Sherman/Guarantees/CBA **long**

[AgentDib]

For some reason there's always one contingent of fans looking to support the players in any CBA dispute and another looking to support the owners. Supporting the fan's perspective has always seemed like the obvious route to me which is why the issue of parity is so important. Paul Allen and Richard Sherman have their own lawyers.

Having dead money not come out of the formal revenue split which sets the salary cap (which is the only way to do it in my proposal)

I'm not quite tracking you here. Let's suppose that I am negotiating for the owners and the current revenue split going to the players is $X (salary cap). If the players want to have an additional source of income $Y (dead money) then that's fair game for discussion but as a starting point $X needs to be reduced by $Y. Even if the players win a concession in the form of an overall increase for $Y that is still an opportunity cost as it is could have gone to increasing $X instead. Those cost streams do not exist independently but compete for the same dollars in the overall compensation package. Are we on the same page there?

 

[Smelly McUgly]

I don't think that the NFL is great because of parity. Actually, of all the leagues that I like better (NBA, Premier League, MLS), two of them have little parity at all.

I also don't side with owners because I'm not really interested in helping owners control costs when those same owners expect municipalities to pay for their stadiums. If fans really cared about cost control, they would have long since taken a stand against city councils, mayors, and state legislatures paying for billions of dollars in construction costs, land, and forfeited revenue via tax breaks for owners.

I think that ultimately, there should be a soft cap with luxury tax penalties for teams that exceed that soft cap, and then a hard cap above that soft cap (but only as a compromise, as if I were running the league, I'd make it cap-less). The vet minimums need to be higher, salaries should be guaranteed, and commensurate with a raise of the cap, there should be an extension of rosters from 53 to 60 because the game is so violent and injuries are so common.

I also think that in combination with this, ticket prices should be capped for forty to sixty percent of the stadium, and those prices should vary based on COLA in the city that the team is based in (if the stadium is in suburbia, the COLA adjustment to ticket prices would be based on either the cost of living in the area that the stadium is located or in the city that the team represents, whichever is cheaper).

The NFL's owners think that they are entitled to profit, but that the players aren't. So IMO, the equitable thing would be that either everyone profits (no cap, no draft), or both the players and owners are limited in what they can earn.

 

[ivotuk]

Some great points all.

What really makes the NFL as popular as it is? The salary cap. Any one of the 32 teams could win the Superbowl this year because of the parity. And THAT is what makes the NFL the money.

If there were no salary cap, and Jerry Jones Cowboys won the Superbowl 7 out of 10 years, decade in, and decade out. Who would watch it?

Green Bay Packers because they are publicly owned, and don't have the geographical value that Dallas has, would never make it to the Superbowl.

I respect Sherman. He's vocal, but like Hawkstorian, and many others have said over the years, everything he says, he's thought about.

I think 2 of the suggestions I read, make the pie bigger (TV contracts), and have the players get more of the sales revenue. Although, I'm not sure that they don't get some of it.

 

[Hawkstorian]

I must say I'm very happy with the quality of discussion in this thread. My faith in Seahawks.Net has ticked up several degrees. As the great Aros pointed out: MAKE .NET GREAT AGAIN!

 

[Smelly McUgly]

The Premier League and NBA are about as massive, business-wise, as the NFL, and they have no cap and a soft cap, respectively.

I don't think parity is what makes the NFL popular. I think that there are a number of unique things specific to the United States that make the NFL popular. Parity is nice in the sense that every fan in the league can dream of their team going on a run and winning it all in any given year (except maybe Browns fans lol), but that doesn't stop the NBA or EPL from making money hand over fist even if only four to six teams have a shot at winning a championship in a given year, and in the case of the Premie, those same four to six teams pretty much haven't changed over about fifteen or twenty years (outside of Man City making the jump up after being relegated to a constant contender and clubs like Newcastle and Leeds falling out of that consistent contender group).

I know that's a tangent on the overall argument, but I've seen two people cite parity as a reason for the continued popularity of the league, and I think that's too simplistic an argument based on what we know about the popularity of leagues that lack parity.

 

[AgentDib]

Last I checked (late 2000's?) the 32 NFL teams were worth more than every NBA, MLB, MLS and NHL franchise combined. I don't think you can make a direct comparison either way with an international sport, assuming that's what a premier league is.

Consider that basketball is more accessible as a sport than football and has fewer long-term injury concerns. The NBA should be emulating the NFL, not the other way around.

 

[Popeyejones]

I've said this before, but the NFL has parity not because of the salary cap, but because it has a 16 game season and a one-and-done playoff structure. It's simply miniscule sample sizes that make outcomes in the NFL high variance.

