The NFLPA offered up the idea of a rookie pay scale first and foremost. The owners want 1st-3rd round picks limited to 4 year deals, while 4th-7th get 3 or less. But the NFLPA wants 5 year and 4 year deals automatic. I like your idea of all FA deals being maxed lifetime at 4 though.
The problem the NFLPA has with a rookie scale is that the money saved from such a scale would be going to the owners and not the players.
Key word there is could. Obviously, the player's don't trust the owners enough to put that money back into the player's hands.
If the owners were that for saving money then they would have just traded down in the draft in the first place. there is a floor that teams have to pay. If a team saved on a rookie contract then i think it's fairly safe to say that the vast majority of teams would spend that money if they could improve their team by signing a FA.
Certainly - I think they need to first agree on the total amount of money the players get, and then sort out how to best structure contracts/etc to make that work.
The Owners won't disclose their books either, unlike the NBA, who has been very much open about how much financial trouble some of its teams are in... whereas the NFL is swimming in money and trying to make it look like they're not. I support the players 80-20 over the owners here... I'm willing to lose a season of competition for the good of the future of the league.
The shift from Gene Upshaw to DeMaurice Smith meant a lockout was going to be a inevitability unless Goodell decided to go maverick and try to bridge the gap between the owners and the players association. Fat chance.
That's the thing, it isn't easy to trade down in the draft when you have a top 10 pick because of the high salaries that those picks currently demand. Again, there is something there that the players don't like/trust from the owners on that situation. I can't really remember what it is but they don't like the cutting of the rookie salaries unless the money is guaranteed to go back to the players one way or another.
I dont think the primary factor for teams to not trade down in the top 10 is because no one wants to make that deal due to high salaries.
The NOH books were leaked to deadspin and not voluntarily disclosed, IIRC, but I don't doubt that Stern & Co. saw the upside from that leak.
ESPN had a nice little thing on the Green Bay Packers this last week. Because they are owned by the fans, their books are public. And it showed that their profits had been steadily dropping over the last 5 or so years and was down to $1 or $2 million per year, I believe. Now, accounting can be fudged so its hard to say what the actual level of those numbers are, but it looks like the numbers were certainly going down by any measure despite revenues going up.
Let the player decide if he wants less money that's guaranteed, or more money that's non-guaranteed. And likewise, let the owner decide if he wants to risk guaranteed money or see a player walk. It doesn't have to be the same type of contract for everyone. In general, the less rules, the better. All you really need for fairness is the hard cap along with the draft and rookie pay scale system. Beyond that, anything goes. The NBA should be the same way.
They made 10mil with 250 mil coming in, and that was in a down economic year. They are also a small market team.
Here are the reasons I think NFLPA is weak: Most positions on the football field take less skill then the other two sports. In football so many 3-7th round picks contribute. In basketball if you are a true superstar people will know since you were probably in high school. Certain positions depend too much on the athleticism which is fleeting in many cases. So you have to make the money before some new hot stud replaces you. However if I was a nfl player and I saw guys like jason werth and carlos lee making more money than most if not all elite nfl qbs, I would have to think to myself why did I pick football instead of baseball or basketball.
That was operating profit rather than net profit, but I'm not sure what the net was. The small market / economy thing really doesn't affect them. TV revenue is all national and pre-determined. They sell out all their games no matter what. And they have a national fan base for merchandising (not sure if merchandise revenue is local or split nationally). But regardless, that means the entire Green Bay Packers organization made less than Peyton Manning.
that's misleading, peyton has a gross income, just like the pack although i'm sure his net was definitely higher
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I found this thread by accident in google, looking for some else. Another good old-fashion time capsule thread. I don't know why the players didn't fight harder for guaranteed contracts. The NFL's player union is quite possibly the weakest of all professional sports, America and abroad.
