$0 - They make their money when they sell the team.
$10 M max. Similar to players on their second contract
$10 - $20 M. Like a top line veteran player
$20 - 30 M. As much as the highest paid players
$30 - 40 M. A bit more than the top players
$40 M+. Its a huge investments in a wildly successful business. A solid return is deserved.
I'm not exactly sure how much the owners are investing in those stadiums but I do know that the tax payers end up paying for the bulk of it.Originally Posted by Patler
And while owners invest millions in the team these players shorter and risk their lives every time they step on the field for our entertainment and now the owners want to take 1 billion away from the players when the NFL is at its highest? Its a fucking joke.
Yeah, you're right, it is a joke. People like you need to get some type of business school education, because you obviously have no idea of ROI. The greedy owners made this game and if you can't accept that, well, it's a joke. They make millionaires out of slum thugs in many cases. Poor slaves.
And how can you make this statement? How can you use all of that wonderful business school education and determine ROI in the NFL? The owners have not once stated a number for their profits. That seems to be a critical number to calculate ROI. In fact, gross income numbers aren't used to calculate ROI so the one number we know for sure isn't useful to determine ROI. Just looking at the values of the franchises you can see how much owners will make on the sale of their teams without looking at yearly profit/loss.
I am a CPA and I can't tell you the ROI for the owners without looking at the books.
Last edited by ThunderDan; 03-21-2011 at 07:36 AM.
But Rodgers leads the league in frumpy expressions and negative body language on the sideline, which makes him, like Josh Allen, a unique double threat.
-Tim Harmston
2 points. The owners offered to let a third party examine actual numbers. They might even choose you if you can be trusted not to leak it to the press. What are the odds the NFLPA would not leak it to the press if they were given the information?
I don't hold Grudges. It's counterproductive.
The owners have probably offered to let a 3rd party look at some numbers, not the actual numbers behind the summaries. No one seems to know which numbers they were, but its clear it wasn't the full picture.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
About 0%. I expect if the owner's opened up their books to the NFLPA itself, I would fully expect to see the Dallas Cowboy's general ledger being tweeted, one entry at a time, from the bathroom in the hallway outside the meeting room.
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Imagine for a moment a world without hypothetical situations...
HOFer
Me neither, and like you Dan, I've also done this for a living. But, you can look at one parallel related to ROI. I've done literally tens of thousands of tax returns, and virtually NONE had a great ROI when payroll was above 50%, much less 60%. I recognize that the NFL is not a "typical" business, but, realistically, their other expenses are also high. Everything they do is 1st class. Charter flights, the best weight rooms, the best medical care, the best facilities, the best of everything.
Something has to give somewhere, and ultimately, it's got to trickle down to the ROI. How can it not?
Keep in mind that the 59.6% salaries are really just player salaries. It doesn't include any other team salary. Even backing it back down to 50% of total revenue, which is what we are told it approximates, what about coaches, admin staff, finance, IT, grounds maintenance, training staff, building personnel, and the list goes on....
It would not surprise me if some of the lower market teams have a total loaded payroll approaching 65%. That'll put a strain on any ROI analysis and you don't really need financials to figure that part out.
a counterpoint to that would be that 59.6% is the cap. Last several years, a lot of teams were well under the cap. There's also the billion or so off the top to account for. Look at the 'A CBA Math Problem' thread.
According to that, player salaries are a lot closer to 50% than 60% of Total Revenue.From PFT via the NFLPA, the percent of player costs versus all revenue:
2002: 51.87%
2003: 50.23%
2004: 52.18%
2005: 50.52%
2006: 52.74%
2007: 51.84%
2008: 50.96%
2009: 50.06%
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Imagine for a moment a world without hypothetical situations...
Isn't the players cut 59.something percent after $1 billion taken off the top? That would lead to the flowing proportion that hovers around 50%.
No longer the member of any fan clubs. I'm tired of jinxing players out of the league and into obscurity.
