I don't think that teams' individual recordbooks will need to be shared amongst one another in order to satisfy the union's demand. In fact, you could probably only show the books to the NFLPA reps, and demand non-disclosure, and then nobody would even hear about it at all, let alone other teams. The Packers thing just reeks of cherry picking.
According to this, the NFLPA wanted the details: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6205936 Here's what the league offered (according to them): The NFL said its offer included splitting the difference in the dispute over how much money owners should be given off the top of the league's revenues. Under the expiring CBA, the owners immediately got about $1 billion before dividing the remainder of revenues with the players; the owners entered negotiations seeking to roughly double that. But the owners eventually reduced that additional upfront demand to about $650 million. Then, on Friday, they offered to drop that to about $325 million. Smith said the union offered during talks to give up $550 million over the first four years of a new agreement -- or an average of $137.5 million. "We worked hard," said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who was joined at mediation Thursday and Friday by nine of the 10 members of the owners' powerful labor committee. "We didn't reach an agreement, obviously. As you know, the union walked away from the mediation process." Also in the NFL's offer, according to the league: • Maintaining the 16 regular-season games and four preseason games for at least two years, with any switch to 18 games down the road being negotiable. • Instituting a rookie wage scale through which money saved would be paid to veterans and retired players. • Creating new year-round health and safety rules. • Establishing a fund for retired players, with $82 million contributed by the owners over the next two years. • Financial disclosure of audited profitability information that is not even shared with the NFL clubs. That was proposed by the NFL this week, and rejected by the union, which began insisting in May 2009 for a complete look at the books of each of the 32 clubs.
I'm not arguing that they didn't want 10 years of audited financial records. My point is that the information can be released to a select few at the bargaining table in the NFLPA, and doesn't even need to be shared amongst the teams themselves (especially specifics), or the public at large, since that would be pretty damned embarrassing to the owners, I imagine.
I hope the nfl gets its ass sued to oblivion. I think the NFL is communist. The greenbay packers shouldn't be able to exist. The steelers should have no business being able to compete. Let the the invisible hand have its way.
That assumes that the owners trust the NFLPA to keep everything confidential, though. All it takes is one leak and once the books are out there, there's no way to undo that. Even behind the scenes, if players learn how profitable a particular team is, that could be used against them in negotiating contracts, etc. Aggregate information is fine, but you just can't give the union a breakdown of each team's individual financial health. Too many ways that could come back and haunt you.
Like I said, give it to the few people at the table (none of whom are active players), and slap a non-disclosure on it. The NFLPA would have to put a lot of trust in their executives to bargain effectively with that knowledge, but hey, it's better than nothing. I also don't really think it would affect contract negotiations going forward, as a salary cap will be in place, and so will existing player salaries, that typically dictate the market. It might, however, affect the formation of the new salary cap.
I agree. I hope the owners get blasted to high hell. They had it better than either of the other two sports combined. The NFL is the undisputed king of American sports. It's raking in the cash at this point. And they want to sell this idea to the public that they're losing money and the players need to accept concessions? The players are doing exactly right to call BS on them. Baseball has the strongest union of all the sports. Everyone accepts that. But to get to that point it had to have its own revolution of sorts. No one acknowledges Curt Flood and the other guys that gave up basically their professional legacies to fight for the 20+M per year contracts that players today are able to receive. The fact that Brady Manning and Brees have their names at the top of the class action suit speaks volumes to me that this is football's moment, it's opportunity to wrest some modicum of fairness from the process. Yes we know they're all millionaires/billionaires. No the owners are not slavedrivers nor the players farmhands. But compared to how players in baseball are treated and the swing in racial makeup between the two sports, the analogy is not without applicability. The average career in football is really short: something like 2.5 years for speed position players (almost all black), maybe 4-5 years for linemen (more even racial disparity). No other sport wrecks as much havok upon its players bodies--some of them are literally sacrificing their future health for a handful of years of peak performance, and the average age of death for an NFL lineman is something stupid like 50-55 years due to things like obesity, coronary artery disease, and traumatic brain injury. It's fair for these players to ask for more in return for their years of service, especially when the sport they've built up is now the most successful in America. I'm not the biggest football fan; in fact I wouldn't care too much if they lost games due to this work stoppage. Just from the outside looking in though, the owners are trying to pull a fast one on the players and the public with this PR campaign they've been running. Good for them for not buying into it. Also things that I realize may be in the owners' favor with regards to revenue: football doesn't play one tenth games that baseball does, and they employ more players so their average team payroll remains higher. Nevertheless, with TV revenue and average attendances higher than they've ever been, I find it difficult to believe the owners when they talk about losing money.
Honestly, I would think that aggregate information would be pretty worthless; otherwise it's way too easy for the owners to give cushy jobs to their friends and families, funnel money through shell companies,then use these expenses as a way to show a net loss for the team. Opening the books in order to see just how the owners are hiding money is absolutely necessary.
