On Wednesday afternoon, Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young was on KNBR talking about the problems facing the 49ers. He talked about Trent Baalke’s failure to find a quarterback, but he focused more on the lack of a super-structure that prevents the team from returning to its glory days.
One of the topics that found its way into numerous Thursday articles was his comment about how equity value is where ownership is focused more than winning. He talked about the Yorks, but said that it was something that drove most owners. Of course, headlines focused on him calling out the Yorks, and so Young went back on KNBR Thursday afternoon for another round of 49ers talk.
Young focused more on the idea of a systemic issue in the NFL, where owners don’t generally have that extra incentive to win as much as build equity in the team. Nothing is black and white, but I do think even the owners that badly want to win more often than not still value the long-term equity building. You have guys like Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones that seem seriously committed to doing what they can to win. Even when things go south, it is because of bad decisions as opposed to being apathetic to winning. But again, when team values are into the 10 figures now, it’s hard not to see equity value being viewed as more important.
You can listen to the audio here. As some pointed out, his comments sometimes seem a little all over the place in the transcript. I recommend listening to the audio if you have time. It makes a little bit more sense when you hear him speak. And it’s always a fun give and take when he’s on with Tom Tolbert and John Lund.
On clarifying his comments:
The headline bugged me today, and I want to make clear — look, we get chatting, chatting, chatting, and my point was not made very well, structurally. We talked yesterday about ownership, and I thought to myself, I made it sound like Jed or John don’t want to win, they want to make money. It’s more about structurally, not about them in particularly. It’s about “ownership.” Owners are misaligned in the NFL. And so my point is, players have an average career of three years, it’s an incredible meritocracy in the NFL. You play well, you win, or you’re out. And now over time I’ve noticed, coaches are really that way. Coaches and players have been in this game for a long time, as far as meritocracy, play well, win, or get out. It’s now seeped into general managers, under pressure. They don’t just hang around forever. They actually have to perform, or they’re out, too. And so, I think it makes the NFL better. It makes it, it hones the, it sharpens the saw.
And what I said yesterday, what I was trying to say was that, we’re disconnected from ownership. Because ownership wins differently. And when they win differently, they don’t, they’re not under the gun. They’re clearly not going to fire themselves. I get that. But also, you gotta figure that how they win in team equity, and how they value their company, their business, financially it’s a business in the end. How they win is not necessarily winning on the field. And so because of that, owners are disconnected from that meritocracy. Now, they make the ultimate decisions in the end, based on something, they’re not under the gun, they’re not at risk like players and coaches and general managers.
I guess my point is, how do we get owners more on the hook? So that they actually feel that rigor. And I think it would be better for the NFL. My point is, in partnership to the competitive white hot space that the NFL is, putting owners at that risk too will only make it better. So do we make a pool of money? How do we, you guys are trying to figure out how to not have healthy scratches (in the NBA), why don’t we spend a little time trying to figure out how we can put owners on the hook for winning. So that they actually, that’s the point, rather than equity value, getting a stadium, sharing all the pot, because in the NFL they share all the money. Maybe one of the big winning things they did in the NFL was everyone shares. So wasn’t big money teams and small money teams. I get that. But how do we put owners on the hook?
And so it wasn’t necessarily about Jed or 49ers’ organization, or the 49ers’ owners. It’s that, but definition, when you’re 1-13, 1-14, how do we connect that rigor that everyone’s out in the parking lot, because you were not winning, so now you’re at risk. How do we put ownership at risk, somehow. Even though I guess they’re going to own it no matter what. How do we put them at risk so that we’re all connected in the decision-making? So that when Jerry Jones is trying to figure out, or think of another team that’s not playing well, the New York Jets now gotta figure out what they’re gonna do. The owner is not as connected in the rigor around the meritocracy as everyone else in the building. How do we get him or her more connected.
And I don’t know if I made myself clear, still a much more muddy, as muddy as I was yesterday. But I read the headline that it was about Jed or it was about John, and that’s not fair. My point was, by definition, owners are disconnected. By definition, they make money and make equity in their business differently than just winning. If it was just winning, then it would all be aligned. But there’s different ways that they do it. And therefore all the rest of us, winning is everything, but it’s not with owners. How do we get them connected to this whole thing.
On digital disconnect messing up headlines to stories:
Look, hopefully I made it a little bit clearer today, but that was my point. And so, for me, I didn’t want it just laying out there, about the 49ers. It was more about how do we make the NFL better. It used to be, leagues, the winning championship owner got a bunch more money, but that doesn’t resinate either. I’m not sure that I have a solution. I just know that part of the problem is the disconnection between everyone else with that risk, and the ownership that’s truly at the end of the day, not as at risk. They’re at the ultimate risk because if the business fails, people stop watching TV, ratings go in the tank, they have the ultimate risk, but the NFL now, it’s so entrenched in society, that risk is kinda gone. So now we think, how do we make winning the absolute white hot space for ownership as well.
