OT: NFLPA Decertifies
Per Sportscenter, the NFLPA has decertified. The courts will now be sorting out the mess in the NFL.
UPDATE: Link to ESPN.com Report
Hello: Lockout.
The reason they decertified is because now they can't be locked-out.
Now we have a bunch of individual lawsuits naming the various owners. Better for the players. but also a hughe clusterfuck legally.
Effectively though there will be no NFL season as of now. They'll be tied up in antitrust courts for months before anything gets done.
Go Lions!!!!
I have a hard time feeling any relation to either side, let alone any sympathy.
Ya I don't feel sorry for either of them. On a brighter note, a lockout will be a win for college football in the fall.
... beyond the glamour of the elite 25%-30% of the roster, there are a lot of guys on those teams with families (including extended), a potential heap load of medical concerns, and not a very fungeable skill set.
Ya I am sure league minimum guys are really struggling. 275k a year is rough. I mean I thought my 25k a year in the military sucked but if I had to live on 275k, don't think I could make that...
But you have to rent a second in the city of your team of the moment, and you've got to save almost every nickle knowing when you're out of the league in three years, that's it, then yeah, it is extremely rough.
LEAUGE MINIMUM GUYS DO NOT HAVE 20 YEAR CAREERS!
It's still more tha a decade of pay for most people.
... who do you feel MORE sorry for. It's a relative question, which means it should be evaluated only against the other option, which is filthy rich owner. If you asked me who would you feel more sorry for about losing his job a $25K/year marine or an NFL player, my answer would be different.
A multi billion dollar product that's growing by leaps and bounds, and these peckerheads are going to figure out a way to kill it.
NICE.
Gary Bettman is probably laughing himself silly right now.
Who cares today
Which side has Sam Bernstein?
While I don't feel ethier side should be bitching about money, I think the owners wanted this lockout from the beginning. if they wanted to make a deal they would just open there books and then they would just hammer out a fair deal. the fact that they won't open said books just says to me there are skeletons in the closet they don't want the players to know.
While I agree that neither side is in any position to be complaining about $$, opening complete financial records is rare to unheard of in collective bargaining- and the union knows this. Union contracts are negotiated in almost every type of business without this "complete" financial transparency- and are completely unnecessary to complete a deal. Not one of the previous collective bargaining agreements negotiated by any major American sports league has required said complete of books. It is greed on both sides that is driving this dispute, and neither side gives one shit about us- the fans that pay the bills- no matter what is said in the media.
If someone was asking you to take a BILLION dollars less wouldn't you have to at least take a peek at those books or would you just do it on good faith?
The Lions need to get Shane Falco on the phone ASAP. If he can lead that team to a few wins, he's gotta be a priority in the event of a long strike.
If he's not available, Johnny Utah might work, though I worry about his knee.
So did Johnny Utah!
F is only two keys from H. NFL, NHL.....could be an easy mistake to make soon enough.
To that end, I have excellent vibes about the Lions' chances to at least go 8-8 against the lockout this year.
But I thought he nailed the situation in his column:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/110304
Does anyone really think that the owners are losing money? Short of Florida teams, which god only knows why they have 3 teams when no one gives a shit about 1, what other franchise is losing money.
The players called bullshit and the owners walked. Pretty much sums it up.
The NFL (and most american sports leagues) are ludicrous cartels. Hopefully the players crush the owners and we still get our NFL fix this fall.
The Players crush the Owners and we'll be paying even more for tickets than we already are. Profits for the only publicly owned NFL team, the Green Bay Packers, have been decreasing steadily for the past handful of years due to the increasing salaries of the players. The books of the Packers are open to anyone and the players union has undoubtedly scoured them thoroughly. I would think that this would be enough for the players union because Green Bay is a franchise that has the most loyal fanbase you can think of which sells out every game and has somewhat of a national following. Both sides are being greedy but I believe the owners have more of a legitimate bitch than the players do.
I agree with this guy ^
The decreasing profits aren't due to "increasing salaries" though. The salaries of players jumped in 2006 when the new CBA agreement was passed but has held fixed at just under 60% of adjusted gross revenue. I don't follow the financial status of the Packers very closely but isn't a large part of the cause for their decreasing profits the following?
- Stadium renovation in the 2000s when city/state governments were very reluctant to pay for most/all of stadium construction. The Packers sold some new stock and took out loans to fund renovation as opposed to teams that renovated in the 90s and got their stadiums for essentially free.
- The revenue sharing part of the CBA. I imagine the Packers are in the top 15 teams in terms of revenue. So they have to pay to some of their profit to lousy franchises.
Certainly there are many concessions that the NFL will get out of the players but cutting player salaries by 1 billion dollars probably doesn't have to be one of them.
Maybe for the Packers there is no way to increase their profitability other than cutting salaries but I doubt it (and remember that they are still profitable). For other teams like the Cowboys it is harder to pity them. Perhaps Jerry Jones should have only spent $20 million dollars on his video screen instead of $35 million.
We should be rooting for it. Only after player safety.
<br>
<br>Go Blue!