Anti Player

a sound, reasoned argument.

One question did the players ask for a raise? I don’t recall them asking for a raise, I recall the league requesting they take a lesser chunk of the collective pie. Which is not the same as a pay cut.

Personally I am not anti-player or anti-owner, I am anti-unnecessary greed.
“We have never claimed that teams are not making money. We’re just not making as much of it,’’ – the words of John Mara

And the players – I believe ramius you make a sound and sensible point when outlining circumstances for the players.

One note for all the owners provide the only financially justifiable place for the players to play, the players are pretty much the only ones the owners can employ and people will turn up to watch. Too much greed, but hey I am sure if any of us were in their places we’d all look at the world the way they do. Shame I don’t own a team or a fat contract

$325000 is actually about $195000 a year, a little more or a little less, depending on the state.

The problem is that the NFL sells playing as a career. If you redo the math with taxes (as I have done below) for most players it’s not a career, it’s a dead end job that has little options for players that don’t make it. For example:

Year One
325K is 195K after taxes, 60K for a car and 40K to live leaves 95k to purchase a house.

Most 22 year olds don’t want to buy a house, but assuming they did, in the bay area you’d be looking at $500,000 for a decent house in santa clara. 7% interest rate since no 22 year old has great credit, 35K down payment (3.5%) and closing costs (3.5%), leaves a 5K a month mortgage, taxes, ins. and utilities bill. or 60K a year.

So at the end of the first year, the guy has a car, some nice clothes, no savings, and a 480K mortgage.

Year 2
Gross 400K (league min for year 2) take home 240K. 60K in house costs, 40K in living expenses, 140K left. 40K in savings, 100K down on house to get rid of the PMI.

At the end of the second year he as a car, 40K savings, nice clothes, and a 350K mortgage

Year 3
Grosses 475K, take home 280K, 100K house and living expenses, $150K toward the mortgage and $30K toward savings, makes 2K in interst on the money in the bank.

At the end he he as a car, 72K in the bank, nice stuff, and about a 175K mortgage

Year 4
Grosses $550,000, takes home 330K, 100K for house and life, payoff the 175K left on the house, leaves 55K plus your 72K in the bank has earned about 3K in interest,

At end of year 4 he has a 4 year old car that needs repairs, a house that is paid but still costs $1500 a month in taxes, insurance and upkeep, 130K in savings and guaranteed future health problems, and needs to find a job where he can make 70K a year after taxes if he wants to stay in his house.

So I agree, he gets a good head start, but it’s not a career, he’s not rich, and if he didn’t manage his money well he very well could be broke within a couple of years.

but I think the key is ‘manage his money’, I don’t believe that the emphasis is on an employer to teach you how to manage your money but the NFL does have the rookie conference thing. If the player has been smart he has a college degree and something to fall back on.

I think it is where the owners healthcare proposal that they put forward was a really good thing. If a player opts into it long term healthcare is at least taken care of and that significant.

No one forces players to opt for the draft in their junior year and I believe it is set up so that players can’t join their team until the college year finishes for their college to make sure they can graduate.

Players shouldn’t get an excuse to not be smart about money.

The empasis is on the owners though who opted out of the agreement, they are in a position to have to prove why the players should collectively take a pay cut. It’s a 2 way street. the person taking the hit isn’t really the owners or the players its the guy who’s bar depends on gameday trade or the concession stand guy or the hot dog guy – these are the people I feel for in this rather than players and owners – should we fans miss games.

I also understand the irony that I get to see one game a year because an owner removes that game from their fans. So I apologise if I irritate anyone with my post, when my investment is small in comparison to guys who have been to years of home games and invested so heavily in their team

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/House-Judiciary-Committee-may-seek-to-overturn-N;_ylt=AgzF5SgQ1A9GrSVwX4hYnStDubYF?urn=nfl-wp199

Respect, however, only goes so far and will not gloss over everything. One of the players complaints is owners want more of the pie and they don’t think the owners should get it. They want the NFL to open up thier books for the last ten years to prove to them why the owners should get a slice from the top. First off, I didn’t get a raise last year, no one at my place of employment did, if I went to my boss and demanded to see the books for the last ten years so I could have an accountant go over it and see if they really couldn’t give me a raise I would be laughed out of the office or told to get back to work. If I persisted and threatened to strike, I would be told to go ahead and clean out my desk on the way out. The owners keep their own books, as long as its legally documented and the IRS has no problem with it, owners of any company shouldn’t have to open up their books to their employees. This just goes to show how far removed the players have become from reality, from what its like to be an average person.

-Players are not striking
-The owners are the party that are locking out the players
-The owners are the ones asking the players to take a pay cut when the nfl is making record money
-This does not relate to the current situation and is backwards

here is a comparable example

your boss just made record sales every year for the past four years. then asks you to take a 18% pay cut because she/he is not making enough money. your boss then colludes with every other industry owner so that you can not cmake the same amount of money and to restrict your movement to another company. what would you do?
oh and your boss just bought a g650 airplane full customized to go with the 50million dollar yacht but your boss is hurting for money. once again you need to take 18% pay cut.

Regardless of how much they have or make. If there is money out there you feel entitled too then you should damn well go after it. It has to be reasonable, of course, but somehow I feel like NFL players wanting their cut of an extra billion floating around, that revenue created by their services, sounds reasonable.

These are pretty basic economic principles. The market dictates what you’re worth. You’d have a really hard time convincing me that there are a more important and honorable position in society than being a teacher or a soldier. Certainly they are more important than a football player, yet they are paid poorly because so many people can become a soldier or a teacher (How well is debatable but let’s stick to the basics). The market demands they are more valuable and if you think you’re underpaid by market standards then you demand more money, regardless of how much “you already make”.

Yes, you should be happy if you make 360,00 dollars a year. But if you’re worth 500,000 a year shouldn’t you go after it?

That’s not to say the owners don’t deserve their share as well. I don’t know where to find the middle ground between full-on transparency (the owners opening up their books, which is asinine) and having no disclosure whatsoever, but it needs to be found. Unfortunately, I don’t see this thing getting resolved before they open up their books, and that sets a very scary and very dangerous precedent.

It may sound like I’m taking the player’s side, but I am not. My patience is wearing thin with both sides quite honestly, as they seem to have forgotten the word “compromise”, which most of society is quite familiar with. That said, I feel the need to defend them because saying someone “makes enough already” and “should be happy with what they have” is an insanely ludicrous position if that person has a reasonable stake in the profit, which NFL players certainly do.

Those overpaid athletes who risk their health 16 times a year. We need to take the side of the owners who make 10 times what they make sitting in the luxury box.

Anyone who is on the owners side is a moron.