Fan House: NFL, Players Union Begin Labor Talks (no 2011 season?)

[Omaha Steve]

http://nfl.fanhouse.com/2009/06/03/nfl-players-union-begin-labor-talks/

Posted Jun 03, 2009 2:53PM By Calvin Watkins (RSS feed)

Tuesday morning, DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, met with NFL officials about saving the league.

In 2011, there might not be any NFL football.

It's hard for fans to understand why owners and players, who make millions of dollars, are having problems right now in a popular sport that gets high television ratings and has two high-profile cities, New York and Dallas, in the finishing stages of building billion-dollar stadiums.

The reality is the owners are struggling and the union doesn't believe them.

In 2006, when the sides put together this current deal, the players picked up about 60 percent of the applicable revenues.

In this current economic climate where teams have frozen staff salaries, stopped matching 401(k) plans, laid off personnel and failed to secure naming rights for new stadiums, like the Cowboys, the owners want changes.

Some owners want a rookie salary scale and for players to take less than 60 percent of the revenues. The owners also want to increase the season from 16 games over a 17 week season to maybe 18 games over a 19-to-20 week season. There would be two fewer preseason games but no guarantees that the base salaries of players would increase.

FULL story at link.

[bluestateguy]

1. Unions are for working people, not multimillionaire athletes

Working people, which has nothing to do with playing football.

[elocs]

2. The average NFL career is only 3 1/2 years.

http://www.nflplayers.com/user/template.aspx?fmid=181&lmid=349&pid=0&type=l

The average length of an NFL career is about 3 and a half seasons. Although there are some exceptional players who have long careers that extend 10 or twelve seasons and beyond, most players only stay active for about three seasons. Players leave the game because of injury, self-induced retirement, or being cut by the team. This also means that while players may make more money than most people, they are only making it for an average of three and a half years. To make sure they are successful in the future, players must invest their money well and make plans for another career when they can no longer play football.

So most NFL players do not become multimillionaires although they certainly do better than most people for a few years. As long as nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head, then football players deserve whatever money they can get--just like the rest of us.

[Angleae]

3. Even though the minimum salary of a 3rd year player is 10x the US average?

Minimum NFL salary for the 2007 season.

* Rookies and first-year players $285,000
* Second-year players $360,000
* Third-year $435,000
* Fourth-year $510,000
* Fifth- through seventh-year $595,000
* Eighth- through tenth-year $720,000
* Eleventh-year and longer $820,000

[elocs]

4. What exactly is the point? Aren't people entitled to legally earn as much as they want?

Sure, they make more money than most people, but then most people do not have their abilities in their particular choice of work. Yes, they make a lot of money, but who get to decide how much is too much. Maybe I think the guy down the street is overpaid at his union job because he makes $20 an hour and with good benefits, but that is none of my business. Everybody is entitled to make as much as they legally can make and with no extortion these players are entitled to make as much as they can just as the rest of us are entitled to do.

[zbdent]

5. what a shame ... the Browns were saying that they'll be awesome in 2011 ...