remember my words, and remember your words.
Can’t wait to clown you when it all breaks you simpleton

I will sit here more frustrated than most, but whenever they decide to play, I will be right back in the palm of their hands with my Sunday Ticket, my three flat screens in the living room at the same time.

It may be similar to falling out of love with a chick, but if that chick is hot enough and has a boat load of cash, it will take more than a labor dispute to end that love.

Owners
1. Provide facilities and personnel that allow players to accomplish numbers 1 and 2 on their list
a. Coaches
b. Team facilities
2. Provide programs that shelter (or educate) players from number 3 on their list
a. Ex. Substance abuse program, etc.
3. Generate revenue to pay the players, and provide facilities and programming
a. Generate sufficient interest in the game via marketing and other strategic planning that ensures continual growth
i. Create individual endorsement opportunities for players
ii. Network contracts and programming
4. Assume all risk (financial or otherwise)
a. Team operations
b. Player issues (i.e. your star QB goes on a drug fueled bender and can no longer perform, leading to decreased fan interest and media scrutiny)
c. Liability (i.e. a drunk fan falls from the top of stadium because he thought he could balance on the railing)

The list highlights the key point. The owners must act like owners by building and maintaining a business that provides good facilities, coaches, programs to protect the players from themselves, and a continued effort in “growing the pie” that is the NFL’s revenue base. The players only have to show up and do their job (which for some is a challenge). If this is truly a partnership, it is the oddest partnership in the history of American business.

It’s still not to late for the players to realize that they’ve hired the wrong guy. Hopefully, they’ll come to their senses and get rid of this litigious, immature, self-serving and acrimonious little tyrant. Then they can find a real leader and actually end-up with a CBA that is fair all around. If they don’t – I fear that they will rue ever hiring De Smith in the first place.

The draft is still happening. We’ve missed a few OTA’s but not a day of training camp. We haven’t missed single minute of pre-season yet, and during a normal year lots of people complain about how pointless it is to watch them.

So it is kind of hard to get on side with people who think this strike is causing serious damage to the fans. If it goes on and on and we lose most of the season, there could well be a problem.

Lost games hurt both baseball and hockey, but the NFL isn’t there yet. We’ve lost nothing, yet.

I am a Redskins fan. Generally the only exciting thing that happens for us is the first day of free-agency, but loosing it doesn’t seem like too big a deal.

Anyone who quits watching football because of what has happened with the CBA up to now just wasn’t a fan in the first place. That or was in dire need of a cool drink and a lie down in a darkened room.

In the end, we wont even lose free agency. It will have to happen at some point because the teams simply wont have enough people under contract to play. When the new agreement is signed, there will be a short free agency period. It only needs to be a week long. Most of the significant deals are done during the first few days in a normal year.

is it that hard to split the money 50/50 i know there is more issues but come on everyone gets the same everyone wins both sides are really taking the piss
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The current (or rather past) deal splits the money 50-50 pretty much. The owners say that is too much, the players don’t want to change it.

A 50-50 split in revenue doesn’t seem fair to me when you consider that one side that gets 50% doesn’t pay a dime to cover costs associated with raising said revenue while the other side has to pay all costs associated with raising that revenue.

If the players want a 50 50 split (i.e., they want to be ‘partners’ – or ‘part owners’), then they should throw their endorsement deals and other ‘revenue’ they raise as a result of the sport into the pot to be split or they should contribute some of the costs of raising the revenue to be split.

He redefines the term “hack.”

We are already in that situation. I put a lot of the blame on Gene Upshaw, he took advantage of the owners when they were in a weak spot. He took it too far and humiliated them in. Now the owner’s are looking for a little payback.

It was the owners fault they were in weak position last time. The were so busy fighting amongst themselves that they didn’t think about how vulnerable they were making themselves to the players. The bent themselves right over the table for them.

Upshaws mistake was to take full advantage of the owner’s error. He should have left something on the table. He should have left them with some dignity. Instead he practically wiped himself off on the curtains after he had finished and then took their wallets for good measure.

Everything that has happened since then, from the league renegotiating their tv contracts to the early opt out was effectively set in motion as soon as they were compelled to sign the last CBA.

When you hold the whip hand in negotiations, there is not point in flogging an already beaten opponent. If they can, they’ll bide their time and come back looking for revenge later.

I dont know how many times I have to state it for you.

