Ongoing CBA discussions

[CRedskinsRule]

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[over the mountain]

Mediation huh. At least there will be a referee to call the personal fouls and keep score.

Im guessin its non-binding. Im guessin one side will walk away from the process. Im hoping the mediator is neutral.

At least this is something, at least it brings them back to the table but honestly it comes off as both sides needing a baby sitter imo.

[CRedskinsRule]

I just hope that it gives both sides perspective.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Hope this is a good thing:

Thanks for posting that CRed. It has the appearance of being a positive development.

[Longtimefan]

Redskins Insider - Asst. coaches worry about pay during a lockout

[SirClintonPortis]

It's funny that the owners are refusing to show their accounting books. Now, accounting is not the most intuitive subject on the planet(I'm having some difficulties myself), but a lot of it revolves around recording transaction info through the following paradigm:

Assets = Liabilities + Owner's equity.

Equity = revenues - expenses - dividends.

For example, I pay $100 to buy some paper. Cash (an asset) decreases and Supplies(also an asset) increases. When that paper is used up, it becomes an expense. Supplies decrease(asset used up) and expenses increase.

It looks like they have something to hide.
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Net profit is described here. Net profit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[freddyg12]

Originally Posted by SirClintonPortis

It's funny that the owners are refusing to show their accounting books. Now, accounting is not the most intuitive subject on the planet(I'm having some difficulties myself), but a lot of it revolves around recording transaction info through the following paradigm:

Assets = Liabilities + Owner's equity.

Equity = revenues - expenses - dividends.

For example, I pay $100 to buy some paper. Cash (an asset) decreases and Supplies(also an asset) increases. When that paper is used up, it becomes an expense. Supplies decrease(asset used up) and expenses increase.

It looks like they have something to hide.
-----------------------------------------
Net profit is described here. Net profit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is one of the more interesting factors in this. The media - who observe these organizations as closely as any outsiders - have so far indicated that the owners do have something to hide and don't want the NFLPA to be able to spin it to the public.

[CRedskinsRule]

The article I linked to from Andrew Brandt had a part where he basically said that the owners don't trust the NFLPA to handle the detailed information in a "honorable"(my word not his) way. The NFLPA has the breakdown of revenues, assets, expenditures on a league wide scale, they simply don't want to show team by team details. In an atmosphere of distrust I guess that is understandable.

I can't necessarily wrap my head around what the NFLPA might misuse, but when Smith says it's a "war" then I imagine the owners aren't thrilled to give away any ammunition.

This is an analogy that I kinda understand, but it is far from perfect since no one thinks there is illegality on either side:

Lets say 2 people were together from 3am - 7am, they were smoking pot. One of them (Mr. O) still has some on him when he leaves. Walking down the street another person witnesses a police officer stopping Mr. O and asking him if he can search him in reference to a robbery that occured at 5am. Mr. O says no (because he has the pot on him, which is not involved in the situation at all), but says his friend will vouch for his whereabouts. The observer thinks that Mr. O is guilty, based primarily on his refusal to be searched. The police officer is highly suspicious. How it plays out, depends on how the officer and Mr. O co-operate, and how reliable Mr. O's friend appears.

In the CBA drama, the Owners clearly don't want to show the books because of something that may or may not be relevant. If the aggregate numbers are reliable, and give reasonable substantial agreement to the Owners assertions then the bottomline comes down to how well the Owners and NFLPA co-operate and the trust they both have in the other

[SBXVII]

Someone posted Sally's article at another message board and all I kept seeing was the fans bashing the owners. Maybe I'm the 1 in a million who is not taking sides with the players. I can tell you the game was just a good prior to the CBA and it will be just as good with out one in the future, but I'm sure that won't happen.

Personally if the players don't like making their $400,000 + a year "playing" a game then they can utilize their education that was either payed for or they payed for making only a fraction of what they are making now. The other option is to simply walk away and play for the UFL or Canada. If the fans are all about the players then the fans will follow the players to where ever they go. If the fans are about the team then the fans will stay and watch the scrubs. Honestly I kinda enjoyed the first Lockout with the scrubs playing. As long as the talent level is even across the board then all teams have an even chance and the play on the field is fun to watch because they are of the same caliber.

It's one thing if the employees (players) are making 8 or 9 dollars and hour and are screaming that they can't make a living and need more money. It's quite another thing to have millionairs fighting for more millions. Maybe, since as someone else has said "the NFL has gotten too big for it's britches", the NFL should look at what the average cost is to keep and run a stadium a long with marketing. Then have the bigger markets put a % of their income into a fund to help the smaller markets so their $$$ are equal to what the larger markets are using. Then the rest of the money can be split in half. The owners get their half to do what they want with it ie; pocketing it or purchasing practice bubbles or uniforms or equipement or paying the non essential employees. The other half is to be used on player salaries.

