If Peter King's piece in Sports Illustrated about the coming labor war in the NFL is any indication, we're in for (not surprisingly) a long season of distortion and bias on behalf of owners. King is not willfully biased -- he attempts to be balanced in his presentation of the players' and owners' positions about a new collective bargaining agreement, with the current one set to expire in 2011. But there are at least five ways in which King's approach reflects and reinforces larger habits of sports journalism when it comes to owner/player disputes.
1) it's billionaires vs. millionaires. King doesn't use this terminology explicitly, but his focus on the huge salaries of high first round draft picks is of a piece with that larger frame. And that frame leaves the impression that all we're really talking about is a bunch of wealthy people arguing about money. But the two sides are not really comparable. Yes, there are many wealthy players in the NFL, but the vast majority will not be for most of their lives.
If they stick on NFL rosters for a full season or more, they make great salaries by normal standards. But the average NFL player won't last four years in the league and this is, in itself, a misleading figure, because there are plenty of players who last 10-15 years. So, if the average player tenure in the league is 3.6 years, as King reports, the median tenure of an NFL player, which is a much more relevant gauge of the life of a typical player, is less than that figure implies.
The media (and the owners) spend a lot of time focusing on the salaries of players like Sam Bradford and Albert Haynesworth. But for every Haynesworth or Bradford, there are dozens of players who may make the league minimum for the short duration in which they play in the league. And given the significant long-term health problems that many NFL players face, the impact of those problems on their job prospects, the bills they owe, those few years of good earnings can evaporate quickly. No NFL owner is ever going to be out on the street. By contrast, NFL players do find themselves there (remember Hall-of-Fame center Mike Webster?).
In sum, every single owner is insanely wealthy by any reasonable standard and will remain so for the rest of their lives. The same cannot be said of many players.
2) But it's much worse than the simple fact that the majority of players who put on an NFL uniform at some point will not last in the league very long nor make a ton of money.
One central justification under capitalism for rewarding some people with great wealth is the risk they take to achieve that wealth. That risk, while pursued for the sake of self-interest, contributes to a greater good in the form of innovation and wealth creation. No such risk accrues to NFL owners, however. Once you are granted a franchise, you are granted a license to print money. Incompetent owners may cost their team wins on the field, but they will still make a killing off the field.
NFL revenues run to $8 billion a year and, as Forbes magazine frequently points out, many other benefits redound to owners of sports franchises, even if those benefits don't show up on franchise balance sheets. King writes that it's a burdensome new reality for NFL franchises that they have to finance new stadiums on their own, rather than have taxpayers pay for them. Only in the outrageously entitled world of the super-wealthy would it be burdensome that rather than being handed a billion dollar asset, they might actually have to pay for it themselves. And Jerry Jones' new stadium, for example, was built with an estimated quarter of a billion dollars in public funds. Furthermore, if building new stadiums weren't a profitable endeavor in the long run, let me assure you that teams wouldn't be building them in the first place.
The stadium financing issue aside, the risk in the NFL is all on the side of the players. They are the ones who exist in an intensely competitive market for talent. And they are the ones who put their bodies on the line everyday. It's the players, not the owners who, in football especially, but to lesser degrees in other sports, risk the possibility of a lifetime of pain and discomfort or, as the evidence about the long-term effects of brain trauma increasingly shows, depression and suicide (and those realities the NFL spent many years denying).
Rutgers' Eric LeGrand, paralyzed from the neck down Saturday night in an on-field collision, is only the latest reminder of this simple, indisputable fact: the risk is all on the side of the players. All of it. The owners cannot lose and they don't lose. Period. The players can lose catastrophically. Remarkably, while King does discuss the players' concerns about pensions and health care for retired players, he fails to mention the long-term health consequences from playing football, as if that has no relevance to the players' views about much of the league's revenue they're entitled to.
3) King notes that the owners want to re-structure the revenue-sharing arrangement with the players. Under the current collective bargaining agreement, the players receive sixty percent of total revenues. Only that's not really true. According to King, of the $8 billion in revenue to be shared with the players, $1.4 billion is currently "exempt." Using those figures, the players receive 60% of $6.6 billion, which comes out to just under $4 billion. In other words, the players receive just under half of "total" revenue. This isn't good enough for the owners because, well, it's never good enough for the owners. King says that the owners would like, among other things, to increase the exempt fund to $2.4 trillion. If that were the case, players would end up receiving roughly 40% of total revenues, assuming they continued to receive a 60-40 split of non-exempt revenue. Notably, in describing the revenue distribution system, King writes "...after some excluded fees, [players receive ] 60% of the total football revenue earned." Note how $1.4 billion, which the owners want to bump to $2.4 billion, has been reduced to "some excluded fees."
