It's a topic that most of us are tired of hearing about, but also a topic that we have to stay on top of because we want to know if there will be football next season. Honestly, most of the fans of the game could care about which side 'wins' or 'loses'... we just want them to figure it out.
Below are a couple more articles that have come out in the past few days... each gives a different side of the story (imagine that). Also, before you make the jump, it is worth noting that the League and the Union both agreed to seven straight days of negotiations yesterday. That news sounds a lot better than the news we heard a few days ago saying talks had been cancelled recently.
First up, from the Pro-Owner perspective:
Actually, the NFLPA has moved the goalposts on everyone. And - because of the complexity of the negotiations - it's hard for fans and the media to realize that.
Bear with me.
Currently, the total revenue generated by the NFL is about $9 billion.
The amount of money the NFL has been allowed to take as a credit to "grow the business" amounts to about $1 billion. That money goes to stadium building, market expansion, funding team stores within stadiums that sell merchandise that benefit the owners and players, etc.
So that leaves $8 billion. The players get about 59.5 percent of that money. The NFL gets the remaining 41.5.
Again, that's AFTER the $1 billion that comes off the top for game growth. So that amounts to about $4.8 billion which goes to the players.
Tom Curran writes a great article, and provides an interesting perspective. Make sure you check out the rest of the article here.
And now, a tremendous article from Terence Moore, with special insight from Marvin Miller (a name that probably sounds familiar) on the Pro-Player perspective:
"Essentially, the owners are telling the players that 'We want you to give up even more money than you already are giving up, and in return, we'll work you two extra games,' " Miller said, chuckling more. "It's just absurd, and nobody seems to be as astounded about all of this as I am. Certainly the media isn't, and I'm sure fans who don't know much about labor negotiations aren't putting this together.
"But on the one side, you have the football owners who are by far the wealthiest of all the professional team sports owners in terms of the revenue they clear every year. On the player side, they are the lowest paid of any professional team sport.
"They have the lowest pensions. They have the shortest careers of any of the team sports. They have the worst disability and injury rates. It's so one-sided. There ought to be fans and the media climbing all over the owners. You never saw such a setup."
More insight can be found from Miller by reading the rest of the article here.
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At this point, we can all probably agree that there is way more than meets the eye- on both sides of the fence. The thing I'm wondering is: How much do you all really care about who 'win' this stand-off? Do you have an opinion on how the new CBA should be written, or are you just ready for all of the PR shenanigans and posturing to be over?