Our Responsibilities as fans of the NFL
Fans need to step up their support of NFL Players and their labor leadership. The owners’ stonewalling is pathetic. They are at best avaricious and at worst colluding in a manner that could have anti-trust implications.
The current labor dispute in the NFL will effect the quality of professional football for at least a decade. At stake, in no particular order are the following:
- player safety
- length of player careers
- benefits they will get after their careers end
- number of players on teams
- number of hits they will receive at practice
- games played/year
Obviously, the most talked about issue is money and how the revenue pie should be split. According to the NFL’s internal revenue estimates, this will be $25bn revenue organization in 2027 tripling from the current 8 to 9bn today. The owners feel that the players need to earn less of a percentage as the pie expands. The players earn 60% today. Owners want them to earn 45% over time.
What we don’t know is how profitable the league or individual teams are. The NFL has offered two non-audited financial metrics.
1. 5 years worth of aggregate profitability. Each team has a number. They add it up and they provide a number for the past 5 seasons.
2. The number of teams that saw profitability decrease year over year in 2011.
That’s it. A huge, huge business that refuses to share even the most basic of financial statements with its employees. They have obfuscated for years on how much money they really make, but now they want the players to give back part of the revenue share it took them decades to finally get.
Meanwhile teams have soared in value over the last decade. Owners can always sell their teams and make Internet money. These are very, very wealthy people.
I know the conventional wisdom is that unions have outlived their usefulness. Lots of fans think Tom Brady et al are lucky to get paid to play a game they love.
But I just want to state for the record, THE OWNERS ARE WRONG. I STAND WITH THE PLAYERS. FANS NEED TO GET MORE VOCAL.
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