By Jay Mariotti 2/05/10 Jay Mariotti is a national columnist for FanHouse
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — They wouldn’t be this stupid, would they? Here in the second decade of the 21st century, with the NFL long established as the most powerful and prosperous of American sports leagues, would the owners and players fight so ridiculously and obnoxiously about splitting an $8 billion pie that they’d actually allow a season to be shut down?
I would like to say, in the words of wheezing Super Bowl halftime singer Roger Daltrey, that we won’t get fooled again. The NFL’s last labor impasse was in 1987, when none other than Sean Payton, now the head coach of the New Orleans Saints, crossed a picket line to be a scab quarterback for the Chicago Spare Bears. Since that mess was resolved, pro football has blown away baseball and basketball to become a national obsession, growing at a pace — if you believe the NFL Players Association, as I do — that has spiked franchise values about 500 percent over a 15-year period. While so many industries teeter in an ongoing recession, the NFL still does huge business, fueled by enormous television rights fees even as a few franchises struggle to sell out home games and remain on a level competitive field with the major-market behemoths.
Yet to hear NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith all week, the league is ready to gamble with the golden goose. He says the owners want the players to take an 18-percent pay cut, for a per-player annual average of $340,000, adding that the league’s latest offer includes a demand that players accept only 41 percent of applied revenues — down from 59 percent. When commissioner Roger Goodell was asked about the 18-percent figure Friday at his annual State of the League news conference, he wasn’t nearly as quick with a denial as he has been recently on the same issue. See if you can decipher what the man is saying.
“I think it’s difficult to negotiate these things in these kinds of forums. I will tell you that what we’ve asked for very clearly is 18-percent cost recognition, so that when investments are made to grow the game and generate revenue, they’re given recognition,” Goodell said. “And that will encourage further investment. It will, hopefully, grow that pie. By investing in a new stadium in Los Angeles that would generate more revenue, the players would share it. That’s a positive. We’ve talked about a restructured season as another way to generate new revenue by improving the quality of what we’re doing. We’ve talked about international [expansion] before. There are ways in which we can invest in our game. There are literally billions of fans that we think will love the game of football if they’re exposed to it, but that takes an investment. And we have to invest in the game so that we can take that money and share it with everybody.
Read the entire article here: http://jay-mariotti.fanhouse.com/2010/02/05/would-nfl-owners-kill-golden-goose/
I would like for someone to explain what the 3.6 billion incremential revenue is in the whole picture of the NFL being a 8 billion dollar busniess. Where does the other or when does the other 4.4 billion dollars arrive on the seen.
Goodell, you are doing a good job of speaking with fork tongue. are you saying that the players would partner with owners in their invesments for a share of the pie, that something will be in writting, that the players would get some type of bond or stock?.