No High Fives Being Exchanged in NFL Conference Rooms

[Mad City Mike]

It looks like the NFL is headed for labor disaster. This quote about sums it up:

"I wouldn't expect any miracles at this point," said one owner who participated in the Wednesday meeting of the executive committee. "It is what it is. And what it is, I'd say, is a mess. There doesn't seem to be any way out of it. The people who think all of the [rhetoric] of the last few days is just brinksmanship, and that something big is going to happen [on Thursday] to bail us all out … well, unless I fell asleep during the [Wednesday] discussions, it simply isn't going to happen."

Sounds just like where the NHL was before a season was lost.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/s ... id=2350858

[Draftnik]

The real deadline is 12 months away. The Cap will be $10-12M less in 2006 if the CBA isn't extended, but a true uncapped year will not start until the 2007 season (03/07).

This isn't surprising. The NFL always split revenues equally because the national TV contract was such a large % if their overall revenues. That made revenue sharing incredibly easy. Now that teams are generating disparate amounts of local revenues through boxes, premium seats, stadium naming rights, radio deals, etc NFL owners are having a hard time finding common ground on how to split those revenues. NFL players DO NOT share in those revenues right now, so they want a piece of that pie in the next CBA. The NFL owners can't figure out a way to cut the players in on those revenues because it will skew the % of overall revenues teams spend on payroll.

This isn't an easy problem to solve. There are owners like Dan Snyder, Bob Kraft, etc that spent ~ $700-$800M on their franchises + stadiums. There are other owners like Dan Rooney that inherited a $2,500 team from his father and spent ~ $75M on a stadium which was almost recouped with a $57M stadium naming rights deal. There are owners like Paul Brown Jr that also inherited a team that was originally purchased for next to nothing and that guy has the gall to put his hand out to Dan Snyder when he didn't even bother to sell his stadium naming rights. Rooney and Brown pocketed approximately $25M a piece when Bob McNair purchased the Texans now they want to take his local revenue he needs to recoup his $700M expansion fee.

Guys like Snyder, McNair and Kraft are servicing hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, so they need to generate massive amounts of revenue to make their business models work. I don't see an equitable solution for this problem.

[ExPatriatePen]

The real deadline is 12 months away. The Cap will be $10-12M less in 2006 if the CBA isn't extended, but a true uncapped year will not start until the 2007 season (03/07).

...This isn't surprising.

...This isn't an easy problem to solve.

...I don't see an equitable solution for this problem.

Nice synopsis Draftnik... I think it acturately sums it up. personally i think they'll come to some form of agreement though. Unlike the NHL, the NFL is a 'Golden Goose'. I don't think anyone is dumb enough to kill it.

[Bowser]

I think the NFLPA and certain owners like Jerry Jones are more than capable of trying to pluck the goose.

[ExPatriatePen]

I think the NFLPA and certain owners like Jerry Jones are more than capable of trying to pluck the goose.

Bleed it as far as they can? Yes. But an NHL style lockout? I just don't see it, they all have way too much to lose. It's not like the NHL was, a broken system with money losing operations.

[Bowser]

I agree, only sport worth breaking and fixing would be MLB.

I find it very laughable, Chris Mortensen ripping the NFL cap system and praising MLB CBA. Sounds like Mort might be a UNION man.

[ExPatriatePen]

I agree, only sport worth breaking and fixing would be MLB.

I find it very laughable, Chris Mortensen ripping the NFL cap system and praising MLB CBA. Sounds like Mort might be a UNION man.

The last couple of days Blasting the NFL CBA and praising the MLB CBA has been good sport here in NY.

I can't think of anything more ridiculous.

The argument was that in the last five years MLB has had five different champions and that the NFL has had one team win it all three of the five years.

They also talked about parity. That in the NL East any team could have won it.

What they fail to consider is that in the NFL, if you project five years in the future you'd be hard pressed to name half of the teams that will finish below .500 In baseball, that's not hard to do at all.

In football the folks in Green Bay always have hope that within a few years their team has as good a chance as any to win the Super Bowl, not just once but to be a perennial contender again. In baseball, if your a fan
of a small market team like Pittsburgh, or Cinci, or K.C. or The Twins, or Brewers, or Colorado... you basicly know the odds are stacked against you.

[Peter]

I would love to see a lockout.