1. A decertification by a union is completely legal.

2. I honestly have not seen a single post where a person wants the players to do something illegal or vindictive, while I have seen scores of pro-owner posts doing exactly that.

I genuinely don’t know what you’re referring to. Can you expand on your comment?

But all of the suggestions that one side attempt crazy and illegal schemes to stick it to other are all pro-owner.
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Except, of course, for the one that has actually happened.

You sound really ignorant. First, you attack my post and completely ignore the point it was making and now your defense is its still baseless becasue lawyers never make mistakes… I can see talking to you will be about as productive as banging my head against a brick wall, so I will leave this discussion with you alone. However, I will mention that I couldn’t be too far off with my reading of the situation since Dan Kaplan just got off PFT Live where he agreed with my view that if Doty over reaches with a damages award it could very well be reduced by the appeals court (which I mentioned hours earlier). So, whether my read on introducing those additional contracts was a bad move or not, clearly my reading of the legal system is lot better than you give me credit for and infinitely better than your comprehension since you think lawyers never make mistakes on introducing material into cases. I bet you have no idea how stupid that statement actually makes you look, I suggest you go ask any attorney even the best in their fields if they know of lawyers that have made mistakes and even if they have made a mistake or two in the past – you will be shocked with the response you get and how little you really know. (and fyi, the popular saying you were trying to repeat is that ‘lawyers should not ask questions that they don’t know the answer to’ NOT ‘lawyers do not ask questions they don’t know answers to’. It happens ever day!)

A lot of the pro-owner stuff here doesn’t make sense. Much of it is just testosterone fueled gibberish.

Which isn’t to say that every pro-owner argument is gibberish- a lot of the folks on the owners side make reasonable points and presentations. But all of the suggestions that one side attempt crazy and illegal schemes to stick it to other are all pro-owner.

This is what they players wanted, the quick fix is not always the right one.

So, in real terms, there is no way for the Packers to make this present group of players, or any group of players in the future, partners in the franchise.

clintonportishead,

Maybe you should read what the article is about. The palyers are trying to introduce all commerical contracts, that would mean more than just the recently negotiated tv contracts. That is why I expressly said introducing these other contracts could backfire as it would complicate the ruling that was made expressly as it related to the renegotiated tv contracts. Why is it that you are so quick to attack my post that you don’t even bother to read my post or the article it is in response to???

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I read it. And no Attorney worth his law degree enters ANYTHING into evidence without knowing what it is. They never ask a witness a question unless they know what the answer will be.

Your thinking that they will enter evidence without looking at it and having it “backfire” on them is silly. And given that the TV deal was indeed “new and improved” to include lockout language its more likely than not that the other contracts also were similarly “spruced up” in the same way.

That said, I don’t understand what all the fuss is about this. The argument that the owners should be able to sue the players for their endorsement money doesn’t even make sense. The owners entered into an agreement with the players that said they would split 50% (or whatever it is exactly) of the revenue after their billion dollar cut. They didn’t say they would give the players exactly x amount of dollars, they said a certain percent of revenue. That means that if they intentionally take less money just so they can be more financially secure enforcing a lockout, they are not maximizing revenue in good faith. The money in the tv contracts is split between the owners and players, while player endorsement money has nothing to do with the owners, so how could the owners sue for it? Also, it has been reported that the owners renegotiated the tv contracts to include lockout insurance clause only within the last few years. It has never been done before, so clearly it was for this reason.

Last, the ruling on this has huge repercussions with leverage. Do you really think Jerry Jones isn’t sweating thinking about paying the mortgage on his BILLION dollar stadium without getting his TV money? I agree that when it comes down to it, the players will have to be able to withstand losing paychecks as well for it to actually work, but at least this puts them on a level playing field. If they rule in favor of the players on this, then both sides have to worry about how to get through the season with no income, instead of just the players while the owners get paid money to televise games that don’t exist.

The players are NOT partners with the owners, so your question is based on a false premise.

However, in the real world business partners sue each other all of the time.

Well doesn’t that mean the players can now sue their own lawyers for “leaving money on the table?”

And if Doty doesn’t give them a billion plus, they should sue Doty for leaving money on the table.

And later, they can sue all the season ticket holders for not renewing this year, and leaving money on the table.

And we wonder why the owners don’t want the courts to oversee the next CBA…

They aren’t partners, they are employees.

Clintonportisheadd, I thank you also for your response. However, as a Packer fan, I would hope that you have taken the time to review the financials of our team. Second, the national revenue, things like the Network TV deal and DirecTV are subject to revenue sharing amongst the teams. The “local revenue” is not. In terms of “local revenue”, it is estimated that the Packers rank 11th among the 32 NFL franchises in local revenue. That’s awfully good for the smallest market in the league. Despite that, as the financials show, the Packers bottom line during the term of the last CBA has fallen off a cliff. I don’t care how one cuts it, going from 35.8 million to 5.2 net profit (9.8 for operational profit) demonstrates that there is a clear and unsustainable financial problem for the franchise.

Lastly, as a Packer fan, you probably also know that the Packers are not one of the teams that are on the receiving end of revenue sharing between the franchises. Minnesota and Kansas City, to name but a couple, are net recipients of NFL revenue sharing.

The Packers have always viewed revenue sharing as the ultimate financial insurance policy for themselves. While they have not partaken of any revenue sharing benefits to date, knowing that it is there provides stability and a financial floor for the team.

Again, while I am a die-hard Packer fan, I am a fan of the team, not the players. While I very much like many of the Packer players throughout the years, they come and go. The team edures. Some Packer fans could not imagine Brett Favre leaving and the Packers surviving. They survived just fine and in fact have prospered.

