Quote:
Originally Posted by BigHairedAristocrat
There is a huge disconnect between what the players themselves ask for and what demaurice smith and the Nflpa's lawyers are asking for... Additionally, although you say the players are just asking for what they have now, you ignore the fact that that, by default, means the owners take less. Costs go up and the owners do not want to pass that expense on to the fans in the form of higher ticket prices. The players on the other hand have no qualms about passing on expenses to the fans as they've insisted that only revenues be shared and not expenses.
The players are 100% in the wrong and I hope, for the sake of the fans, and the game, that both sides resume talks ASAP. If the players elected president were willing to negotiate in good faith, the sport wouldn't be in this mess
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Sorry this is so long.
The Net Income is what everyone is arguing about, basically what money remains after
all expenses and taxes are taken out of all the revenues. The
Net Income varies wildly from team to team. That is the major hold up. The high market/high revenue teams refuse to release
all revenue information because they do not want to share more revenue with the small market teams. How can you expect the players to make up all of the shortcoming and not expect the high revenue owners like the Redskins and Cowboys to pony up some as well? All the NFLPA is saying we are open to discuss giving money back, just release all of the revenue information.
The Packers are the only team that has publicly released their entire financial information only because they the only publicly traded team, otherwise we would not have their financial information either. The Packers are in one of the smallest markets in the NFL so it would be expected that their Net Income would be low. Yet they still pocketed $5.2 Million after
all expenses.
Packers team treasurer Larry Weyers was quoted as saying, "The increase in the Packers’ net profit was driven by
declining investment losses..",
Basically he is saying the driving force behind the drop in Net Income to the Packers is the declining investment from the outside companies. I work for a professional team and the biggest financial loss we suffered during the worst of this this recession about a year and half ago was that our corporate sponsorship deal revenue dropped by 50%. That is what he is talking about. But we have already started to see things going back to the direction of recovery although we are not yet back to normal. The small market teams return to normal will take longer.
The only reason the players have moved this process into the courts is to try and force the release of all of the revenue information. You can not negotiate in good faith if there is money being socked away by some of the owners.
This whole "small market teams" vs. "big market teams" issue has existed way before this labor agreement deal or the economic downturn. This is not something new. It is finally spilling over into the labor agreement because the Owners are asking for money back from the players.
This is not a 100% the players fault situation. It is bigger than that. Both share in the fault.