And remember, there are about 1600 players. There are 32 owners. Yes, I know the owners pay other employees. Cry me a river.
4) King also passes along the owners' argument that the high percentage of revenue sharing that goes to the players creates a disincentive for the owners to work harder to find alternative sources of revenue since, presumably, having only $4 billion to divvy up among themselves, as opposed to $5 billion dampens their collective entrepreneurial spirit. This is garbage, of course. For one thing, it's worth mentioning that sports media complain constantly about players' guaranteed money, under the presumption that guaranteeing players' salaries creates a disincentive for them to try very hard; that only more modest -- and revocable -- wages would properly motivate them. Of course, for owners, the opposite is true. Handing them four billion dollars isn't enough (and remember, that's four billion clear of players' salaries). They need more money before they can be induced to really try hard to make more money.
This is a staggering and indefensible double-standard.
5) The owners win when media focus on things like the rookie wage scale, 60% revenue sharing, and the like. The owners lose when media point out that only the players are putting their lives and bodies on the line in a cauldron of intense competition. The reality is that owners of sports franchises are, in many cases, spoiled brats who expect to make impossibly large sums of money by dint of the fact that, since they are already rich, they are entitled to become richer still. They assume virtually no risk, earn massive sums of guaranteed money regardless of the product they put on the field and still feel a need -- with the indispensable aid of Commissioner Goodell -- to distort basic facts about the nature of sports economics and their own profitability.
As I wrote a few years ago, in the context of growing evidence of the devastating long-term impact of traumatic brain injury on retired NFL players, this is especially indefensible:
I understand where this anti-player bias in discussions of contracts and sports business comes from. It's the athletes, not the owners, with whom we identify (or want to). It's the athletes whose circumstances most fans want to relate to. And given these realities, it's the athletes who are the focus of fans' ire. After all, how could a pro athlete, making millions of dollars, with gorgeous women throwing themselves at him all because he gets to play a game he loves ever complain about anything? Countless millions would kill to be able to do what the professional athlete does and, it often appears, takes for granted. And from chicken-processing to meat-packing, there are groups of workers in this country toiling for a pittance, often sacrificing life and limb while their bosses reap huge profits. I get that.
But comparing professional athletes to other workers is not the proper context for reporting on and analyzing labor-management disputes in sports. The question is simply who is more deserving of the spoils to be divided between players and owners: the players, or the owners? All you have to do is see Dennis Byrd hobbling painfully through his life fourteen years after his last game to answer that question. There is no more spoiled or coddled group in America than owners of major sports franchises. Already impossibly wealthy, they insist on every edge, every break, to guarantee their profits, all while telling their players, the only ones making real sacrifices and taking real risks that they, the players, should be grateful for what they have.If an ordinary Joe wants to tell a Haynesworth or a Matt Leinart or a Terrell Owens that they should just shut up and play - fine. But coming from a sports owner: No dice. They're simply not in a credible position to make such judgments. And, sports media ought not to write as if they are.
And remember one more thing -- when there is a work stoppage in sports, it's almost always blamed on the players. But the 2011 season, if it isn't played, will be because of an owners' lockout, not a players' strike. And in keeping with their true nature, the owners have announced that, if there is a lockout, they will stop paying for players' health insurance, though they are still estimated to receive an estimated $1 billion in TV revenue next year, regardless of whether a game is played. Charming, I know.
The bottom line here: Peter King has done a disservice to a well-informed public discussion about the real issues at stake in the upcoming CBA negotiations, indirectly shilling for the owners, who don't need anymore unwarranted favorable coverage. Unless he really is a shill, he ought to know -- and do -- better.
Follow Jonathan Weiler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jonweiler
http://www.ehow.com/about_6464393_average-salaries-professional-sports.html
We have owners who have no problems making fortunes outside of football by keeping wages low because the capitalist free market allows them to do so. But when it comes to a situation where the employees have the upper hand, like with football players, they have to resort to owner socialism in the form of restrictive free agency, salary caps and other restrictions. Otherwise the poor billionaires with franchises worth hundreds of millions of dollars just can't compete.
