Gull Poll: Who Do You Blame?
by Danny Kelly on Jul 5, 2011 5:00 PM PDT
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The lockout drags on and we fans must simply wait until an agreement can be made. Though it's doubtless that both sides share in some of the blame for this whole debacle, who do you feel is most culpable?
Not saying that your gut feeling is right or wrong, but when you think of "the Lockout," on whom do you direct your rage, the Ownership or Players? Clay Bennett? Let me know.
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Not at all interested in starting a debate, but ...
How the FUCK can you blame the players in all of this!?!?!? Are you kidding me!?!?
(The only TINY exception would be the players’ lawyers and their hijinx to stall things in hopes the TV deal case closes in the players’ favor and thus gives them the leverage.)
Always up for some Twitter action @nandron. I only talk NW sports, though.
The owners brought this on. That's an empirical fact. The players were willing to play under the existing agreement.
The owners wanted to restack the financial deck. That’s their perogative, but it’s also their responsibility (fault) that the previous CBA was quit, and it was their tactic to lock out the players.
Maybe the action of the owners was justified, maybe not. But no matter how you look at it, they brought this on.
Maybe the players should be more readily willing to give back some (or a lot) of what they had in the previous agreement. Maybe not. But no matter how you look at it, the players did not decide to opt out of the CBA, and they did not demand more than what they had previously been receiving.
Collectively, the owners are to blame.
But only because not all owners are created equal. When a CBA is agreed upon, all the players in the league will have equal benefits. As for the owners, there will be winners and losers because teams bring in different revenues. I can understand why a minority group of owners would not agree to a deal where they are the ones who get the short end of the stick. It is up to the owners to come together collectively to make things work.
i cant speak for everyone
But this name keeps sticking in my head when it comes to the lockout. Every time the lockout seems to be nearing the end, and the owners and players seem to be getting close some guy named Danny Kelly always comes back with bad news or that they’re still “a few weeks away”. This would have been done and we would be knee deep in free agency and training camp talk…
Outside that I suppose the next step down is ‘anonymous league sources’. I shake my fist at them…
by SGT Lenny on Jul 5, 2011 7:06 PM PDT via mobile reply actions 2 recs
It's a pissing contest. Plain and simple.
Shame on both sides for putting us through it and shame on us for giving them so much power and money.
The owners, absolutely
It would be one thing if the original CBA expired at the end of it’s natural life span and this whole mess were just the result of renegotiating the whole thing. But the owners deliberately and purposely opted out early. Any argument they make that the players are obstructing the process falls on deaf ears after that.
Which is not to say the old CBA didn’t have it’s problems. Revenue sharing between teams was heavily uneven, with quite a few teams simply making money from other teams and not fully supporting their own product. A rookie wage scale is definitely years overdue, along with retired player support. But following a string of seasons with record-setting profits year after year, it’s not like any of these issues were so pressing that they couldn’t wait until the next expiration period. The fact is, if they didn’t like the old CBA that badly, they shouldn’t have signed it. It’s that simple.
Well, they signed it because they liked it.
And part of what they liked was that it had the option to opt out if the deal ended up not being a good one. The players agreed to the opt out clause when the CBA was negotiated and either team could have exercised it, I can’t fault the owners for opting out of a bad deal, especially when the had the right to do so.
And the league is not generating record-setting profits, it’s experience record-setting revenue. The problem is the expenses are also record level. When we know the Packers only made $9 million for all of last year, roughly the same as their QB, something is wrong.
The reason the players wanted to maintain the old CBA is because they knew they had a sweet deal.
by NinjaHawk on Jul 6, 2011 1:35 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions
9 Million A Year? During The New Age Depression?
Considering the economic times, pulling a profit is still respectable.
I mean this is the worst economic times since the depression. They should be happy they made anything.
The Packers do not make a good argument, because they are publicly owned.
Take a look at some of these other teams that had only 60 million dollars in cap room. Where do you think that extra money went that wasn’t spent on players? Right into their pockets, that’s where.
There’s a reason that these teams get handed down from family members.
THEY MAKE MONEY!
This isn’t the NBA (they are seriously fucked)
Win Forever: Live, Work and Play Like a Champion
Exactly.
The Packers profit gets thrown around, because its the only team we’ve got numbers on. We’ve only got numbers because they’re a public entity.
But they are the worst example, because they are public, and also small market. And they still turned a profit while doing ongoing renovations on their stadium.
70% of space is covered by dark matter, the rest by ET.
Howard schultz
fuck that guy.
