Ongoing CBA discussions

[CRedskinsRule]

I don't know that it will happen, but I think that if this goes in a protracted lockout (meaning games lost) an enterprising lawyers group may try to start a class action lawsuit on behalf of fans and/or municipalities. The owners have created an expectation of service based on the public funding of stadiums that has never really been tested or denied, but if games are lost then perhaps the fans could constitute a class in the legal sense. If that happened, it would alter the very foundation of the way that sports is viewed. With NBA also facing a possible CBA issue, it could cause unintended consequences that neither leagues nor players saw.

Or we could just forget about it and drive on...

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

I don't know that it will happen, but I think that if this goes in a protracted lockout (meaning games lost) an enterprising lawyers group may try to start a class action lawsuit on behalf of fans and/or municipalities. The owners have created an expectation of service based on the public funding of stadiums that has never really been tested or denied, but if games are lost then perhaps the fans could constitute a class in the legal sense. If that happened, it would alter the very foundation of the way that sports is viewed. With NBA also facing a possible CBA issue, it could cause unintended consequences that neither leagues nor players saw.

Or we could just forget about it and drive on...

I might have read what your saying wrong but the lost games is not an issue. The owners and head honcho agreed that all games will be played. So I presume it means if they are playing into March next year they will. All 16 games for each team will be played. So the idea that fans who were sold season passes for 16 games being cheated and only getting 14 or 12 will not happen. Now it will be interesting if after the league and players agree on a new CBA and they decide that they need to drop a few games later how fans will react.

With owners trying to get blood out of a turnip in regards to fans and the season passes saying there was a contract it will be interesting to see the fans claiming the contract is a specific amount for 16 games not 12 and forcing the owners to either give money back or play a full 16 games.

[MTK]

Fan sues Browns, league over lockout | ProFootballTalk

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

Fan sues Browns, league over lockout | ProFootballTalk

LOL. Taa Daaaaa.

I doubt he will win his case. He's claiming the NFL and NFLPA is keeping him from sitting in his seat and watching football. In reality they are not all they would be doing is changing the dates of a few games at the beginning of the season very much like a rain date or postponed game. If anyone has this arguement it should be the Vikings after their roof fell in or the Saints fans after Katrina and the team played elsewhere for the first few games.

I like this idea....

“The owners and players can’t decide what to do with an extra billion dollars between them,” Lanci said. “I have the perfect solution. That one billion should go to all cities that gave them money to build football stadiums they couldn’t afford to build. This would give these cities badly needed tax relief.”

but the problem is there are 3 types of stadiums:
1- Owners who own their stadium paid for or is still paying through loans.
2- City owned stadiums paid through public taxes.
3- A combination of the two.

So if the league throws the 1 bill at the city owned stadiums to lower the taxes then the teams who are currently collecting money under the revenue sharing to help pay their part of the loans and can't with out the sharing will get screwed.

The sharing covers two items... teams that don't make as much as the lucrative teams in order to compete for FA's, and money used to help owners who can't pay their loans or rent.

[SBXVII]

Sorry to bug you about it or seem like I'm an idiot, most unions when striking are arguing for the hourly wage earner. Trying to either get him better wages or get him a % raise each year. Sometimes it's about health coverage. Sometimes it's about safety. Rarely is it ever about the salary wage earner who negotiates his salary/contract prior to being hired. What I mean by Salary wage earner is the employee who agrees to a yearly amount. Instead of an hourly wage earner being told he will make $25 an hour the salary negotiates say a $80,000 a year contract. His contract does not go up nor down because it was negotiated prior to his hiring. Usually the hourly wage eaner does not get to negotiate their wage which is why unions are formed and step in to negotiate for them.

and again I know I'm thinking too much but how does a floor cap and a ceiling cap effect negotiations to a salary wage earner? Unless the negotiations are about yearly cost of living increases which I didn't think the NFL had.

I'm only asking because I'm actually siding with the owners right now sort of, and there is a few here that probably would think I'm a moron for doing so. Yet everthing I read about what all this means is so watered down and not explained very well.

For me I see players concerned over a % of the money that they probably won't see anyway because they sit and negotiate their salaries with the owners. If they dont' like the offer they can go to another team who might pay them better. I guess I'm having problems seeing how 50% of the revenue is going to effect not only current players under contract by their teams but FA's since each individual player negotiates their own contract. If it's about the players saying every team has to spend atleast 75 mill a year on players salaries and the owner saying ok but we don't want this to get out of hand so we are going to say no team can spend over 130 mill a year fine. It can be worded like that in the contract and even throw in the fact that it can increase by 4% each year. But thats not what this is about or atleast it doesn't seem like it.