HOFer
Yes, that's true, I stated the 50% of total revenue figure in my post. I get the difference, but personally, I believe this debate is 90% political, and 10% financial.
Honestly, I think the NFLPA* only wants to see six or seven teams financials. I don't believe they care about the rest. Hell, the union has financial people. They understand the numbers, much better than we do, even without "looking" at the numbers. It really isn't about that.
The Packers numbers are published. I think it was reported that we rank somewhere around 9th in the league in total revenue. By any standard we're one of the healthiest teams in the league. On that basis, you know that 2/3rd's of the league has (on average) less robust financials than we do. You can see from the Packers numbers, good evidence that what the owners are maintaining is true. But, there will be exceptions. If the NFLPA* can find even one example, then, that'll be all the financial details that we will see, because the real battle is not about money.
Regarding the cap, I don't believe that some of the lower market teams can afford to spend all the money that the cap affords them. They are doing the best that they can, in the environment that they have. The NFL is really becoming the "have's" and the "have nots", in a matter of speaking. Mike Brown's world is much different than Jerry Jones' world. It's just true. The single biggest thing that most of the worlds business can control is payroll. The CBA limits that control to a certain extent. The NFL reality limits the rest. You have some flexibility in the cap, and you can cut back, some years. Not all. Eventually, you won't be competitive.
Finally, I wasn't talking about player salaries. I started there. I was talking about total salaries. That boosts the number for the team. Player salaries are the biggest component of that, but only one. Coaches salaries have skyrocketed in the past 10 years, as have GM's and scouts also to an extent. It used to be that a coach getting $2m was a big salary, now, it's $8m. At the end of the day, all I was maintaining is that there must be downward pressure on ROI, and that a reasonable person could come to that conclusion without seeing the financials. (I do believe that the very top tier of revenue teams are not experiencing this to the level of most of the teams, but they are probably the exception, and not the rule).
You can look to Miami as a great example of this. Ross is selling off little bits and pieces of the team. Why? I think he needs the cash, and it's the only way you can tap into the equity besides borrowing the money. I think there is a small bit of marketing going on in Miami as well, but I think those funds are being invested into the team to try and make it grow. It would be illogical to sell off part of your team if you didn't have a financial reason to do so. (in most cases)
I agree with your numbers, to a point. I just thought your previous post used the wrong starting point, which makes the 65% number unlikely, IMO.
You could be right, you could be wrong. I've stated before that I think the owners are trying to force the players into a game of blind baseball.
If it isn't necessarily about the money (and I think Patler tends to share your view) I'm not sure what it's about.
You use Miami as an example - but all we can do is divinate the reason for selling of pieces of the team. If the NFL has a problem, why don't they offer to open up ONE team's books - a sacrificial lamb, Mike Brown would be a good choice, he's a notorious cheapskate. Ralph Wilson perhaps, he's so old he doesn't care. Open up the one set of books, and show us that someone is in trouble.
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Imagine for a moment a world without hypothetical situations...
Didn't Jones end up paying almost three times as much as the taxpayers? I think Arlington paid $350 million, and Jones something like $900+ million.
I believe the Giants and Jets paid the entire cost, or at least most of it, with no taxpayer input.
I think the lack of available taxpayer money is a big reason the owners want a larger cut off the top. Can you imagine trying to get a municipality to build you a new stadium now or in the next few years? It might not be impossible, but it's definitely not a job I'd want. So, if you can't get it from the tax payers get it from the players.
I think much of the talk of the players getting other jobs or the owners going for the throat is more emotional than pragmatic. You could not replace the players with any where near the same quality of men, despite the fact that others would jump at the chance to play for less. If I watch soccer I watch Champions League because by watching a team like Barcelona play I see soccer played at the highest level. I couldn't even name the teams in the MLS. I mean you could also argue that if an owner doesn't like the deal they can sell the team and put their money into other business ventures. But that is not going to happen.
