AP: Players getting 75% of revenue according to NFL

[BillsWatch]

According to clarification post on CBS Sports:

 

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/12166995

According to additional details provided by the NFL, players have received about 75 percent of new revenues generated by the league since 2006 in order to meet requirements of the collective bargaining agreement negotiated that year. That agreement called for the players' share of selected revenues to rise from approximately 55 percent to roughly 60 percent. To get to that percentage, players received 75 cents out of every dollar of additional revenue the NFL attracted, the league says.

 

75% of selected revenues? What falls within this revenue? Are they talking about net revenues since they are saying in next sentence players' share rose to 60%? In either case this appears to high since if economy goes into a tail spin as it has there is no guarantee all of the projected revenue materializes but signing bonuses are already paid (and terribly difficult to get back even if player holds out, can not uphold agreement because in jail, etc) and salaries for most veterans are already guaranteed past game 1.

[Hossage]

Sort of like collective performance bonuses for the players?

 

We need a rookie salary cap.

[Big Turk]

Bottom line:

 

 

In a battle of billionaires and millionaires, the ones with the most money are going to win. Yeah most players are rich, but the owners are richer and also most of them have other businesses/interests that make them money---sometimes far more money than their NFL teams do...

 

If they just want to wait out the players to go broke and crack, they can probably do it pretty easily...however there is no telling how the fans will take a long and protracted lockout...likely not very well...

[BillsVet]

No wonder the salary cap went up this past year.

 

09 Cap Increase

 

The owners have to be kicking themselves for signing Tagliabue's CBA back in early 07. The players have a sweetheart deal that DeMaurice Smith will not want to depart from. I can see labor strife very soon.

 

This also reminds me of just prior to the NFL lockout when it was found players were getting the lion's share of revenue. And we know how that went, even though it's two vastly different leagues.

[ThereIsNoDog]

Does anyone NOT see what an embarrassment for the owners that last CBA was? I thought 59.5% was bad, but 75%? Holy schnikes! How stupid are Kraft, Jones, and Snyder, and will the other owners trust these idjits with creating another CBA?

[BillsWatch]

Like I said I'd like to see more details about the 75%. It does not appear to be in sync with what we have heard before in past.

[aristocrat]

Does anyone NOT see what an embarrassment for the owners that last CBA was? I thought 59.5% was bad, but 75%? Holy schnikes! How stupid are Kraft, Jones, and Snyder, and will the other owners trust these idjits with creating another CBA?

 

 

remember how ralph stood up and voted against it and everyone laughed at him? now he doesnt look so dumb and in fact he may look like one of the more intelligent owners despite the feeling on this board

[GrudginglyOptimistic]

Bottom line:

 

 

In a battle of billionaires and millionaires, the ones with the most money are going to win. Yeah most players are rich, but the owners are richer and also most of them have other businesses/interests that make them money---sometimes far more money than their NFL teams do...

 

If they just want to wait out the players to go broke and crack, they can probably do it pretty easily...however there is no telling how the fans will take a long and protracted lockout...likely not very well...

Not so fast with this assumption. The speed with which one side or the other may crack is not based on a simple computation of who has the most cash or assets on hand, but also how these assets are utilized as collateral to pay loans.

 

If an NFL team or its owners as individuals are highly leveraged and owe large regular interest payments to a large capital holder such as a bank then this party will still owe regular payments on their loans regardless of whether the team plays or not. If the owner is like Ralph Wilson who probably has little or no liability on a team he paid a few thousand bucks for long ago this owner can hold out.

 

However, if you are a team owner who had to lay out several hundred million for your team you almost certainly took out a bank loan to capitalize the purchase.

 

Of course individual players may also have significant personal loans they owe and thus cannot afford to see their income stop, but in general the amount of loans owed by an individual will pale in signiificance next to levels corporate indebtedness.

 

My guess is that the vast majority likely increase their wealth by orders of magnitude from a season of NFL take and likely part of the reason the CBA passed overwhelmingly is that few NFL owners are in the loan freedom the NFL players are in and thus they would outlast owners with normal business debts.

[Big Turk]

Not so fast with this assumption. The speed with which one side or the other may crack is not based on a simple computation of who has the most cash or assets on hand, but also how these assets are utilized as collateral to pay loans.

 

If an NFL team or its owners as individuals are highly leveraged and owe large regular interest payments to a large capital holder such as a bank then this party will still owe regular payments on their loans regardless of whether the team plays or not. If the owner is like Ralph Wilson who probably has little or no liability on a team he paid a few thousand bucks for long ago this owner can hold out.

