If the owners are saying they need another $1 billion off the top because of the new stadiums, then they should show the union the exact same financial statements they had to give the banks that loaned them the money to build them.

Agree with your union assessment. Teachers unions here in NJ refused to take cuts and pay for healthcare, now they’re crying about layoffs.

nflofans: Yes, unions once were vitally important to this country, but they have outlived their usefullness and now cause more problems than they solve. My region was once a powerhouse for steel production but plant after plant after plant went out of business because the unions refused to take pay and benefit cuts, effectively putting themselves out of work. Then they cried about not being able to find a job that paid them what they used to get. Pathetic.

Yes they are owners and are not public and don’t have to give up financials but you have to look at it this way:

If all of us in our 9-5 jobs had a SIGNED contract to pay us $50,000 and the owner comes to us one day and says i’m only going to pay you $30, 000…you ask why and he says basically ‘none of your business we said so ‘….wouldn’t you get a lawyer?…Thats the players point here….yes the $’s are nothing us average joes can relate to but thats the principle the players are standing for…..

Compared to baseball players and that insane strike of 1994, NFL players desreve whatever 4 theny can get. They take 50 times the physical risk and get mostly non-guanranteed contracts. For 40 years the MLB players have drank the Marvin Miller cool-aid of ‘the owners treated us like slaves for 60 years so lets f$%k them in eternity’….

Actually, I have quit – or threatened to quit – a number of jobs that did not pay me adequately for the value I delivered. As a result of both my value to the companies I have worked for and my insistence upon being paid appropriately, today I make over ten times what I made when I began my career fifteen years ago. If I had sat around and just thanked the greedy owners at my first job for the relative pittance they paid me, as you suggest, I would still be poor, overworked, and underappreciated.

Let’s be serious, none of you will get interested in a 2nd rate UFL team.

you need to see a school and learn some american history.

UNIONS CREATED this country! The demise of the union and the reign of greedy unabated free enterprise have turned it on it’s ear!

–To the extent that the owners do take “all of the financial risk,” don’t they also “know that going in and are handsomely compensated for it?”

Exactly. The owners cry all day and night about risk, but what owner is losing money? First of all, any owner worth a damn cons the taxpayer into assuming most if not all of the financial risk associated with building a stadium. Personally, I consider it reprehensible but that’s the way it works. The real issue here is a rift among the owners about revenue sharing. Jerry Jones, Snyder, etc want a bigger share of the revenue that their franchises are largely responsible for. But to give more to the big franchises could put the Ralph Wilsons underwater. So the answer for the greedier owners is to take it out of the salary pool. Somehow, when the union declines that lousy offer, that action constitutes “socialism”.

at the end of the day…. the Owners ended the contract as is their right, a new negotiation started, then the Players ended that negotiation by walking out and decertifying….

the reason they aren’t at the table today is the Players / Union…

__________________________

I see what you did there….
When the owners terminated their agreement with the players it was their right.
When the players chose not to enter into a lesser agreement they were to blame for the entire situation.
Regardless of the threats the league has made about a lockout for 2 years, borderline dishonest television contracts negotiated in that time, etc…
Gotcha… maybe the courts will teach the players not to get so ‘uppity’.

What risk are you talking about here? Last time I checked the value of an NFL franchise has been steadily increasing over the past 20 years (more then tripling in some cases) and it provides a steady revenue stream on a annual basis (from many sources). Not sure what risk you’re talking about here.

Well fans, just don’t forget that they are fighting over 8.9 billion dollars of YOUR money. Both sides want you to be lemmings. Both sides want you to be like the wildebeast, marching in procession and following the arse in front of you.

Remember when gas was $4/gal, people drove 9 billion miles less and dropped it to a buck and a half? The point is that , collectively, the fans can have a huge impact here. If we stop giving the hard earned moolah to the NFL’s never-satisfied till, maybe they stop fighting when there is nothing to fight about.

Gas prices are once again rising. It’s time to stop driving again.

the reason they aren’t at the table today is the Players / Union…”

True, but the reason the Union has taken it off the table is that the Owners will not prove that the current deal is a problem for them by providing audited financial statments.

The question is….why not? Any union worth a damn would demand the same thing if they were being told their membership had to take a pay cut.

Congratulations, jdbaker, you are a spineless pushover suffering from Stockholm syndrome toward your corporate overlords. You would make a wonderful peasant if we ever manage to revert to feudalism.

the reason they aren’t at the table today is the Players / Union…

So what you’re saying JD is if the owner of your job came to you and told you you had to make less money now you wouldn’t need any sort of evidence as to why that was the case? Mmmhmmm. Let me tell you my friend, you ABSOLUTELY would, not matter how much money you made, and particularily if you had leverage.

The thing that most people are missing here is that the top level guys will continue to make their 10 mill, it’s the bottom of the roster players that will suffer, and they are not millionaires. They can have very short shelf lives, and they can make salaries that are much closer to us regular folk then one might think. Those are the people who will suffer if the players end up with a smaller share of the pie.

And yes, the union is what’s wrong with this situation. We should let a bunch of wealthy, greedy fat cat owners free reign to collect as much of the leagues revenue as possible, while providing a bunch of undereducated athletes with no one to represent their interests other then their agents, who are only interested in their commission. Makes total sense.

Athletes will come and go, and need to make their money while they can. The owners will continue to line their pockets until the day they die. I feel zero sympathy for the owners

This is no more than a union busting tactic by the owners. Ain’t … gonna … work.