Oh, boo-hoo.
If we are to agree with the crux of Mr. Meacham’s position, that there exists a distinct and growing inequity between risk and compensation for NFL players in order for exploitative NFL owners to continue to increase their profits, wouldn’t it logically follow that risk-averse (NFL-caliber) players would turn down the NFL opportunity to save their bodies for their long-run earning potential?
Who are they?
It just doesn’t happen.
Players are compensated, on average, better than 99 percent of the rest of income earners in the country. The average median NFL salary is close to 20 times the size of the average median salary of U.S. income earners, and that is before signing and performance bonuses.
Let’s consider that less than half of the players in the NFL have college degrees. Essentially, NFL players are asked to perform once a week for between four and five months a year.
The total amount of “live” playing time in a given season is at the very most three hours. Much of the NFL is filled with guys who play no more than five to 10 plays a game, many of whom rarely get contacted, and some of whom aren’t even allowed to be touched.
If one were to walk down any street in the country, from 21st and Lewis in Long Beach to Hollywood Boulevard, with $1 million contracts, where the offered would be asked to run into a brick building at full speed for two and a half hours for the payout, how many folks would put down their crutches, put out their cigarettes and give it a go?
What if one was to supply those “risk-takers” with the most technologically advanced protective equipment in all of sports?
My sports writing compadre is right about one thing: the NFL is a moneymaking machine. Revenue for the 2011 fiscal year could hit the $10 billion mark, and the game continues to grow despite the economic recession.
Sure, “greedy” owners are always the easy villain, but at the core of the recent collective bargaining (dis)agreement is the notion of how much players should receive from the revenue pot.
Currently, players earn more than they ever have in “real” income, raking in close to 60 percent (minus one billion) of all that the NFL makes from gate receipts to merchandise to television contracts.
The question then is, do players deserve close to 60 percent of what the NFL makes?
I would argue, for the sake of argument, that they don’t. It is the owners, who by taking loans out for gigantic new stadiums (22 new stadiums since 1993), are the ones risking the most skin here.
It is the owners who, both by proxy and direct influence, deserve the most credit for expanding the NFL game and for helping steer its incredible growth.
The publicly owned Green Bay Packers recently opened its books only for it to be revealed that its operating profits had been greatly reduced because of increasing player salaries.
NFL owners aren’t talking about dramatically reducing NFL players’ salaries, they are asking for just enough reduction so that they can be incentivized to continue to grow the game, through sponsorships, stadiums and sales, whereby NFL players can share in that continuing growth (some have projected the NFL to rake in $30 billion in 15 years).
Who has the most to gain in slight reduction in player salaries in a new CBA? NFL players.
Reach the reporter at nick.ruland@asu.edu