I do not want any NFL player to be impoverished. But they are now overly compensated. We are not talking about donw and out people getting their government support cut or reduced, in fact, in the owners last offer, not a single current NFL player would see a cut in his pay. Not one penny.

People like myself want the Packers to be financially healthy for the long haul. I share your suspicions of Jerry Jones, I always have. I think he would sell the Green Bay franchise, along with the Vikings and the Chiefs right down the river if he could to make a extra dime for imself. But I believe that the vas majority of NFL owners as well as NFL fans, know that the NFL without a viable Green Bay franchise would not be the NFL.

I am more making a larger point at how asinine the partnership theory is. I understand that contractually no endorsement income is entitled to the teams. I mean if players are going to make money off of endorsements that wouldn’t even exist had they not played in the NFL and they are partners as they keep trying to convince us of, then it would seem logical that in the future a percentage of that should go back to the league. I just have a huge problem with the hypocrisy of the players.

@ Clinton

When Tom Cruise stops acting there will be another great actor. When Streisand (really man?) stops singing there will be another great singer. When Aaron Rodgers leaves, there will be another great QB. These people come and go, they aren’t bigger than their institutions like you keep implying.

Maybe you should read what the article is about. The palyers are trying to introduce all commerical contracts, that would mean more than just the recently negotiated tv contracts. That is why I expressly said introducing these other contracts could backfire as it would complicate the ruling that was made expressly as it related to the renegotiated tv contracts. Why is it that you are so quick to attack my post that you don’t even bother to read my post or the article it is in response to???

Maybe as a Packer fan, this is of greater concern to me as we do not have a billionaire owner like Paul Allen, Daniel Snyder or Jerry Jones to bail us out when we get into financial difficulties.

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As a fellow Packer fan I must say you have just listed 2 of the 3 greatest enemies to the future existence of the Packers. And none are the players.

There is plenty of money now (and even more in the future) for professional football. The players are not the problem. The owners are the problem. Right now you have a war going on amongst them for greater autonomy over their finances. A great number oppose the revenue sharing concept and want their “big market” teams to have the competitive advantages in football as the Red Sox or Yankees do in football. Forget Green Bay becoming the Kansas City Royals of pro football-they would end up in the UFL!

Football players are entertainers. Like singers, actors, or musicians they command a high price due to a specific skill. While we can all act, we all can’t be Tom Cruise. While we all can sing, we all can’t be Streisand. And while we can all throw a football, we all can’t be Aaron Rodgers. That the top football players command high prices is semi free market reaction to their skill. I say semi because the NFL has been adjudicated a monopoly on many occasions.

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I believe you are correct that players salaries in his model were based on more of a “true ownership”. But IIRC the players would have to absorb losses if profits went down as well. I just think that if they wanted to be true BUSINESS PARTNERS instead of “partners as it relates to sharing revenue only”, that mode was a lot more fair and at least a starting point.

You have to remember that everything involved in these cases is based on contracts. And those contracts are based on established laws. What the league has done in this case is a clear violation. They had an obligation to maximize income as the TV deal negotiated. Having money set aside for themselves alone was illegal.

Look at it like you and a friend are selling a service that will last a year. Your friend does the negotiation and he sets it up so that if the job ends before a year, he will continue to be paid for the year. The total to be paid is 1 million. All revenue is shared between you two 50 50. After 9 months, he cuts the contract. You receive half of 750 thousand. You don’t know that he will still be paid the 250 thousand and he pockets the entire sum.

That is what the league did to the players.

And the real kicker was that the league would repay some of the money when games started again. But from shared revenue. So the players were meant to lose twice.

First, let me say this could ultimately backfire when this goes to appeals court. Judge Doty ruled that the league intentionally included the lockout clauses and left money on the table in the renegotiated contracts to secure leverage over the players in CBA negotiations. If in fact the league has been including this language in all contracts for many years…..

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It hasn’t been.

Testimony in this case from TV execs showed they were troubled by these NEW demands from the league and did not want to agree to them. However, the NFL held all the cards and forced them to take the deal (lockout payments and all) or lose their games.

Sorry to ruin your hypothesis.

I wonder what the shill posters get paid to come onto this site with their owner propaganda. If you are pro-owner, you are pro-lockout and anti-fan. So why be hypocritical and try to have it both ways: pro-owner and pro-fan? Once a CBA is reached, I assume these hypocrits will disappear from this site, or change their names. This site doesn’t show how many days a poster has belonged, so we have no idea if a poster joined yesterday to post propaganda.

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I’m pro-owner and pro-fan. Your premise is that if “you are pro-lockout and anti-fan”. Bad premise, mustard-head.

I take my stance from the notion that business builders should be free to offer whatever compensation they like to employees, and that employees are free to accept or reject whatever compensation they like.

The owners are offering X. Players aren’t willing to play for X. So the owners said “forget it”. That’s about sums it up.

Now they players are crying that they are being abused, marginalized and are treated unfair. Cry me a river. Players are more than welcome to form thier own league. Hell, the owners did….

I don’t really think you understand why so many of us are pro-owner. And to be fair, I don’t think it is really “pro-owner” but supporting the side that is trying to keep the sustainability of the league over the long term. The players are reaching for far more information and access then they are legally allowed. This is bigger than the NFL right now though. If the players win this battle, remove FA, salary cap, draft, and other things that make the NFL what it is today, then the NBA will take notice. Those players will hold out, refuse to negotiate and take a sham argument to the courts. This is bigger than the NFL, the owners, the players or schmucks like you and I.

We aren’t getting paid to comment here, we are just using common sense logic to come to our conclusions. And I have been here for 3 years chief and I love this site too much to go anywhere even if my “side” loses.