For over 100 years there’s been a notion out there that if the owners don’t get everything they want all of the time, the leagues themselves would fold. And goshdarnit, at the end of the day it’ll be the fans that suffer.

This was turned up to maximum volume when two baseball players were granted free agency in 1975, with more to follow. “Half the teams in the league will fold!” was the cry. Here we are 36 years later still waiting for the first one to fold, all while baseball has added six new teams.

The fatalistic fear of a free market in sports has always been nonsense. If the players’ suit were to bury the NFL (which it won’t under any circumstances) a new league, or perhaps more than one, would emerge to take it’s place.

Heck, I would expect a new, TV network-backed league to form if the lockout wipes out the 2011 season, creating another catastrophe for the NFL owners.

this is what i fear most “socialist or communist” are really about, not realizing, they will never get a dime of the so called redistribution of wealth.

That’s not how bankruptcy works, especially a corporate bankruptcy.

All one has to do to learn more is read up on what’s going on right now with the Los Angeles Dodgers. It’s not as if Dodger owner Frank McCourt has been suddenly relieved from all of his debts.

Your definition of a cartel is EXACTLY what the NFL teams are doing.

The OPEC nations do not compete economically. Does that mean they’re not a cartel?

Reality- the 32 owners work together and effectively control major league professional football throughout the country. That’s a cartel.

Going further, in a free market economy the owners would be competing amongst each other for the services of the top players entering the marketplace. Instead, the 32 owners have created a system where a player is drafted by a team that holds the exclusive rights to that player.

I’m not against the draft per se, but the draft is a mechanism that goes against the concept of a competitive marketplace that the owners should have to adhere to without a CBA. It’s also something stand to lose in an anti-trust suit.

If there is a 10 billion judgement (or more), the owners will simply declare bankruptcy and avoid it (likely a bunch of new UFL teams come on line the next day).

With a $9 Billion NFL, I would expect Congress to get involved eventually. The loss of 30 percent of that (or more) in Federal taxes will ensure that. Washington is so hard up for money these days, they may just expand the anti-trust exemption to ensure they get their ‘fair share’ of NFL income.

I find it unsavory that people can’t debate him without labelling him a parasite and a communist. That sort of knee-jerk non-thinking nonsense only discredits the individual guilty of using it.
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Amen! Thanks for the reality check on the knee-jerk nonsense. Reading through the thread and seeing those posts is like trying to listen to adults talk while a two-year-old constantly tugs at their britches babbling “socialist” because it’s the only word he knows … though he clearly doesn’t understand what it means and it doesn’t apply to the conversation.

You don’t understand the definition of “cartel” tommyf15. A cartel is a functional monopoly consisting of entities that would normally be competing with each other economically. NFL franchises are NOT competing economically, they produce a shared product and rely upon each other to produce what they sell. Your inability to grasp this simple concept is unsettling.

Apply what you are saying about the NFL to the Federal Reserve and you’d be onto something. Our entire economy is going down the tubes because of centralized banking. The FS is the worst cartel in existence today. Please stop trying to equate the NFL to evil institutions like the Federal Reserve.

TIM says:
Only a socialist who didn’t understand what it means to invest in and run a business

You don’t know what a socialist is, Tim.

Drafts, salary caps, revenue sharing, franchise and transition tags…those are socialistic in nature.

I’m the one that wants to see a more free-market, capitalistic system in place.

1. Glad you labeled that a guess, because we don’t KNOW if the owners listened to their lawyers. In 1975 the MLB owners got boiled for listening to their egos instead of their legal counsel.

2. “Their high-priced lawyers that got that way understand the law, and succeeding in court”- wouldn’t this include Kessler and Quinn? Wait, let me guess- those two are somehow the exception.

The owners have figured that once the players start missing game checks that they’ll fold, and they could very well be right. That’s what happened the last time the NBA and NHL locked the players out.

At the same time, it would only take one player out of the ten named as plaintiffs in the anti-trust suit to refuse to drop the lawsuit and potentially take the NFL’s system of salary caps, drafts, etc down, just as Messersmith and McNally sent MLB reeling in 1975.

I’m not even saying that I’m rooting for such a thing to happen, just pointing out that it could.

I guess that billionaire NFL owners decided to listen to their high-priced lawyers, and not you. Their high-priced lawyers that got that way understand the law, and succeeding in court.

And how soon you forget us FANS that you’e doing such a good deed for.

Give it up tommy. Take a nap or something.

Smith is the main lawyer and the main reason they stopped negotiating and went to court in the first place.
What are you trying to do,rewrite history and make Smith out to be the good guy,fighting against his own lawyers,who work for him ???

They will win much bigger if they WIN the suit.

Well, so will the players they represent.

The day I heard about the Brees, Brady, Manning, etc anti-trust suit I posted here and elsewhere that the owners should take the best deal the players were offering and stay far, far away from the negative reprocussions it could bring. Not only would a successful suit transfer billions of dollars from the owners to the players, but it would slash the values of the franchises themselves.

The owners instead opted to gamble by locking the players out.

That sort of knee-jerk non-thinking nonsense only discredits the individual guilty of using it.

You’re a funny guy!

They will win much bigger if they WIN the suit.

Meanwhile, whether they win or lose, it will likely take years and destroy the entire NFL as we know it. All this time that the suits drag on the players, owners, and local economies will suffer while the lawyers will continue to get rich.

The only way the lawyers lose is for there to be an agreement. So what do think the lawyers are trying to do? Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

1. It’s written in the NFL’s bylaws that an owner cannot play or coach in the NFL, as it would be a tremendous conflict of interest. So there goes that.

2. A judge, jury, or court doesn’t have the authority to order an owner to sell or give part of their ownership stake to the players in an anti-trust case. If any owner doesn’t have the money to pay their debts, they’re likely to sell all or part of their ownership stake in the team. This is something we’ve seen happen many times.

So everyone relax- the guys playing the game won’t own it. It can’t happen, but it’s interesting to see how a tiny bit of the author’s incorrect speculation can send this place into a frenzy.

Are the Giants going to have two head coaches this year?

Really.

No, not really.

Where in my post does it say anything about players owning teams?

Duuuhhhh….

tashkalucy says:
The truth is that the players get together and LAUGH at the fans. Think we’re stupid…..and with good reason because there is no cause to worship these people.

I agree that there’s no cause to worship a player, and that some fans are stupid.

Some of them are really, really stupid, tashkalucy.

You’re a parasite and con artist tommyf15, go do something productive.

Go fist yourself. And thanks for sharing your fascinating views on what the tax laws should be. We care. Really.