GET OFF ME!
by flyinmonky on Jul 5, 2011 10:53 PM PDT reply actions 2 recs
Greed Greed Greed Owners
Owning an NFL team is not a risk. With the revenue sharing, all the teams do make money the owners figured that they should be protected more.
These teams are WAY overpriced. Unfortunately the same thing happened to the franchise value that happened with the housing market. Honestly, are the Deadskins really worth almost a Billion Dollars?
The big difference here is the Owners are basically the banks. And the fans, and players are the ones that are paying for a Bailout they really don’t need.
Win Forever: Live, Work and Play Like a Champion
Unless you know exactly what owners earn, I would tread carefully on calling them greedy.
And owning any business is a risk. You point to the NBA like it has always been a losing investment. It took over a decade, but their CBA finally broke the camel’s back. The same thing could happen in the NFL. This is why the owners haven’t agreed upon a deal yet. The decision could be the difference between making and losing money (along with franchise value).
Also, this is utterly false:
Take a look at some of these other teams that had only 60 million dollars in cap room. Where do you think that extra money went that wasn’t spent on players? Right into their pockets, that’s where.
Just because team’s didn’t spend to the cap limit, it doesn’t mean the owners pocketed the difference. Do you have access to their accounting records or something? There are other expenses teams have to pay for outside of its players. An extra dollar per hour for each employee adds up to millions quickly. Nobody knows how much money the owners had available to spend on their players. A salary cap isn’t a number teams get spend for free.
Strongly Disagree
Mike Brown has a known history of paying players as little as possible or even drawing a hard line stance against player raises or such? It’s not because he hates NFL Players (mostly) it’s his love for the dollar.
The same thing will not happen in the NFL for two reasons.
1: National TV contract. (NBA is local Contracts with regional sporting networks)
2: Teams still make money with revenue sharing regardless of attendance. (NBA owners have to have a shiny arena with revenue and ticket sales)
3. Seattle Supersonics (had to throw that one in there)
My counter argument for the pocketing the extra money can also be turned around to why wouldn’t they? They obviously weren’t spending it on salaries of the employees not on the Cap, as evidenced by the furloughs and pay cuts.
Standing for the owners without data would seem frivolous as well, simply because if the data isn’t public, you can’t really tell anyone you are losing money just because you SAY you are.
Win Forever: Live, Work and Play Like a Champion
You must know Mike Brown personally.
My counter argument for the pocketing the extra money can also be turned around to why wouldn’t they?
There is no counter argument because you don’t know if there is any “extra money” the owners are keeping. Until you can prove that, you don’t get to ask the question of “why wouldn’t they?”
They obviously weren’t spending it on salaries of the employees not on the Cap, as evidenced by the furloughs and pay cuts.
Obviously? The only thing obvious about the furloughs and pay cuts were that the NFL was preparing for a lockout.
Standing for the owners without data would seem frivolous as well, simply because if the data isn’t public, you can’t really tell anyone you are losing money just because you SAY you are.
Oh, so because you say the owners are making an absurd amount of money you must be right. I get it now.
Bottom line: You don’t know how much owners earn or what their total expenditures include. Stop making rash judgments on something you have no information about. And before you rattle back saying I am don’t have any information either, please show me where I concluded the owners were either making or losing money.
I am not on the owners’ side of this debate, but I am tired of people making business owners out to be evil. Tell me, what do you think is too much for an NFL owner to make that qualifies him or her to be greedy?
That Sounds Like A Whole Bunch Of Bull
I mean you criticize me for not having facts, But offer only dribble in comment yourself?
The reason why the financials haven’t been put out there, is because it would weaken the owners case. Otherwise they would have done so. That argument would be null and void. The whole strength of their argument is based on unknown factors. How can you honestly have a conversation with someone if the facts aren’t there?
The NFL is the most expensive Country Club to join in the United States. You have to be approved by other owners just to join this “Club”. Having half a Billion cash on hand helps too.
So to argue that I don’t have the facts about Mike Brown or to intimate that I would have to know him personally, Read some Cincy newspapers, and within the first 5-10 articles, you would get the gist of how he feels about players. These are common knowledge facts that have been on the web for months, even prior to the lockout. In fact, these facts have been known for years even BEFORE the previous collective bargaining agreement.
The argument wasn’t even about making or losing money, but the owners have mentioned this fact many times in this debate. It is public knowledge.
What I’ve been trying to point out in this whole argument is the situation isn’t nearly as bad as the owners put out. If it was, then this wouldn’t be about Greed. If the owners were in serious financial trouble,then maybe I could sympathize.
