proof otherwise, is that the owners are almost certainly making money hand over fist. They don't want to open their books because then they won't have a leg to stand on for wanting more money, resulting in a strengthening of the players position for a larger share of the revenue. Also I suspect they fear that when the fans find out they will revolt against outrageous ticket prices, parking costs, concession prices, and merchandise pricing that all lines the owner of the respective stadium directly.

If the owners were actually losing money, they would be right there with the books going "Look here, We're Losing this much money every year!"

[TD_washingtonredskins]

You got one Raplh Wilson for how many players that have came and went.

There's a thousand yous, there's only one of me.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Sally Jenkins is an idiot.

Owners pony up billions (PV) to buy their teams.

I'm not aware of any sports franchise that has sold for a billion yet. Please name one.

If they run into financial turmoil, like in baseball and the NBA, they lose their investment.

Every teams operating budget is paid by their 1/32 split of the television revenue each year. That is before one ticket is sold or one t-shirt is printed. It is almost impossible for an NFL team to lose money.

---------- Post added February-17th-2011 at 11:06 AM ----------

$9.3B total revenue for 2010

$1.0B -> owners

$8.3B to be split b/w players and teams

$4.98B -> players pool

$3.32B -> owners pool

Players total = $4.98B (this is on top of salaries)

Owners total = $4.32B

4.32B/32=135

Each team gets $135M from the revenue sharing system. For a team like Buffalo, they might be turning a couple Mill in profit each year. Ralph Wilson is not making as much from football as his star players. Think about that.....

Ralph Wilson is running a very profitable business a) in Buffalo with a 1940s business plan. Name another industry where such a thing would be possible.

As others have pointed out, if Ralph Wilson wanted to sell the Bills tomorrow, he could make around $700,000,000.

Forgive me if I'm not crying for Ralph ****ing Wilson.

I can't think of an easier business to run than the NFL. Every owner knows today what the majority of their income is going to be in five years because of their tv deals. And they can make a very strong educated guess as to what their payroll is going to be because of the salary cap. Basically, as long as the first remains above the second, you are guaranteed a profit...and you have not sold a ticket yet.

It's also an industry where your physical plant is largely subsidized by the local government. Snyder is an exception because he actually owns his building, but that puts him in a stronger position than his competitors in some ways.

As others have pointed out, what the owners are seeking is essentially a 27 percent cut in the players' shares. And their only reason to do so seems to be "We want to build bigger stadiums."

[RFKFedEx]

If you're a fan of this game you should be rooting for the owners in this elephant fight. Look at baseball if you want to see what happens when the players have too much power. The big market teams will have tremendous advantages when the players unions have all the say in the $ dept.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

If you're a fan of this game you should be rooting for the owners in this elephant fight. Look at baseball if you want to see what happens when the players have too much power. The big market teams will have tremendous advantages when the players unions have all the say in the $ dept.

That's a red herring. NFL will never be MLB as long as the tv money is split equally.

Since you don't seem to have a basic understanding of the economics of the two leagues, I will explain it to you. The Yankess are the Yankess because of the Yes Network. The Yankees make $70 million of YES, the Nationals make $25 million of MASN. Even if every other dime was split evenly, the Yankees would always end with $45 million extra dollars. Which is what allows them to get an ARod and a Sabathia. Which allows them to charge more for seats and so forth. Which makes it more expensive for other teams to operate.

And at the end of the day, the worst team in pro sports - The Pirates - makes a profit of between $5 and $6 million every year. If a team in a sport as ****ed up as baseball can earn its worst owners $50 million over a decade, what is going on in the NFL?

There is no indication that the NFL is going away from this revenue sharing model or away from a salary cap. They simply want to lower player costs.