As I said last week, and the week before that, there will NOT be anything productive that results from mediation. The players want Judge Nelson to order the lockout over and the owners are fine with that because they know they will win on appeal in St. Louis.
Until the issue is in the final court will any serious negotiating begin. Once the owners have their foot on the players throats then we will see the greedy ambulance chaser and his band of double talk blind followers begin to actually want to negotiate.
Sit back, chill, and wait for the ingrates to cry uncle. Then a deal will get done
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Once more you demonstrate a lack of knowledge of the appeals process. Are the owners holding out because they hope to win an appeal? They probably are, along with the hope that the NLRB will rule in their favor or that the fact that they’ve filed a complaint with the NLRB will convince the Judge to hold off on ending the lockout to see what the NLRB will do. If the owners feel that they will definitely win on appeal simply because the Justices are mostly Republican nominees (Judge Doty, anybody?), then they’re rather foolish. I looked into the numbers.

According to Lawfirms.com, “According to the U.S. Court of Appeals judicial case load profile, in 2007 there were 58,410 new Appeals filled in the U.S. added to the overflow cases of previous years, the total was 62,846 cases waiting to be heard. Out of those 31,717 were terminated on merits alone and 28, 755 were terminated on procedural applications, meaning roughly 96% of appeals cases were not fully heard.” In other words, there’s no guarantee the appeals course will even fully hear the case. Given the importance of the case, it’s much more likely, but it’s not guaranteed. They might simply review the file and see no reason to continue with the case.

Even if they do, according to another legal web site, “A civil appeal is not a second chance. In a civil case at least 80% of the time the Court of Appeal affirms the trial court.” The point is that appeals courts don’t retry the initial case and substitute their views for the views of the original judge. Appeals courts review the initial case and determine whether there was a procedural error or whether the judge’s ruling fails to fit within the existing statutes or is beyond the authority of the sitting judge. Republican or not, the appeals court judges won’t simply sit there and say, “As Republicans we always favor the richer people, so let’s overturn the sitting judge regardless of how well she may have handled the case.” Perhaps you should spend less time talking and learn to do a little research first.

Make a case for why the PA SHOULDN’T allow an extra billion a year to go to stadium upkeep etc. Maybe then DeMaurice Smith will actually show himself a leader, not a fraud.

Court hurts the game–for both. But has bigger impact on the players as it will shrink the size of the NFL. Less public money to support stadiums as economies shrink and tax revenue goes to more pensions. Owners risk footing more stadium costs and may simply exit the game completely as the league loses its allure and stature at worst, shrinking profits and thereby less player compensation at best.

And the owners need to have all the money in the kitty.

Dez thought his jewelry bill was high, wait until he has to start helping Jerry pay the mortgage on the World’s Largest Cow-Patty.

Good to know that professional athletes are the working class

To “run and grow a legitimate business” in this day and age means that an organization disconnects the link between worker pay and worker productivity, allowing management to capture all gains. Since it is difficult/impossible/irrelevant to determine the “productivity” of an athlete, disconnecting worker pay and worker productivity is applied differently. Here, the owners goal is to disconnect worker pay from increases in demand, “demand” being defined as fan interest in the game.

With more fan interest, the MRP of players increases, not because their productivity increases, but because additional fans increase marginal revenue, resulting in an increase in demand for the players labor. Ordinarily, when demand rises, so do wages. However, in an attempt to emulate a “legitimate American business,” owners seek to disconnect this link, causing increased demand not to result in increases wages, but only increased profits, captured entirely by owners.

When the author of this piece makes an erroneous statement like “the players and the owners currently are playing Russian roulette with the interests of the game, all in the name of getting more for themselves,” it is a bold-faced LIE. I don’t understand how anyone can think otherwise.

The owners opted out of the CBA. They are the only ones asking for more.

The players are spoiled… no one has sympathy when the worst employee of the NFL makes $350,000/ year and the best one’s make almost $20,000,000/ year… Actually, they make that money only working for 6 months of the year! If the players feel like they are underpaid, then by all means let them go and find a better paying job out there like the rest of us who are bustin our butts trying to make $50K / year.

The bottom line is, the owners feel like allthough the game is growing in popularity and revenue, the players are getting a larger piece of the those revenunes, and the owners therefore are getting “screwed”.

When they players feel like they are getting screwed, they can, and do, go on strike. When owners feel like they’re getting screwed, they lock the players out.

It’s B.S. that the players would exercise their option of goin on strike if they felt it necessary, but when the owners do the equivalent and lock they players out, the players decertify and sue the owners and now we’re on a path of several lawsuits that could take several months to get resolved…

We’re all tired of this… JUST GET A DEAL DONE!