Also, people overstate the parity of the NFL. By "parity" what I think people mean is that about 1/3rd of the playoff teams each year aren't easily predictable before the season starts. That's not really exceptional parity, and it mostly just comes from short seasons. And with pretty good accuracy every year you can pick the five or six teams from which the Super Bowl winer will come. That's not really parity either. By "parity" what people mean is that it's hard to predict which teams will sneak into the playoffs, and of the handful of teams that we all already know will likely go pretty far in the playoffs, it's hard to know which one will win out (one-and-done: if the NFL playoffs had best of seven series like the NBA and MLB we'd basically be able to narrow down the Super Bowl winner to two or three teams and be right in most years).

 

[Popeyejones]

Having dead money not come out of the formal revenue split which sets the salary cap (which is the only way to do it in my proposal)

I'm not quite tracking you here. Let's suppose that I am negotiating for the owners and the current revenue split going to the players is $X (salary cap). If the players want to have an additional source of income $Y (dead money) then that's fair game for discussion but as a starting point $X needs to be reduced by $Y. Even if the players win a concession in the form of an overall increase for $Y that is still an opportunity cost as it is could have gone to increasing $X instead. Those cost streams do not exist independently but compete for the same dollars in the overall compensation package. Are we on the same page there?

Yeah, sorry, I was pretty unclear there, and you're bringing a lot of clarity. :2thumbs:

I'll lay out the thought experiment more cleanly. We start at the new CBA negotiations.

PLAYERS: The NFL generates the most revenue of any professional league, but us players have the worst revenue split in professional sports. You and us both know there's no way to justify that, so before we even started this meeting you already know that another down of NFL-quality football isn't going to happen until that's rectified.

OWNERS: That's right, but it's the terms we're working under so if you want to change the revenue split you're going to have to give up something very substantial in return.

PLAYERS: That's right, but you and us both know that neither of us want the work stoppage that's going to result if that problem isn't solved. But what if we told you we have a proposal that will solve some of our other issues and allow you to KEEP your 47/53 revenue split at the same time, and without a work stoppage that's going to screw both of us.

OWNERS: We're listening.

PLAYERS: We want guaranteed contracts. We know that the reported dollar amount on contracts will go down, but we're okay with that, because we want the value of contracts to actually be real.

OWNERS: But because of the nature of football that won't work, and it already creates problems in the NBA where teams are making contract-based trades just for bookkeeping purposes and to manage the salary cap rather than to try to field the best team, which doesn't look good. We don't want the tanking and intentionally taking on of bad contracts for other assets that the NBA has.

PLAYERS: That's right. We have a way around that. The salary cap is set by the same 47/53 split of total revenue we've been using. So contracts are guaranteed, but they don't count against the salary cap if that player is no longer on the team. You still have to pay those contracts, but it comes out of your 53% of the revenue if you don't actually want the player on your team.

OWNERS: We don't like that.

PLAYERS: We know, but we think you'll like it more than having parity with the MLB, NBA, and NHL in terms of revenue splits, because anything you spend over 47% is 100% in your control, rather than getting mandated up to an equivalent level of the other professional sports.

OWNERS: That's just going to cause teams to skirt the salary cap, much like the luxury tax in the NBA.

PLAYERS: Nope. Because listen to this. The league is going to assess an annual dead money tax, which then gets redistributed into the next year's salary cap.

OWNERS: But that takes you over the 47% split we've got right now.

PLAYERS: It could or it could not, and it's up to your own financial prudence to if that's true at all. Remember you're still in control of if the revenue split ever actually equals what sports owners and other less revenue generating leagues are already dealing with. This is the ALTERNATIVE to a work-stoppage or you paying the same % that every other sport pays.

OWNERS: We're still worried about teams cheating the system and reducing parity.

PLAYERS: We've figured that out too. We're going to do with the comp pick formula, which is just abused at this point, and is bad for all of us because it encourages teams not to keep their players together. Instead of that, we're going to base the comp pick formula based on who has the least dead money in the prior year, which in addition to the dead money tax, virtually ensures that teams don't treat guaranteed contract dead money as a way to skirt the salary cap. You get rewarded by not paying a tax AND by getting more draft picks if you play by the rules of the system as it's intended.

OWNERS: We still feel like we're giving up a lot.

PLAYERS: Yes, you are giving up something, but what you're NOT giving up is a revenue split that's on par with the rest of professional sports, and we suspect that's probably the thing you most care about, and you can also move forward not having to worry about the PR hit of funny money contracts or the work stoppage that you know is coming if you don't take this proposal and we're forced to fight on the real issue of this revenue split.