I think with the millions flying around the NFLPA should be able to find a decent health insurance co. and have all the players use it to lower their costs and have each player pay for their own insurance.... as any normal business does. As far as retirement .... I really don't feel sorry for anyone making millions simply squandering their money. They have every opportunity to put money into an IRA or investment so they will have retirement money after football. People want to bring up the older players and although they didn't make as much money they too had the same opportunities to save or invest their money. Plus after their average 10 to 15 yrs playing I'm sure most went out and got another job at 30 or 40 yrs old in order to work on a retirement or atleast they should have.

[SBXVII]

CRedskinsRule,

Your observation is probably correct. One would think that if the owners walked into the meetings showing where all the money is going and it all adds up and it still shows the owners are hurting and that due to inflation and costs to keep the stadiums etc. etc. they need to take more from the players cut then in order to keep their jobs the players might say "ok". However there are only few businesses that open their books to the employees to see where the money is going and who's getting the bigger slice of the pie. As you said it's a trust issue. The players don't buy the owners complaining about needing more money to run facilities either practice areas or stadiums. The owners don't want the players having the knoweledge of exactly what dollar amount is coming in because they are afraid the NFLPA will fight to take more of the pie.

Personally if I owned a business and the employees agreed to work for $10 an hour then they should work and get paid for the $10 an hour. If the employee doesn't think he's getting paid enough or wants better pay he obviously can speak with me about it and if I say no then he has a choice... he can stay making the same amount or he can look for another job. This is reality. This is the real world. No way am I going to open my books to show them or explain to them or to prove to them what I'm paying in employee salaries, what I'm paying in product to keep my business going, and what I'm pocketing each month. Plus people don't go into business to fail or just get by. Most go into business with the thought that their business will make money and they will become rich. Even if most business owners will tell you don't go into business with that thought.

I really hope the fans are not buying into the thought that if the owners get more money or more of the pie then ticket prices will go down. That ain't happening. Why would any business owner lower his prices on any product when he already has people paying what the cost is now? They only lower their prices when the volume of customers starts to lower in order to entice more customers to purchase their product. But you better believe somewhere else the price will be a lot higher; ie; ticket prices drop but beer and food prices get raised. Most business owners know what the bottom line is to run their business and they have to make that money no matter what. Yeah a gas station has the lowest gas in town but they do that in hopes that your butt will enter the store and pay for the outragous beer cost or soda cost or cigerett cost.

Bottom line... I personally feel the players have options... either play for what monies your agent lobbied for you to get or go elsewhere. Maybe an owner puts 70% of his income towards players salaries and he has all the best big names players but a horrible facility. Oh well. Maybe an owner puts only 30% of his income towards players but has an awesome facility and practice equipement. But in the end if a player wants 30 mill for the next 6 yrs then either the team pays it or he finds another team.

[sportscurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by over the mountain

Mediation huh. At least there will be a referee to call the personal fouls and keep score.

Im guessin its non-binding. Im guessin one side will walk away from the process. Im hoping the mediator is neutral.

At least this is something, at least it brings them back to the table but honestly it comes off as both sides needing a baby sitter imo.

Mediators do not "call fouls" or "keep score". What mediators do is to try to find common ground between the two sides and to get them to build on those things they can both agree on - - - until a full-blown CBA can happen.


THEN, the mediator has to HOPE LIKE HELL that the lawyers for both sides do not screw things up. Remember, those lawyers earn more money by keeping their clients very suspicious of everything that the other side thinks is a good idea and that is why eacn ahd every word of every sentence has to be argued over.

Getting both sides to agree to mediation is a positive step - - because it means they both agreed to something. But this is still a long way from over...

[BuckSkin]

With both sides adhering to Federal Mediator Cohen's request to not speak with the media very little is known of the progress. Jets' Richardson today however did comment that talks were "going well". We can only hope that this issue is resolved sooner than later and with about 25 hours of talks since Friday I'm cautiously optimistic.

[CRedskinsRule]

So, if a big sticking point is the opening of the books, and the lack of trust that goes with that, does anyone know the answer to this:

Can the federal mediator offer to be a go between. In other words can the nflpa ask him to look at the books for with their questions in mind and then evaluate the books (assuming the owners are willing to show them to a neutral 3rd party) and present relevant answers? Or is that more detail and hands on then a federal mediator?

[CRedskinsRule]

Any chance BA can save the day?

Rich_Campbell Rich Campbell
Lockout averted in 3, 2, 1... RT @AlbertBreer: Another interesting name that just walked through those doors: Redskins GM Bruce Allen.

[sportscurmudgeon]

Sam Farmer has a very good column in today's LA Times that gives a brief and understandable overview of the labor talks between the union and the league.

Recommend it as a sort of tutorial on what is going on...


When talking NFL labor negotiations, a primer comes in handy - latimes.com