It's not that simple, IMO. The teams that pump millions into new stadiums want to be able to pay back the loans that generated the additional revenues in the first place. The lower earning teams, as I've read, want to give those teams no consideration for those cash flow issues. There is greed on both sides of this ownership dilemna, not just from the richest teams, but for the ones who refuse to invest anything in their franchise too, but want a piece of the pie that the rich teams have invested to bake.
Like I said, it needs to be fair. Money spent on stadium and land improvements needs to be deducted from consideration for sure. However, if some of these teams cannot pay for needed improvements, and cannot secure funding, then the NFL has to have some way of helping those teams. Please note "cannot afford" != "will not pay for".
Agreed.... but owners like Ziggy in Minny have the money to invest. Each team has it's own individual situation.... GB being owned by the fans is in a tougher spot. The owners know that for the long term health of the NFL that parity is what makes it work..... hopefully, they can get to something that is fair and equitable, but based on Tagliabue's comments thus far, I have my doubts.
I don't believe that with less teams,each team would get better depth,what you would get is starters on other teams going to the few teams spending mega bucks to warm their bench.You'd still get these poorer players it's just they will all be on the teams that can't afford to keep up with the likes of the Skins and Seahawks. Also if it were every franchise for themselves,we'd be seeing teams in smaller markets struggle.We'd eventually see classic franchises like the Bills,Packers and Browns wither away and either collapse or move to another city. I don't want to see the NFL turn into the joke that is most professional soccer leagues around the world,with 3 or 4 teams competing with the other 15 teams making up the numbers.It's not competitive,it's not entertaining and eventually the game will be played in the owners room and not on the field. Plus i have to believe Woody wouldn't keep pace with the few mega spenders,we'd be in the bottom half of the league year in year out.I'd rather watch a mediocre team with a chance at winning than poor team with no chance.
You're right - they're not individuals as far as league-wide revenue is concerned. They're not a true partnership either. Owners don't share risk equally. Until the league starts contributing toward the debt service of individual owners, "have-not" owners can't use fall back on the argument that they are a true partnership. The money-grabbing 23 owners use this specious point about how competitive balance requires it. BAH! Then they should revisit the whole NFL partnership. Make voting shares proportionate to contibution. Open front offices to league-managed personnel. Act like a REAL franchise business, and have quality control dictated from the League office so that there's a true equality; so individual franchises can't be mismanaged fpr decades; so the lesser teams won't sap resources from the whole. If you're going to tinker with contributions into the partnership, open up the whole damn business arrangement and put everything on the table. Slothful owners. If they want more, they need to give up more.
We are one of the bottom feeding teams because our ownership has been happy with out having to do anything. Finally we have an owner who isn't distracted building a real business so he can focus on doing something to increase the revenue from the football operations. The Draft and the ownership of players through the draft for the first 4 or 5 years will keep teams from being able to hoard talent. Teams will actually be forced to draft properly and if they have a good player they will have incentive to negotiate with him before he becomes a FA. Right now teams know that other teams can't over spend so they don't have an incentive to negotiate with their own players in good faith. It's a bad deal all around.
Great post SJ. Managed competitive balance isn't really competition it's throwing an anchor on those who otherwise want to compete and would excell in order to bring them back to the pack.
