The owners.
The median net worth of an owner in the NFL is over $1 billion. Ralph Wilson, owner of the Buffalo Bills, ranked 26th in NFL owners with a net worth of over $900 million in 2010. On the other hand, the median salary of an NFL player in 2009 was $770,000. This means that more than half of the players in the NFL make less than $1 million. I keep reading articles about how both sides are greedy and how it's billionaires vs. millionaires. However, after doing 8 minutes of research and without a degree in English or Journalism, I have just proven this not to be so.
The owners are simply greedy. They already have it made!
- They could backload players' contracts and then cut the player if his performance fell off.
- They can force a player to play for their team by franchise tagging him.
- The contracts weren't guaranteed. (Also, "non-guaranteed contract" is an oxymoron.)
And the players were fine with keeping the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) the way it was! None of the owners even needs the money. How much money is enough for one person to have? However, NFL players aren't as rich as some people think.
Think about it: a Dartmouth study found the median career length to be 4 years. Multiply this by the median salary and you get $3.08 million as the median amount of money made by a player in the NFL. $3.08 million is a lot of money. However, if you retire around age 27, you aren't going to live the rest of your life on $3.08 million. So the players have every right to bargain for more money, especially since their bodies are the commodities being used by the owners.
Another reason why the owners are greedy is that they want more games to be played. I've already pointed out that players have short careers. The owners are going to shorten the median career length of a player by adding more games to the schedule. If the owners get an 18-game schedule like they want, that means there are 2 more games a season where a player can get injured. And seriously injured players aren't useful to greedy owners.
So it's not billionaires vs. millionaires, but billionaires wanting more money, wanting to give players less, and wanting to make players work more.
-Pat the Intern
1) Before my copy-editing, you used apostrophes 3 times when you were pluralizing words. You need to reread my post from 3/15/11 (Facebook Makes Me Sad, Still), specifically the part about how apostrophes aren't for pluralization. Otherwise I will be sad and forced to write a blog post about you.
ReplyDelete2) If I had $3.08 million, I could definitely live the rest of my life on it. Guaranteed. However, that might be because I would be retiring at 28 and not at 27, so I am a full year wiser than these hypothetical retirees.
1) You might be able to live the rest of your life on 3.08 million. However, the cost of living will increase. The average life span is about 75 or so. So, you would have to budget 61,000/year or so. (I am obviously omitting taxes, interest earned, etc.) That is still pretty good money, but certainly wouldn't make you rich. I guess I should change that part of my argument. However, the point is, it's not as if every NFL player is super rich, most make a pretty comfortable living and there is no reason that owners should have more money.
ReplyDelete2) Proofreading isn't trendy anymore, Jon. And I will be damned if I'm going to proofread now that I'm out of college.