But the Important facts, the lack of transparency is what leads to the conclusion of greed. You can’t honestly work with a “partner” Or “union” without disclosure.
It’s simple. Prove your case financially. Otherwise, it’s hard to believe anything you say in a financial matter.
Win Forever: Live, Work and Play Like a Champion
Easy there guys
I know this is a heated issue but let’s keep it civil.
by Thomas Beekers on Jul 6, 2011 2:33 PM PDT up reply actions
Owning a monopoly is not much of a risk
The real money is in the appreciation of the franchise’s value. An estimate from Chicago Partners is an average annual return of 17.6% over the last decade when asset appreciation is figured in.
Nobody knowsexactly what the owners earn because they won’t open their books, which in the end, is all anybody really needs to know.
GET OFF ME!
Anyone who knows anything about Capitalism
knows it is all about greed. Even Adam Smith said the flaw with Capitalism was the tendency for a few individuals to accumulate an overwhelming proportion of property and resources. The expectation is that Owners want the most money they can out of the system, just like bankers and corporations, but not really all that different from the rest of us… who here would turn down a raise from our employer because we thought it was unfair that we make more money?
The Owners are investing $500 million+ to the team, and even if it is largely financed, they probably have some expectation of a ROI somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-8%. I think it is likely that most teams are making at most 2-3% ROI. The Mike Browns of this league have to be very shrewd and miserly, otherwise they will lose money and lose their teams. On the other hand, I would guess that Jerry Jones, the Maras, Paul Allen all make money hand over fist on their investment.
Who do I blame? I think the source of the problem is that small market owners are probably taking a beating in this economy, losing money or making no ROI, and want to at least make a small profit for their time and investment. The large market owners likely see a decrease in profit as well, and are unwilling to give up more of their profit to revenue sharing. The only way to get small market teams more money is to take it from the players. So yeah, the owners are to blame, but who can blame them?
Smashmouth is the new sexy!
I Blame Them For One Simple Reason
Tickets to the Seahawks when I first started buying them in 04’ 21.60 For 300 Level.
Tickets to Seahawks games now? Triple The price, at around 60 Dollars a ticket.
If that’s not Greed, I’m not sure what is.
Win Forever: Live, Work and Play Like a Champion
Are you still paying for the same ticket?
Supply = Demand
And please don’t act like you know that $38 increase is going straight to the owner’s pocket.
If they can't make it in a small market, there's a
really fucking big one down in SoCal they can move to and pocket around a billion dollars in the process.
So I don’t buy it that they aren’t making it in the smaller markets.
70% of space is covered by dark matter, the rest by ET.
Jerry Jones.
He sells seats to the Superbowl that don’t exist, in a failed attempt to make HIS Superbowl the biggest ever. Proving 1) he’s an asshole for taking money for something he can’t deliver, and 2) that he has a small penis and wants to make up for it by having the biggest superbowl ever. And it pisses him off that players are collectively making more money at football than the owners. Because the players already have bigger penises, so giving them more money is just insulting.
by Highwatermark on Jul 6, 2011 12:22 PM PDT reply actions 2 recs
Hypothetical
Lets say you were a billionaire, and you decided that owning a NFL football team would be something you are interested in. But the only NFL team available for sale was, lets say, the Buffalo Bills. A small market team that can’t seem to win a game. What do you expect the ROI to be on that team. Especially in a down trodden economy with the threat of hyper-inflation on the horizon. If I was that billionaire I think I could find better ways to invest my money. I know none of you bleeding-hearts care about whether or not some billionaire looses a boatload of money cause he owns an NFL team, but it is completely within his right to try to correct the ship so the buisness is solvent. The lockout and labor dispute is one of the tools that this owner has to try to “right the ship.” We as fans have no say in a labor dispute and rightly so, because we neither pay the workers, nor recieve the checks. Some of you may say that you do pay the workers by paying ticket prices and buying apparel..well it is completely within your ability to not pay for those items. I too hope for a resolution soon, but in any money dispute, the greed goes both ways. If one side wasn’t greedy, then we wouldn’t have a dispute.
Moving to L.A. is the league's bullet to the heads of 32 cities
Once they pull that trigger, they’ll never be able to use it again. For the extra tens of millions it would gather every year for some small-market team, why do you think it hasn’t been done yet? Because L.A. is more valuable as a hostage to gather city- and state-funded new stadiums and concessions than it’d ever be as a team host.