Also, the infamous, "smoking gun" decision tree that caused Judge Doty to rule against the owners getting their lockout insurance money: http://www.nfllockout.com/2011/03/11/nfls-decision-tree/ Honestly, if you saw this kind of thing as a player, why would you trust anything the owners say?
You mean like the incredible blow-back NBA teams have suffered for opening their books? The owners are crying poor, demanding the players take less money. If it is true, they should be willing to demonstrate it. If they are unwilling to demonstrate it, then they can continue with the current revenue split. The players aren't asking for anything more. As much as they've lied over the years, I too would demand proof, rather than accept their word. Accepting their word would be like listening to Wall Street complain that more regulation will destroy the financial system. People have a tendency to lie when lots of money is on the line - especially the type of person that works in the financial sector or has been greedy enough to get enough money to buy a NFL team.
You wouldn't be accepting their word - I agree that the NFLPA shouldn't do that. The NFL offered to provide audited financial statements - that gives you the independent credible verification. No company gives their shareholders or employees more detailed information than that. Did the NBA really open the details of their books to the players?
Well, the NBA did, does, and has since at least 1987, so that is one example. This is just off the top of my head, but I believe when Delta or one of the other airlines wanted the union to accept cuts in salary, they opened the books totally for the union, as well. I think when management wants employees to take cuts, it isn't entirely unheard of. Google indicates that Singapore Airlines and a Mexican airline did as well, when asking their pilots' union to take pay cuts. Google the terms and you can get a long list of businesses in all sorts of different industries opening the books to unions when they want the unions to give something back. The source is a Deseret News article from 1994: [rquoter] STERN'S PLAN FOR DETENTE: STEADY PROFITS, OPEN BOOKS It may have seemed at first like a slip of the tongue for a man extending an armful of olive branches. There was NBA commissioner David Stern the other day at his charming, disarming best. Guaranteeing, over and over again, that there would be no lockout, that the league would open its doors on time, and that its owners would make peace with its players, later, if need be, rather than sooner.But then, in an almost too-casual aside, he slipped in this curious reference to nuclear war: "Both sides know that, using nuclear weapons talk, we have mutually destructive capacity," Stern said. "We know what a strike is, we know what a lockout is. "But because of the relationship that has existed between us and our players, those particular weapons have never been called into action. That's not to say the parties don't understand their ability to use them. "But we haven't," he added, "and we don't plan to." To those who know him, the performance was vintage Stern. Behind him, resting on a tripod, was a spiffy chart reminding all the world of the NBA's phenomenal growth over the past decade, an accomplishment he dutifully credited the owners and players with sharing in. Stretching out ahead of them, Stern reminded his audience with a winning smile, was more of the same. And all the owners and players had to do to lay claim to this glorious and wildly profitable future - and at the same time avoid a meltdown - was iron out a few niggling details. It's not like the NBA players are a warlike bunch to begin with; but after Stern was through, even the most militant among them would have a hard time drumming up support for the nuclear option. Contrast this "Don't-Worry-Be-Happy" start to negotiations with the rancor that has always preceded baseball's labor discussions and the hawkish talk that led to hockey's current impasse. "Apparently," Orlando Magic general manager Pat Williams said, "there's a greater feeling of trust between labor and management than in other sports. I think it traces back to the sense the players have that they are real partners in this enterprise. "And that," he added, "traces back to David." Some people will say Stern can afford to be amiable because the balance sheet of everybody involved with the NBA - players, owners, merchandisers and the like - is well into the black. Or that basketball, already having demonstrated the worth of a salary cap, will have relatively little trouble coaxing the players to put one - albeit a much-larger version - on again. But that misses the point. As recently as 1987, like pro baseball and hockey now, the NBA had plenty of franchises in dire financial straits. But Stern, winning friends and influencing people on both sides of the bargaining table with his honest, self-effacing approach, got a salary cap without the kind of labor stoppages that crippled baseball and threaten to do the same to hockey. How? Then, as now, Stern was willing to make a full disclosure, turning over the owners' books so that players could see for themselves how genuine the need was for a true partnership. Then, as now, Stern laid out the alternatives as clearly and as dispassionately as possible. Then, as now, Stern believed an informed players' union was an ally and not an enemy. Then, as now, he told the players that if they came up with a better option, they would have no trouble finding him. Then, the mission was finding a way to stanch the bleeding; now, it is finding a way to keep the revenue streams flowing. But Stern's approach remains the same. "Everything is on the table," he said Wednesday. "We're open to anything. If there is a system out there that is better than ours, we're all ears. With complete information and with good faith, we should be able to make a deal." The converse is equally true. With only selective information and bad faith, no one but a fool would make a deal. That this point continues to elude the people who own baseball and hockey franchises is apparent by where they've chosen to make their stands: At ground zero. [/rquoter] Anything short of totally opening the books and you have too much ability for owners to obfuscate and redirect. The Oilers released statements audited by one of the big accounting firms "proving" that they'd lost money for pretty much every year of their existence when they were trying to get the city to build them a new stadium first with Jacksonville and later with Tennessee. Less than absolute disclosure and they can play "three card monte" with the profits.
