From time to time sports strikes a nerve. Today's the day, even though tumultuous and terrible events in the world have dominated the news of late.
Earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan. This disaster should give the world pause, and maybe purpose in helping to rebuild this battered nation.
Conflicts in Northern Africa, which unfold with startling speed and battle long time despots one by one in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen with possibly more to follow. These uprisings should give the world even more pause, and wake up those who still think its business as usual to reward a few families at the expense of an entire region's population.
Collective bargaining for most public union employees gone in Wisconsin, with other states and their Republican governors throwing down the same gauntlet. These actions should make everyone in America pay attention to the plight of federal, state and local governments when revenues disappear due to economic downturns, and taxes are considered criminal. This in a nation where the tax burden is one of the very lowest among all major nations in the world.
But today I turn to the sports section and the NFL showdown between owners and players.
Everyone I speak with regarding the events in Northern Africa seems supportive of the little people overthrowing the dictators, even though the regimes toppled all were aligned with US government policy in the Middle East.
This is not the same thing I hear when the chat focuses on collective bargaining disputes between public employee unions in Wisconsin and Ohio where those states' newly elected Republican governors appear intent on curbing public union influence. On this topic, friends offer staunch support for the unions, or view unions as having too much influence over public policy, or flatly state there should be no unions in government.
When I chat with friends about the potential NFL shutdown I hear comments ranging from, "Billionaires fighting with millionaires is pathetic" to "Who cares who wins as long as I have my football this season?" This is pretty much the same response regarding the NBA, only with many more, "Who Cares?"
Granted union support in America would appear to be at an all time low, and the players today seem to all be making vast sums of money in both sports so I understand the quandary in taking a side on the issues over potential game stoppages. In the NFL, curiously from my perspective, it is the owners who have decided the players make too much and moved at this juncture to demand a much larger slice of each industry's total revenue by opting out of their last agreement.
The NFL today, by all accounts I have read, is a $9 billion to $9.5 billion a year industry. Faye Vincent, writing for Scrippsnews, gives an interesting take on what a prolonged lockout could mean. As a former Commissioner of Major League Baseball, Mr. Vincent, has a unique view point on the matter.
The major sticking point on the surface is money, and how to share it. Currently owners take a billion dollars off the top from all the money generated for themselves and the League office, and then split the remaining pie with the players on a 60% to 40% arrangement. The players receive 60% of all the remaining revenue and the League/owners get 40% based on the Collective Bargaining Agreement made in 2006. This works out to basically 53.3% share for the players and a 46.7% share for the owners.
It is a players game. Nobody watches the televisions or attends the games to see the owners. The NFL, and its owners, determined that the union representing the players would not see the ledger books on what the costs of upkeep and improvements are while negotiating. The League has determined the NFLPA, the players union, has all the information it needs to negotiate. This showdown has been in the works for about three years now.
An added layer to the negotiations began to take shape after the 2008 season when owners were planning to vote on an expanded season of 17 to 18 games. This announcement occurred at an NFL owners meeting in March of 2009 as reported by the New York Times. The 18 game season issue began to really heat up in September, 2010 when the Indianapolis Colts president, Bill Polian, announced to the world that the 18 game season was a "fait accompli" on his weekly radio show.
A big wrinkle surfaced this season over the plans to expand the number of regular season games when the amount of ferocious helmet to helmet hits became too ferocious, and knocked out too many star players. The fact that we have had two high profile former players, Andre Waters and Dave Duerson, commit suicide over head trauma issues these past three years serves as a compelling statement that adding games to an already very dangerous sport is not in the best interests of the players.
The players already know the risks of injuries, and how they linger long after they have left the game. I had a good friend many years ago in San Francisco who worked for a former 49er star, Charlie Krueger, who in the early 1980s owned a liquor store with a great wine selection. Paul, my friend, came to know Charlie pretty well over the years while he worked perfecting his wine tasting skills. One thing Paul knew from the outset of his employment there was that Charlie Krueger endured extensive pain every day and could barely walk.
At the time I was working in San Francisco, and Paul was doing double duty between Tower Records and Charlie's liquor store, Mr. Krueger was suing the NFL and the San Francisco 49ers for failing to let him know the severity of the injuries he suffered while playing. Charlie actually won a judgment with a decent settlement for his day in court, and is still alive. The guy has always been one of the toughest men on the planet. He should never have had to go through what his organization put him through. Click on my little link to get the full details of what this 49er great went through. It is quite a story, but certainly not rare you can look across the Bay at what Jim Otto endures, or in Pittsburgh and what Mike Webster endured, and so on.
Another factor in these the negotiations over lengthening the NFL season, and trimming the amounts of money the players receive, is how long the average NFL player lives. It might surprise some of you who do not follow the sporting world to know that the life expectancy for the average NFL player is only 55 years. The St. Peterburg Times reported back in 2006 that for every year in the NFL a player can subtract three years off his life expectancy. Fortunately for the NFL, and its players, the average career stay in the League is only three and a half years. Not even long enough to get a pension and medical coverage after you retire. I might add, with injury preconditions health insurance for the already afflicted is very expensive, and difficult to find in America.
There are other issues at play in the standoff, such as rookie pay scales and better benefits to former players who are strapped by a pension that does not pay enough to cover costs of living and medical care. Most fans are in the same boat as the retired NFL players these days.
The NFL owners opted out of the last collective bargaining agreement in 2008. Many of them felt they made a big mistake in signing the last bargaining agreement, which was done with Paul Tagliabue as Commissioner, and the late Gene Upshaw as the head of the NFLPA.
The game of professional football has never been more popular. Television ratings for the past two Super Bowls are the highest for any television show ever broadcast. The majority of the owners are worth at least one billion dollars, and the game has certainly been financially rewarding to each and every family who owned a team. With all that money, and with all the perks that go with all the prestige of NFL ownership, why are billionaires so upset over the current financial arrangement with the players who have performed so well in the near two decades since the first honest collective bargaining agreement was struck?
This work stoppage for all the talk about the money, or at least the near term money, is strictly about power. The owners demand they be recognized as the sole authority on everything that has to do with professional football in America. The ownership group certainly knows the work story on the street. Union membership in the USA now stands at under 12%. There are now more union workers in government than in the private sector, even though the private sector roughly employs a little more than five times than does the government. According to the US Government Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) only 6.9% of the private sector workforce was unionized and the highest age group of membership was for people aged 55-64. The lowest total was found in the youngest age demographic 16-24.
Although it will be very difficult for the owners to cry over lost profits at this stage, and none of them will be moving from their palatial estates into more modest quarters anytime soon, the anti-union stance we have seen throughout the country with public unions and their pensions being hammered by conservatives everywhere has the NFL owners smelling blood on this issue in my opinion.
The players to avoid a lockout must decertify their union. All teams voted on this procedural move over the course of the last season, and unanimously voted to go through this process should collective bargaining breakdown. A lockout forces restraint of trade and lawsuits will follow. It is where we are today with papers filed and awaiting court dates, and ultimately, which court will decide the matter.
If public opinion had any influence it would be hard to bet against the players. They can always wheel out former stars like Willie Wood who can no longer walk, or John Mackey the first head of the NFLPA, who now no longer knows who he is. But, public opinion does not count for much these days, because public opinion is always determined by what questions get asked.
Are you in favor of taxes?
Are you in favor of the best public education for your children?
