NFL pleads poverty as union fight looms

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iHYV5B-BHW9HwdjT48vAoNpm2tRw

TAMPA, Florida (AFP) — American football clubs are pleading poverty in tough economic times while players' union leaders claim teams have never been more valuable as a labor fight and possible 2011 shutdown loom.

National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell dismissed claims of record incomes for clubs as "fiction" Friday in his state of the league address before Sunday's Super Bowl, but the NFL refuses to open its books to prove it.

"We don't have to open the books for everyone to evaluate that," he said.

NFL teams and the league have started layoffs, NFL corporate sponsors are "stressed" and clubs will reconsider ticket prices before next season as the worldwide economic collapse widens.

"We're not immune from what's going on out in the economy," Goodell said. "There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty and uncertainty breeds fear.

"It's a difficult period of time. We have to cut our costs to continue to make this business a successful business."

FULL story at link.

[mockmonkey]

1. Bailout! n/t

[underpants]

2. We did a study on this out of a textbook my final year in accounting

there are two sets of books
1. the owners
2. the players

the owners try to skew the books to include all costs including the ones 20 years out. Albert Belle (baseball player) was an example in the study. At the time he was playing for the White Sox but he had played for two other teams-he was still getting paid by all three and would continue to probably still now
this just gives you an idea about how the contracts are structured. Two elements-time and money. A 5 year 10 million dollar deal does not mean 2 million a year it could mean 5 years with 5 up front and the rest over 20 years.

The owners want to include everything they can whether they are actually paying it now or not. The players tend to want to recognize it as it is paid.

Look Steve you and me could be given an NFL franchise with a milk bottle deposit as collateral and there is no way we could lose money. TV money alone guarantees that. I could go on and on but basically this is bullshit. The NFL is a money machine. We also learned back in the 90's that the NFL and the NCAA were notoriously bad at controls-they had no idea where all the money was (this could very well have been by design :-) ) The NFL used to advertise that uniforms and such sales went to charity...they don't mention that any more because they are printing money with the unis alone.

[Confusious]

3. Don't care about either of them

Bunch of overpaid whiny premadonnas, and the owners suck everything out of the taxpayers, because the taxpayers are stupid enough to want an NFL team.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. When people are hungry, losing everything, and destroyed, who the heck cares about the NFL nt

[Deja Q]

5. Well, paying big 6- or 7-figure salaries to each player could stop...

I mean, I'd love to run around holding a ball in my hand and make that much per year.

[Taitertots]

6. Let them walk out

I hope they strike and it collapses the NFL and the players association. Then replace them with market value employees making honest wages. I'm so sick of rich people who whine about how they don't get enough money.