On the swing side the owners are claiming a loss in revenue. How much? If the whole NFL league makes 9 bill and there is a loss then in all actuality there is no 9 bill. It's probably 8 bill or 8.5 or something. Was it at 10 bill in a previous year and last year it fell to 9 bill? If thats the case then the players and owners would know. So is the 9 bill what is in question because it seems like the issue is more about not wanting to give up 1 bill to the owners for revenue sharing leaving 8 bill to split two ways. which goes back to my original question how does the 4 bill effect the players either current or FA's looking for new contracts? We know it won't effect Rookies because there will be a Rookie wage scale.

[SBXVII]

Here is a comment by Drew Brees:

"Not once have the players asked for more money during this negotiation. That is a fact," New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees said in a statement released on Twitter.

"Past players sacrificed a great deal to give us what we have now in the NFL, and we will not lay down for a second to give that up.

I totally agree with him. But my issue is how does giving up another 1 bill to the owners effect him? If his contract is up and he decides to come to the Redskins I'm sure he will get a nice negotiated contract. I guess I just don't see how the 4 bill is going to effect his negotiations?

According to the same site:
NFL lockout looms as union talks break down | The Raw Story

Under the current agreement, owners received a guaranteed $1 billion of annual revenue, which totaled around $9 billion. The remaining money was split, with the players getting around 60 percent and the owners 40 percent.

The league and owners want to increase their automatic cut by another $1 billion, arguing that operational costs had risen since the last deal was struck five years ago.

But the players wanted to maintain the status quo, claiming the owners had failed to provide them with enough financial evidence to prove they needed a bigger slice of the profits.

I can understand the owners wanting more because the market is bad, less fans going to games, teams in bad areas not being able to get fans to come to the games and the owners needing to suppliment the money from somewhere. I'm just having a hard time understanding where the 4 bill goes for the players and what it is used for? especially if it doesn't effect player contracts or if it does I'm not seeing it. If the players are being asked to give up another 1 bill to the owners how is it going to effect each individual player? which I don't think has been explained very well.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by SBXVII

Here is a comment by Drew Brees:


I totally agree with him. But my issue is how does giving up another 1 bill to the owners effect him? If his contract is up and he decides to come to the Redskins I'm sure he will get a nice negotiated contract. I guess I just don't see how the 4 bill is going to effect his negotiations?

According to the same site:
NFL lockout looms as union talks break down | The Raw Story



I can understand the owners wanting more because the market is bad, less fans going to games, teams in bad areas not being able to get fans to come to the games and the owners needing to suppliment the money from somewhere. I'm just having a hard time understanding where the 4 bill goes for the players and what it is used for? especially if it doesn't effect player contracts or if it does I'm not seeing it. If the players are being asked to give up another 1 bill to the owners how is it going to effect each individual player? which I don't think has been explained very well.

Is the market really bad though? Outside of maybe a couple of teams attendance is stronger than ever, TV ratings through the roof, new stadiums all over, etc.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

Is the market really bad though? Outside of maybe a couple of teams attendance is stronger than ever, TV ratings through the roof, new stadiums all over, etc.

Don't get me wrong. The NFL is a money making machine. They have so much money coming in different directions. But, I'm sure all the owners have seen a drop off in fans purchasing season passes. Maybe not the Skins so much because they have had a waiting list that lasts 10 yrs, but other markets ie; Carolina I think took a hit this last year as opposed to previous years, the Jaguars never seem to sell their place out either, I thought Chicago had trouble this year and there was talk of possible games not being shown on T.V. due to lack of # of seats sold.

I'm trying to relate it to any other business I guess. Think of your county you live in. Say the county knows it needs 10 mill a year to operate. Yet you vote in elected officials who promise to lower your county taxes. How will the county function? If it's taxes only brought in 8 mill after they lowered your taxes as promised how will they make up the other 2 mill? Most counties looked to the state in the past, but again every one voted in representatives who would lower our taxes. So because the state brings in less money less money gets filtered to the different counties. So where your county might have been expecting the state to step up and send 2 mill to them the state only sent 1 mill. Now your county is 1 mill in the hole. Who makes up for that?