Not to mention that “L.A.” consists of L.A. Memorial Coliseum, in a neighborhood in which you’re just as likely to get shot, stabbed, or mugged as you are to actually make it inside. And just as likely to find your car on blocks once you get back out. Not many teams are in a rush to play in those conditions, even if the owners are.
Along with that, moving the franchise once it’s bought is a huge undertaking, during which you’ll be pummeled everywhere in the press for being a heartless skinflint. What’s-his-name tried it with the Seahawks in ‘98. Baphomet succeeded with the Sonics en route to Bumfuck, Oklahoma in a hugely expensive process (I hope he’s having fun with THEIR CBA crisis).
This is what revenue sharing is intended to prevent: 32 teams clustered around the nation’s mega-cities, with large swaths of the country unrepresented. To a degree, it hasn’t really succeeded because team location turnover is glacial. But without it, it would be necessary. Ideally, a team like the Buffalo Bills should be able to spend enough to account for their salary floor for players, along with all of their stadium and team expenses, and make enough from their own ticket sales and the collective fund to recoup those expenses and make a respectable profit. But teams in the middle of the pack, like Cincinnati, take advantage of that formula by purposely spending beneath their means in stadium upgrades and so forth, so that they’re the ones receiving money from the league instead of one of the ones paying out. That’s the kind of formula that needs to change, because it provides an incentive for teams to spend radically different amounts than their peers in order to make an artificial profit.
And let’s not forget, in the early 90’s the Bills dominated their conference. That they still don’t isn’t a matter of poor ticket sales as much as poor management. And they have means to increase ticket sales that don’t involve uprooting the team all together. One suggestion that’s been floated is playing a couple games a year in Toronto. I think that’s an awesome idea to expose new fans to the NFL product and giving the Bills a new adopted home away from home.
The whole theoretical exercise in moving a team is comparable to Microsoft suddenly going, “You know what? The corporate tax in North Dakota is 2% less than in Washington. We’re packing up and moving out!” Yes, your business is saving money, but the entire process would be massively disruptive and garner nothing but bad press about the dollars being left on the table to save a few cents.
by Clendy on Jul 6, 2011 7:37 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
The owners should of had their shit together on this long long ago.
As with just about any shop employees are your biggest headache. Too bad . Buck-up & get it handled . You must be open Monday morning .
Owners at 57%?!?! Canada (whatever the hell kinda funny THAT was supposed to be) at 23%?!!!?
I am astounded by the results of this poll. The only thing the owners did wrong was let the players form a union to begin with! That said, it is hard to take sides when you have, on the one hand, greedy billionaires, and on the other hand, fiscally irresponsible multi-millionaires who can’t read (much less balance a checkbook). We are all just angry at the billionaires for trying to make MORE billions, and angry at the players because they have a cool job that pays them ridiculous amounts of money to PLAY A GAME, requiring not even a high school education! I am sicked by BOTH sides, but particularly the players who should count their blessings they are not asking, “Do you want fries with that?” right now.
by Chief Knockahomer on Jul 6, 2011 1:54 PM PDT reply actions
"The only thing the owners did wrong was let the players form a union to begin with!"
Uh, you know it’s illegal to prevent employees from unionizing?
And that without a union shop & contract, they can’t have any anti trust exemptions. So you’re kinda off on that.
And “requiring not even a high school education!”…It does however require three years of college.
But I guess if you choose to be a fan of a sport where you have such a low opinion of the participants that’s up to you.
70% of space is covered by dark matter, the rest by ET.
by hazbro24 on Jul 6, 2011 4:03 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
I get tired of the "play a game" argument.
It’s not like just any schmoe off the street can play this game at the level that the NFL players play it. I dare say for most NFL players, between practice, film study, training, surgeries, etc., it takes a level of work and committment that is at least comparable to any laywer or doctor or MBA.
Also, keep in mind that the owners willingly pay them these outrageous sums, on a contract-by-contract basis. Tom Brady didn’t hold a gun to Kraft’s head. Kraft wanted one of the top 2 QB’s in the league to play for his team, and paid him for the service. The market set the price. If Kraft hadn’t paid it, someone else would have.
If you want to get rid of the union, you’d have to make the entire system free-market, and take away the collusion by the various owners. Get rid of the draft, which limits the market for players to just one team for an entire year (imagine being told coming out of school you had been drafted by Chrysler, and couldn’t work anywhere other than there, and that if you couldn’t agree on a contract price, you had to sit out with no job for a year.) Get rid of all the tags, and free agency rules. No more limits on the number of players that a team could have, or IR lists, or practice squads. Just let all players and all teams compete freely on the open market. Man, what a mess that would be.
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