They are typical of the phony free trade capitalists who run American business. They only want free trade when it is to their advantage.
It's the owners who will lock the players out next season. The players are happy to keep playing and "killing" one another for our amusement.
Nothing more than Millionaires (the players) battling with Billionaires (the owners) to see who can get richer. The fans are meaningless to both.
So who's fault will it be that there are no games?
This year, the NFL announces that it is looking into shortening the preseason because that don't feel it is fair that fans should pay for an inferior product; which is absolutely true (how about a refund then?). This goes on for awhile and then all of a sudden the league introduces the idea of expanding the regular season to 18 games. Okay this talk goes on.
Then, the league links the two together: Well, we need to add two games to make up for the two we're cutting from the preseason (yeah, those scam "games" you charged full price for?).
I make this important distinction in timing because you need to see the duplicity on part of the owners in wanting to, at first, rectify a wrong, and then just shifting it later on to the fan anyway.
It goes to motive and how the NFL wanted to frame this to the public, and they strategically created space between the two and later on linked them together. A kind of bait and switch. Just wrong.
Thank the greedy owners and the PSL (Personal Seat License) rip-off. Now, in order to buy season tickets (including those bogus preseason "games", you first have to buy the right to buy season tickets!!! What a scam foisted upon eager fans who want to see their team play.
Where did all those people on the waiting list go? If you have trouble selling out The New Meadowlands for one of the best teams in the NFL, the owners are doing something wrong - it's called price gouging and extortion.
But don't you think if a person owns a team they can charge whatever they want for tickets? I have no love for super-rich owners in sports but isn't it a slippery slope when we start telling them what they can and cannot charge for tickets to see a team they own?
Because if their true intention was righting a wrong, it would not be dependent on the regular season and adding two games (coincidence?! I think not!). Just do the right thing because it's right.
If it is tied to the regular season and they need the two games, no matter what, then they are just blowing smoke you know where; just being greedy in the mask of altruism.
And the fact that the media has not reported this important distinction, either shows the power of the NFL, sheer ignorance or the lack of true reporting in sports.
And the players do take all the risks, and potentially adding two more regular season games is a travesty. It doesn't better the game, it can only diminish it. Keep it at 16 games, reduce the preseason, and just suck it up NFL and its owners.
It seems to me that rather than hurting themsleves in the wallet with too high ticket prices owners in the four big major sports have simply found a way to make money and/or have a great tax shelter without the need for fans to attend games.
In other words, owners, right under fans noses, have found other revenue streams and don't need attendance at their games.
Fan is short for fanatic, and until people just "root" for this or that team, and not allow themselves to be consumed by their fandom and from being emotionally coerced into financially supporting "their" team, they will have to suffer on multiple levels.
BTW, there has been "talk" from the various leagues into the idea of contraction. It seems many smaller market teams are struggling financially; so, we'll see.
The corporate welfare flowing to the owners is a crime. Using public funds (TAXES) to pay for stadiums for already rich owners is short sighted and just stupid.
Every week, some players are called in and told that their contracts "are being restructured," meaning "your pay is being cut."
The owners again and again ignore contracts they signed with players. If the owners can ignore signed contracts, then how can we be bothered when individual players hold out for pay increases?
On the other hand, 99% of NFL players lack any other marketable skills. They need the NFL way more than the NFL needs them.
I have ZERO sympathy for either side. There's enough revenue (or should be) to satisfy all. If not, F them both! As much as I love the Giants, my quality of life won't suffer if there's a season without the NFL.
But for the record: I live in Denver and my bumpersticker said: Go Broncos - and take the Nuggets with you.
If the NFL owners offered the players union a cap on each individual player's salary at 50K per year, and then locked the players out until they took that offer, the fans would scream at the players to take that offer and stop whining.
If the players didn't take that offer and the owners replaced all the real players with no talent scabs dressed up in NLF uniforms, the fans would flock back to the stadiums within a month.
My simple point was that if there is a lock-out most fans will side with owners and blame the players for any cancelled games.
But judging by your last sentence 007, you ultimately would blame owners for any cancelled games since if the owners know they are going to lock out current NFL players and if there is an army of other players ready to take their place the owners should be finding those replacement players now and having them ready to go by opening day next season.