OWNERS: Okay, I think we get it now. We're going to have to get back to you but we at least see where you're coming from.


[Remember, I VERY well could be missing things, but this is the pitch :2thumbs: ]

 

[Sgt. Largent]

I've said this before, but the NFL has parity not because of the salary cap, but because it has a 16 game season and a one-and-done playoff structure. It's simply miniscule sample sizes that make outcomes in the NFL high variance.

Also, people overstate the parity of the NFL. By "parity" what I think people mean is that about 1/3rd of the playoff teams each year aren't easily predictable before the season starts. That's not really exceptional parity, and it mostly just comes from short seasons. And with pretty good accuracy every year you can pick the five or six teams from which the Super Bowl winer will come. That's not really parity either. By "parity" what people mean is that it's hard to predict which teams will sneak into the playoffs, and of the handful of teams that we all already know will likely go pretty far in the playoffs, it's hard to know which one will win out (one-and-done: if the NFL playoffs had best of seven series like the NBA and MLB we'd basically be able to narrow down the Super Bowl winner to two or three teams and be right in most years).

Parity is not just the hard cap, it's also the shared TV revenue and merchandise, etc.

Just means on draft day the playing field is level, thus allowing a tiny town in Wisconsin with a population of 100,000 to compete with the big boys. That doesn't happen in any other league without cap and revenue sharing parity.

 

[chris98251]

I would argue that Parity versus other sports in the NFL is much better, how many teams in the MLB have won a world series, how many in the NBA a world Championship, then look at the NFL and it is only a handful that have not won, same I think for the NHL, year to year it's easier granted but as teams are sold, GM's hired and fired, Coaches retire the NFL's balance of power shifts because of talent from the top down.

 

[Smelly McUgly]

I've said this before, but the NFL has parity not because of the salary cap, but because it has a 16 game season and a one-and-done playoff structure. It's simply miniscule sample sizes that make outcomes in the NFL high variance.

Also, people overstate the parity of the NFL. By "parity" what I think people mean is that about 1/3rd of the playoff teams each year aren't easily predictable before the season starts. That's not really exceptional parity, and it mostly just comes from short seasons. And with pretty good accuracy every year you can pick the five or six teams from which the Super Bowl winer will come. That's not really parity either. By "parity" what people mean is that it's hard to predict which teams will sneak into the playoffs, and of the handful of teams that we all already know will likely go pretty far in the playoffs, it's hard to know which one will win out (one-and-done: if the NFL playoffs had best of seven series like the NBA and MLB we'd basically be able to narrow down the Super Bowl winner to two or three teams and be right in most years).

Parity is not just the hard cap, it's also the shared TV revenue and merchandise, etc.

Just means on draft day the playing field is level, thus allowing a tiny town in Wisconsin with a population of 100,000 to compete with the big boys. That doesn't happen in any other league without cap and revenue sharing parity.

(Yes, I know - this is more rare than it might be for a Green Bay or a Buffalo in the NFL, but money, while the most important aspect of winning a championship, isn't the only aspect.)

(Also, Popeye said a few things re: parity and a smaller sample size of football games making our understanding of the parity in the NFL skewed that are right on.)

(Furthermore, your argument that revenue sharing is good for the NFL does not negate the argument that players should get more of that revenue. Actually, I don't mind revenue sharing at all, but I do mind that players have such a low piece of the revenue when they do all the work. Forty-seven percent of the revenue for eighty-five percent of the work doesn't seem fair.)

 

[Sgt. Largent]

I've said this before, but the NFL has parity not because of the salary cap, but because it has a 16 game season and a one-and-done playoff structure. It's simply miniscule sample sizes that make outcomes in the NFL high variance.

Also, people overstate the parity of the NFL. By "parity" what I think people mean is that about 1/3rd of the playoff teams each year aren't easily predictable before the season starts. That's not really exceptional parity, and it mostly just comes from short seasons. And with pretty good accuracy every year you can pick the five or six teams from which the Super Bowl winer will come. That's not really parity either. By "parity" what people mean is that it's hard to predict which teams will sneak into the playoffs, and of the handful of teams that we all already know will likely go pretty far in the playoffs, it's hard to know which one will win out (one-and-done: if the NFL playoffs had best of seven series like the NBA and MLB we'd basically be able to narrow down the Super Bowl winner to two or three teams and be right in most years).

Parity is not just the hard cap, it's also the shared TV revenue and merchandise, etc.

Just means on draft day the playing field is level, thus allowing a tiny town in Wisconsin with a population of 100,000 to compete with the big boys. That doesn't happen in any other league without cap and revenue sharing parity.