On owners wanting to win, but still just below making money:
But it’s not to the person though. And that’s the point I guess. It’s not to the person and their decision-making. It’s structural. The way it’s set up, you win as a team by building equity value in your team, because it’s business. How do I build equity value? I get a new stadium. In the end, you have to win, I understand that, but look at, I guess that’s why I used the example of the 49ers. It’s how much equity value has been gained when they’re not winning. It wasn’t about their desire, it’s about how it’s set up structurally. I’m not sure I have an answer, but I know that it’s one of the missing pieces in making the NFL — because of all the leagues, with the meritocracy that I feel in the NFL — and I’m sure there’s a lot of owners that probably would love to join that meritocracy. Like look, I’ll put myself at risk, because in a lot of ways that’s how they got their teams. It’s in their nature, too, but the systems not set up for them to feel as much at risk as the players.
Example of bottom four or six teams not getting to play on national TV the next year and more money available to being on national TV:
I think anything like that helps. And then also, if there’s money involved, you can’t have small-town teams and big-town teams. Like they still have the same amount of money, but it all goes to the owners. In other words, the owners gets it. I like where you’re going. Anything that makes it more competitive to the root of winning football games I think is phenomenal. At least incrementally, you could start to put the pressure on. And maybe there are other ways to put pressure on the owners that are just not consistently performing. There’s gotta be, that would be maybe the league could start to think about how to best do that. My point is, to me, football’s so super-competitive. It’s such a meritocracy. You either player well or get out. Especially at quarterback, it’s week-to-week. And so, you live under that rigor for so long, and you see the benefits of that, and how much it drives you and others around you. In a weird way, I want to include everybody, including the owners.
And that was my point. How do we do that? And so that when you do make the big decisions, look the owners make the big decisions. So that Jets have big decisions to make this offseason, name it, there’s ten teams that have huge decisions to make this offseason. Who’s making them? Somebody that’s not quite in this way, in the way I’m describing, at risk. And so it just makes the decisions much more difficult.
On fan frustration of winning a few years, and then not being competitive with huge cap space while franchise value goes up:
Well, even the ones that they can do. In other words, there’s a disconnect because I don’t think you can actually put owners at risk with each other…how can we make teams, owners actually feel that they’re losing equity value. But to your point specifically, the pool of money that’s meant to be spent on players, and be great, that’s a whole other issue. If you’re not spending every dollar, then that kind of speaks for itself, too. But that one’s already in place, and everybody can hold each other accountable on that one. Because you see, John, are you spending the money, are you spending it well? But there’s still no way — think about what you just said, Forbes just said what was the team that was earning the most money or who was most profitable. Again, it’s disconnected from winning. And so how do we connect, how do we connect it. It’s gonna be better for the NFL long-term, even the owners that are not good, because it’s gonna force people to get better. And if you’ve made bad hires — general manager, coach, quarterback — for years and years and years — which for some teams like Cleveland, that’s been struggling like that for so long — what do, you put people at risk. Things tend, in America, tend to get better, or at least you find other answers. And again, everybody in the parking lot. But it’s tough when there’s a disconnect — my point yesterday was there’s a disconnection to saying that, because it’s a different risk profile. That’s all.
Team still stinks, stadium is half full, but they’re still killing it financially:
But again, I said this, the winning, equity value in your business, equity value in your profits, it’s disconnected. So, you can’t speak to the person, you have to speak to the system. Because in some ways, people are super-competitive about that. Because that’s the thing that’s in front of you. I’m trying to make the connection, so everybody’s on the same page.
On it being systemic:
Well football in some ways is insulated from it being small-town, big-town. The Green Bay Packers, they’re already set. So you could start to introduce small, little nuances. I like Tom’s idea about national TV. What are other ways that we can create, to start to align, and I suspect there would be really competitive owners that would say, “Yea, let’s do that.” Again, I just want everybody to know it wasn’t, it’s systemic, it’s not about a team.
Joke about owners needing to be mascot if team loses four straight:
We’ve come so far, Tom. When I first started, the owners were so disconnected from players. And Eddie DeBartolo changed that, and forced owners and players, and now you look at the CBA for the last 30 years, through the strike and through everything that has happened, players are, you can say pretty fairly, that players and owners are now partners. As far as economics, and how they look at the game, and the pool of money, and how it works.
There’s real pain that came to owners to look at players as partners, rather than — I think it was Wellington Mara back in 1987 said, “don’t the players get it, we’re the owners and they’re the chattel” — I don’t want to say it was Wellington, I don’t know who it was, I apologize, I shouldn’t have said a name because I don’t know who it was. But somebody when we were on strike said that. I was like, “oh my gosh, no wonder we’re struggling as a league. Because we don’t look at each other as partners.” And so, I think that we’ve come a long way, a long way. But to maybe go to the next level is to put everyone at risk. At least more so. Again, I wish I would have made my point better yesterday.
On not scoffing at Trent Dilfer and gonna have to fight him on Monday Night Football:
That’s right. I gotta call him. Poor guy thinks I was putting him on.