 

However, if you are a team owner who had to lay out several hundred million for your team you almost certainly took out a bank loan to capitalize the purchase.

 

Of course individual players may also have significant personal loans they owe and thus cannot afford to see their income stop, but in general the amount of loans owed by an individual will pale in signiificance next to levels corporate indebtedness.

 

My guess is that the vast majority likely increase their wealth by orders of magnitude from a season of NFL take and likely part of the reason the CBA passed overwhelmingly is that few NFL owners are in the loan freedom the NFL players are in and thus they would outlast owners with normal business debts.

 

True, but I am sure the NFL will basically float loans to those teams if needed...after all, the NFL is richer than even the richest owner...

[Fezmid]

remember how ralph stood up and voted against it and everyone laughed at him? now he doesnt look so dumb and in fact he may look like one of the more intelligent owners despite the feeling on this board

 

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

 

Ralph isn't in IDIOT. He's an astute businessman. On the other hand, he's a HORRIBLE evaluator and administrator of a football team.

[Fezmid]

Ralph isn't in IDIOT. He's an astute businessman. On the other hand, he's a HORRIBLE evaluator and administrator of a football team.

Yeah, whatever.

[ThereIsNoDog]

Ralph isn't in IDIOT. He's an astute businessman. On the other hand, he's a HORRIBLE evaluator and administrator of a football team.

Snyder and Jones, who are also astute businessmen, haven't fared much better the past decade. As for Kraft, he was widely ridiculed for hiring Belichick as his HC, not to mention surrendering a 1st round pick for him, as well as hiring a nobody to be his Director of Pro Personnel (Pioli). Conversely Ralph was hailed for hiring TD, the man many credited with rebuilding the Steelers.

[Mr. WEO]

Does anyone NOT see what an embarrassment for the owners that last CBA was? I thought 59.5% was bad, but 75%? Holy schnikes! How stupid are Kraft, Jones, and Snyder, and will the other owners trust these idjits with creating another CBA?

Go back and read it again. It clearly is clarifying the previous article in order to make it clear that the players are not getting 75% of total revenue. They are getting 75% of "new" revenue sources in order to get to the 59.5% of total revenue.

 

Sheesh..

 

Yep, that last CBA has really killed Ralph's bottom line---to the tune of $86 million positive margin over the past 3 years.

[GrudginglyOptimistic]

True, but I am sure the NFL will basically float loans to those teams if needed...after all, the NFL is richer than even the richest owner...

Yeah, but the other pesky fact here is that the NFL team ownership is made up of people as well. What appeared to have happened from my outside less than accurately informed view is that while the past is the past and is not totally accurately predictive of the future, past interactions of the owners indicate that this group will find it difficult to commit to going to the mattresses for too long on this one.

 

The owners likely fall into a bunch of different types:

 

1. Like Ralph, the ones who are pretty secure financially with few loans and little adventurous investing cause they are way old and thus can curmudgeonly do what they want.

 

2. The ones (maybe Snyder or maybe Jones) who have more money than they know what to do with and tend to shoot from the hip with this great moneymaking toy.

 

3. Others who are heavily leveraged and have enough liquid cash to play the billionaires game well, but really a couple of bad breaks could seriously wreck the house of cards they are playing.

 

4. Several other types which are definable groupings but us on the outside cannot say for sure what is happening.

 

My sense is that the financial meltdown which began last fall and has stabilized under Obama, Bernanke, Geithner, et al has probably impacted all of the rich folks billionaires or millionaires heavily. However, the system is listing and yawing badly but has survived the fall storm (what this fall will hold we will see).

 

However, my sense is that though the owners did a heavy lift last year by casting the dye to re-open negotiation, it would not surprise me that if they took a revote knowing today what they know now, they likely would not have added in the variable of a contract re-opening to the fiscal mix.

 

Still, the situation created was the one they had and they re-opened the maw and now they are all in it.

 

Who knows for sure what everyone's condition is (part of the way the game is played is that both sides will present themselves as being strong and united whether they are or not). However, it is a pretty good bet, that the most troubled teams are in even worse shape as the credit markets have dried up and being neither a borrower or a lender is pretty good advice in these times of fiscal uncertainty.

 

A lot depends upon the leadership at a given point in time. My bet is that it is even harder to herd the cats of ownership now than it was a year ago and that the default is gonna be make the same deal pretty much. The NFLPA is hurt because Upshaw died and new leadership has not made itself apparent but my sense is that the messed up outliers among the millionaires is actually a far easier lift and group to either be helped to crawl along or to be jettisoned to live or likely die on their own makes the NFLPA situation an easier one to manage.