(Yes, I know - this is more rare than it might be for a Green Bay or a Buffalo in the NFL, but money, while the most important aspect of winning a championship, isn't the only aspect.)

(Also, Popeye said a few things re: parity and a smaller sample size of football games making our understanding of the parity in the NFL skewed that are right on.)

(Furthermore, your argument that revenue sharing is good for the NFL does not negate the argument that players should get more of that revenue. Actually, I don't mind revenue sharing at all, but I do mind that players have such a low piece of the revenue when they do all the work. Forty-seven percent of the revenue for eighty-five percent of the work doesn't seem fair.)

While the EPL doesn't have a cap, they do have revenue sharing.

https://www.premierleague.com/news/60138

It's not a 100% equal share revenue sharing, but it's enough to somewhat level the playing field............and I'm still not convinced that NFL players are somehow being screwed over by the owners when it comes to getting a bigger piece of the pie.

During the past decade as the NFL has exploded, so has player salaries, guaranteed bonus money AND don't forget about working conditions such as limited contact during pre-season and concussion health awareness helping them stay in the league longer than any previous generation of player.

So cry me a river Richard, you're just gonna have to settle for making 12M a year with 30M guaranteed.

 

[Smelly McUgly]

I think every league with a TV deal shares the revenue of that deal.

There are also the parachute payments that relegated teams get, but that serves to (theoretically) help those relegated teams come back up more quickly - something that doesn't always happen. In other words, money matters, but not as much as we think. I doubt that all three relegated clubs will be back up after next year (in fact, if none of them come back up, that wouldn't be shocking at all).

And again, if Sherman has to "settle" for 12M a year/30M guaranteed, then NFL owner earnings should also be capped. They can return the excess revenue to the municipalities that pay for the stadiums/extra policing on game days, etc. Paul Allen can "settle" for 30M a year in profit on the Seahawks, capped.

 

[KiwiHawk]

So cry me a river Richard, you're just gonna have to settle for making 12M a year with 30M guaranteed.

I know, right? Paul Allen needs that money so much more.

I think this aspect has been done already. Someone's gonna get the money, and a whole bunch of working-class folks on this board are taking the stance that the workers have less right to the profits made from their efforts than ownership has.

While I find this baffling, it does explain the division of wealth in the US.

 

[c_hawkbob]

Isn't it odd how sports fans begrudge their stars the money they make, but nothing is said by music fans about the money their rock stars make or by movie goers about about the money their action heroes make ... the same argument about "ticket prices wouldn't be so high" can be made in each instance after all.

In each case the market simply is what it is and the money that is there to be made is exactly what the market will bear, no more no less. Let 'em have all they can get. I would.

 

[Hawkstorian]

In each case the market simply is what it is and the money that is there to be made is exactly what the market will bear, no more no less. Let 'em have all they can get. I would.

I agree with the only exception I worry some athletes lose their drive once they get "paid". We've all seen it happen, but now that I think about it, it's amazing how little it ends up that way. All the Seahawks who get big contracts seem to be as competitive as ever.

 

[c_hawkbob]

In each case the market simply is what it is and the money that is there to be made is exactly what the market will bear, no more no less. Let 'em have all they can get. I would.

I agree with the only exception I worry some athletes lose their drive once they get "paid". We've all seen it happen, but now that I think about it, it's amazing how little it ends up that way. All the Seahawks who get big contracts seem to be as competitive as ever.

Actors and musicians get lazy once they've reached that certain level of comfort too but yes, that does seem to be the case a bit more often in sport doesn't it? Perhaps because sport is more a matter of talent and whether the players heart is in it or not the talent is enough to get them to that big payday, whereas with artists just talent may not be enough without their hearts being in it (unless they're lucky, luck plays much less a part in an athlete's success I think).

 

[SeaChat]

I would really hope that both sides are interested in keeping the ball on the field and the fans happy as their primary goal. Like many of you, I"ve already sat through an NFL Players Strike, and it wasn't anything I'd ever like to do again.
They put together a bunch of teams compiled of mediocre talent scab players who were entertaining enough, but they were clearly not the calibur of players that we see on the fiield now and the games were not entertaining enough to keep me in front of the TV on Sunday afternoons. .

I know that there are some sore spots that will need to be addressed between players and management, and everyone will have to do a little taking and giving to keep either side from getting so bull headed things they end up calling an actual strike.

I don't think the pay setup in the NFL takes a backseat to the NBA or the MLB. In the NFL you have a lot more men on each team to pay than you do in either the NBA or MLB. i.e... 15 on a NBA team and 40 on a MLB team, 57 on an NFL team. Another factor to consider is that the NFL generates around $11 billion per year and growing, wth 57 players per team to feed, the MLB generates about $7 billion per year with 40 players per team to feed, the NBA generates around $4 billion per year with 15 players per team to pay, and the NHL generates about $3 billion per year with about 23 player per team to feed. This doesn't account or take into consideration management saleries for each team which are considerable as well.