In football jargen lets say all the owners came together and said on average each team makes about 500 mill a year. Some make more ie; Redskins, Dallas, Giants, and some make less ie; Carlina, Jaguars, and so on. The owners have decided that 6 mill will be what every team should have to work with so the more lucrative team owners send money to go teams that don't make the 600 mill in order to put them on equal footing with the more lucrative teams. but if fan attendance is declining due to the bad economy then the more lucrative teams can't send as much as they used to because they are not making as much.

and your right there probably isn't that much of a drop off and the owners are probably over embelishing things. Instead of the owners already taking 1 bill off the top and now asking for another 1 bill maybe they could have asked for 500 mill or 200 mill.

But you can't say times are not hard right now. I know people left and right losing their homes. clearly they wouldn't be purchasing season tickets nor going to games if they have bills to pay. I see people on here talking about turning their season passes back in simply because they can save a few bucks. I can also tell you I can't afford a top flight jersey and I'm sure with the economy others have started penny pinching as well. So in all actuality I can see the owners point. Maybe they can put a clause in the CBA that if the economy gets better and there is more fan attendance then the 1 bill goes back to the players, I don't know.

But I have yet to hear exactly how the 4 bill effects the players, how the 50% effects their wages, and why its so important to them. I know it is because they want to go to court over it but I'm just trying to figure out how. To me the owners have explained, the players I just can't see. Why I don't know. I'm all for the little man and in this case the fan is the little man. lol. JK. No the player would be the little man but each player negotiates what he is willing to play for, each year is spelled out what he will make, both sides sign the contract which is binding. So other then how the players contract is structured what additional monies would the players get that is effected by this 4 bill or 50%. I guessing nothing. The 50% is to force the really cheap owners (not Snyder) to start putting more money into players contracts and all I'm asking is ... is there really any teams out there not wanting to put the 50% in or rather I should say do those teams even have players? because anyone worth their weight in gold will want a really good contract. For an owner to be sitting at rock bottom not spending on the players they have to be really bad. Are we talking about the Bills?

[saden1]

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't the salary cap go up/down based on the revenue from the previous year? It's not like there is no protection mechanism for the owners if the revenue goes down.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by saden1

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't the salary cap go up/down based on the revenue from the previous year? It's not like there is no protection mechanism for the owners if the revenue goes down.

Well I guess that's one of the things that the owners supposedly want to change, to make the salary cap fixed, and not a percentage of revenue

[hooskins]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

Well I guess that's one of the things that the owners supposedly want to change, to make the salary cap fixed, and not a percentage of revenue

And that's because owners know the NFL is going to grow and giving a percentage to the cap yield less profits in the long run, rather than keeping a fixed cap while revenues continue to grow.

[CRedskinsRule]

The salary cap is attached to the revenue of the NFL, so as it goes up or down the salary cap and floor adjust. However, for any individual team if the NFL revenue goes up, but their revenue tightens (note I didn't say go down) they may see a larger percent of their team's budget taken up by players salaries.

Most of this dispute is between how much the owners want to revenue share. In the extreme, it is possible that one team's player expense might only be 45% of their total revenue, while another team may have a figure closer to 65%. No one knows these exact numbers, and I think the owners don't want to show their books simply because the players would then be able to pit team against team and take the emphasis off the specific percentage the players are getting.

[GhettoDogAllStars]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

The salary cap is attached to the revenue of the NFL, so as it goes up or down the salary cap and floor adjust. However, for any individual team if the NFL revenue goes up, but their revenue tightens (note I didn't say go down) they may see a larger percent of their team's budget taken up by players salaries.

Most of this dispute is between how much the owners want to revenue share. In the extreme, it is possible that one team's player expense might only be 45% of their total revenue, while another team may have a figure closer to 65%. No one knows these exact numbers, and I think the owners don't want to show their books simply because the players would then be able to pit team against team and take the emphasis off the specific percentage the players are getting.

Well said. Good analysis IMO.

[CRedskinsRule]

Andrew Brandt continues to give excellent information on the facts behind the numbers.

Key to a CBA: tip of the Cap | National Football Post

[CRedskinsRule]

And an article by the NFLPA on Von Miller's decision to join the lawsuit. I know I am pro-owners, but read this and see if you see any justification from Von Miller, other than his agent and the great players Brady, Brees, and Manning asked him to put his name on the lawsuit. He doesn't make any attempt at explaining how it affects him, other than he's part of the "team" and wants to support his "team".

Von Miller On Suing the NFL | Pro Player Insiders

Finally, the players legal response to the NFL's legal response to Brady v NFL is due in today. I am looking forward to seeing that.