 

The team owners are likely even more fractured than before with the old guard like Ralph fiscally strengthened by their past conservative investment while the go-go guys are likely in some danger of folding up and becoming ex-billionaires in a stressful situation.

 

The NFL entity is now run by Goodell who appears to be a son of Tagliaboo-boo and likely is even more pro the current CBA in this time of uncertainty than even the old guard.

 

For the most part the current dispute seems to be about real money as it involves 100s of millions of $, but in the big picture it is still a pretty small fraction of the billions of dollars at play in the whole enterprise.

 

In these moments of fiscal uncertainty I simply doubt that the team owners are going to be able to risk its outliers in this group who may be in real danger of becoming former billionaires. There certainly are players who are likely to become ex-millionaires, but quite frankly this happens all the time to the Pac-Man Jones and Michael Vicks of the NFL even in good fiscal times.

 

I think the team owners are only as strong as their weakest members and the number of weak ones or potential weak ones has gone way up since fall. For the players this number has gone up as well, but in the the end you ship out some meat and bring in some more meat and life and the game goes on.

[DarthICE]

I say lock them out. They are overpaid as is. I am for the owners on this one.

[ThereIsNoDog]

Go back and read it again. It clearly is clarifying the previous article in order to make it clear that the players are not getting 75% of total revenue. They are getting 75% of "new" revenue sources in order to get to the 59.5% of total revenue.

 

Sheesh..

 

Yep, that last CBA has really killed Ralph's bottom line---to the tune of $86 million positive margin over the past 3 years.

Regardless of the actual percentage (I should have bothered to read the article, my bad), the CBA was an embarrassment for the NFL. Your example or Ralph means nothing, because every owner lost a lot of money by getting taken to the cleaners by the players, but they all turned healthy profits.

[GrudginglyOptimistic]

Regardless of the actual percentage (I should have bothered to read the article, my bad), the CBA was an embarrassment for the NFL. Your example or Ralph means nothing, because every owner lost a lot of money by getting taken to the cleaners by the players, but they all turned healthy profits.

The current CBA is not in my opinion an embarrassment for the NFL team owners as under it the the team owners make far more money than they ever made under previous CBAs and certainly than they did under the "good ol"days when they beat the crap out of the NFLPA and forced the NFLPA from simply trying to be tough guys and instead focus on the good ol American goal of making as many $ as possible.

 

It is clearly true that the players are getting a solid majority of the gross take as owners agreed to under the current CBA. However, in exchange for this deal which makes the players partners but arguably majority partners the team owners have conspired with the players to guarantee the networks a stable product.

 

This stability has allowed the nets to agree to multiyear deals with the NFL where it delivers incredible amounts of wealth to the team owners.

 

Sure the NFL team owners can emphasize showing they have bigger cajones that these steroid jacked up athletes, but it is now clear the cost of doing this would be the NFLPA decertifying itself and the owners would have to compete in a true free market which ironically would kill the league.

 

The players are getting 75% of the new revenues but this is only a testimonial to the numeric fact that they got a much smaller share of the old revenues under the previous CBA.

 

Particularly in these times of fiscal uncertainty its hard to see how they hang tough long in negotiations unless they are willing to risk some of their own going down or are willing to carry some likely hefty fiscal burdens of the weaker fiscal teams (not Ralph unless he has taken out significant loans we do not know about using the Bills as collateral).

 

Sure some of the more foolish or fiscally unlucky players will also fall by the wayside. However dozens of NFL players sre essentially gone from the fold each year but it is rare for an owner to go down and if the tap of game money is turned off there is a huge difference between keeping some number of millionaires afloat and keeping millionaires afloat.

[lets_go_bills]

It's a hairy situation and I don't like the outlook. Uncapped football is bad for us. There are so many things that need to be worked out. It'll all come down to give and take compromising. The league gets a rookie pay scale and the players can't be franchised anymore. Things like that.

[ThereIsNoDog]

The current CBA is not in my opinion an embarrassment for the NFL team owners as under it the the team owners make far more money than they ever made under previous CBAs and certainly than they did under the "good ol"days when they beat the crap out of the NFLPA and forced the NFLPA from simply trying to be tough guys and instead focus on the good ol American goal of making as many $ as possible.

It's an embarrassment because just 2 years after signing it, they chucked it, and the specter of a work stoppage looms. True they're making more money than ever, thanks to more revenue streams and higher TV contracts, which would have materialized anyway. But they made FAR more money under the previous CBA and no owners were crying poverty then. The players got one over on the owners and the owners know it, and that's the most embarrassing part of it all.