What the above overview does do, is explain why one professional sport might be able to offer their playes sweeter deals than others. I think when you break it all down, all of our professional sports players and teams in the USA are trying to do by their players and by their selves as well, lets not loose focus of the fact that these are professional sports franchises, and they are not invested in these franchises, to make players rich, they are expecting to earn a good return on their investments as well, and deservedly so.

I think that if anything in current and future negotiations between the NFL and it's players, that it will be focused on more specific details of their contracts, benefits, both present and long term. The career of an NFL player can end in an instant and it may be the only true opportunity to generate a meaningful income extended to them during their life time.

If there one thing that I could see the players calling for in contract negotiations, it would be some framework to insure that there was a minimum life time income and benefits package provided to them, that will guarantee a quality of life for them and their families, no matter if they play 20 year or 20 minutes.

I'm not saying that Joe Schmuck deserves to have the same life time income and benefits as Russell Wilson has or will have by careers end, but Joe Schmuck and Russell Wilson should both be guaranteed, a minimum base retirement income and benefits package from the NFL, no matter what course their careers might take. This may already be something that they have in place, but if not, I can see where the players might want this sort of protection in place, which is the case with most people in most jobs.

In reflecting on the NFL annual team spending caps and the teams having the flexibility to contract their individual players for pretty much whatever amount they want to, so long as it doesn't exceed the overall yearly spending cap and they have enough working capitol to provide all of their players with salaries, that are competitive leauge wide, for their positions played, I don't think that the NBA, MLB, NHL, have anything up on the NFL in that regard.

Can the NBA afford to pay their players more individually or collectively, yes they can, they have 15 men to concern themselves with and have about 50% of the capitol to work with that the NFL team does in trying to cover 57 men. The NBA could theoretically pay their players more than twice as much as the NFL can and would still make more profits for the team franchises themselves than the NFL franchise owners can, based on the figures I've found in my research.

Sure it gets a little bit complicated, as time evolves, and every player wants to get every last cent that they can for their services and you can't blame them, but they all realize that everyone involved has to be realistic about how much they can take from the pie.You can't argue for things that aren't realistically possible, and expect to get anywhere, players don't want to give up their salaries to strike for things that the NFL can't and or simply won't give them.

I do think it would be fair to examine how much the teams are making presently as compared to the last time they reviewd things, and see if there is more or less , now, over and above what they are paying their players collectively, and see to see if the current team spending caps are in keeping with the times, and if it turns out that the gross earnings per team have increased significantly since they last negotiated all this stuff, they may want to consider an increase or decrease even in spending caps depending on what results theye find in thier review. If earnings are greater, then I would be for increasing the spending caps and passing that increase in revenues along to the players by way of better contracts.

This is all way to complicated to ever go smoothly and I'm sure there will be some anxious moments before agreements are made at the end of the day. I just hope that clear and reasonable minds previal and that we don't find ourselves in the middle of a strike, where everyone looses, historically when there has been a strike in pro sports they have lost large segments of their fan bases which means loss of earnings, which in turn makes trying to meet unrealistic demands even more less likely.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

So cry me a river Richard, you're just gonna have to settle for making 12M a year with 30M guaranteed.

I know, right? Paul Allen needs that money so much more.

I think this aspect has been done already. Someone's gonna get the money, and a whole bunch of working-class folks on this board are taking the stance that the workers have less right to the profits made from their efforts than ownership has.

While I find this baffling, it does explain the division of wealth in the US.

I'd agree with you if we were talking about teachers or social workers.

But we're not, we're talking about millionaire spoiled rotten pampered professional athletes who for 5-10 years will make more than 99.99% of us will make in our entire lifetime.

So if you're talking about division of wealth? Then EVERYONE involved in this conversation is a 1%'er that no matter how hard I try I can't empathize with or get behind to get even more millions.

 

[KiwiHawk]

I'd agree with you if we were talking about teachers or social workers.

But we're not, we're talking about millionaire spoiled rotten pampered professional athletes who for 5-10 years will make more than 99.99% of us will make in our entire lifetime.

We're also talking about *billionaire* spoiled rotten pampered aristocrats who in some cases did nothing more than be born to the right parents.

"Give the money to social workers" isn't one of the options. Either the players get it or the owners do. In no scenario does the NFL kick back part of the revenue to the loyal fans. It's just not gonna happen.