Remember, this is a highly successful overall business and ultimately they both need one another to make as much money as they do. And both the parties involved in this struggle are getting very rich. So, they each have strong impetus to work this out before they stifle the passion for the league.
The issue of fairness is tough to answer, because it is subjective. I mean is it fair that there are children born HIV positive in war zones while other children get to grow up and inherit the Yankees? I would say no. I'm being glib though, I know the question was posed within the scope of the negotiations.
On the players side I understand them rankling at the fact that the owners are asking them to play two more games, and give up a billion dollars when fan interest and TV dollars are as high as they have ever been.
I understand the owners making the point that if you want to be business partners than you should chip in on some of the capital costs that it takes to grow the business.
As far as what the owners make, they're going to maximize their profits within legally conscripted boundaries. They can't, for instance, sell cocaine at the concession stands. That seems fair. However, the players have much more leverage than any other pool of employees that I can think of and that's why metaphors relating to any other business I can think of aren't applicable.
I don't think anything about this is about fairness. It is about leverage. As an example, a friend of mine worked at a bond trading company in Chicago as their network administrator. He quit to move to Milwaukee with his family. They immediately had major system failures. This is obviously a huge problem if you're trying to trade in bonds. They called him and said, 'what's it going to take for you to come back?'. He told them he'd do it as a contractor for $100/hr. They agreed, things got back to running smoothly. Within a month his boss sat him down and said,'listen, I want you here, but I can't pay you as a contractor. What are we going to do about that?'. He asked for his old salary, but instead of five days a week he'd take the train down two days and be available to fix things remotely for the equivalent of one day a week. Could he have asked for this before he quit as an ultimatum? No way. Did they agree? Yup. This is leverage not fairness that is in play.
As far as what the union really wants, which Patler raised earlier, I think secondarily they want to get all the owners financials so that they can see if there are some profits being hidden as costs. But, I think the primary reason is their hope that they can cause dissension within the ranks of the owners. If every owner gets to see how much the richest teams are making that isn't subject to revenue sharing they are liable to try to get a piece of it. The Ralph Wilson's of the league can make the argument that, hey we've been saying that shared revenue drives competitive parity, which drives viewership and attendance, which drives profits. And that's a reasonably strong argument because it correlates to the most profitable period of growth in league history.
At that point, the players weaken the ownership because of division and if more revenue goes into the shared pool that would presumably raise the amount that goes toward player salaries. Which is obviously a major focus of the union short and long term.
A significant portion of that funding in each case comes from PSLs. Definitely a more targeted fund raiser than using government money, but not exactly the owner's pocket either. I think Richardson in Carolina did this for their expansion franchise stadium, didn't he? I am not sure this represents a recent change in stadium financing.
A PSL could represent a revenue source that could be tapped for other uses by the team, but I am unsure it would be as easy a sell if the funds did not go to stadium construction costs.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
PSLs have been around for 25 years, even when taxpayers were footing the bill for large portions of stadium construction costs. About half the NFL teams already have them in one form or another. Many Big 10 schools have them, but refer to them as a "priority seating surcharge" or other such nonsense. Wisconsin calls them priority seating "contributions" and they apply to only some seats, as I understand it. I don't see a PSL as any different than increasing the package prices for season tickets, its still the owner raising the money, and theoretically, in most cases, the owner is on the hook for the cost if the PSLs don't sell (although it is unlikely to happen).
Didn't the Packers have a one-time surcharge for season ticket holders as part of their renovation financing? Or did they just talk about it but never implement it?
It was $4k per seat, I believe, and yes, it was implemented at least partially. I have no idea if it was every ticket holder or not.
Partial used to make entertaining statements like this. "Well, I don't know anything about what I'm going to tell you, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you with certainty that I am right."
Is it that you don't want to educate yourself before you form an opinion and argue it as fact, or that you're not capable?
Last edited by SkinBasket; 03-21-2011 at 08:17 AM. Reason: what the fuck?
"You're all very smart, and I'm very dumb." - Partial
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