Time to outsource the NFL?

In honor of Fox televising the UEFA Champions League Final

match (and of course the utterly insane flopping that would make Vlade

proud), I thought I would talk about some major flopping going on here in the states. The NFL players union is flopping around on the floor crying foul as we speak. Yesterday, Drew Brees announced he has had enough of the owners and decided to air some grievances in public. Let me start by saying I don't care about the player’s gripes or the owner’s profits. I really don't care. I have tried to care, but I am unable to muster any concern for either side. I may be in the minority on the national level, but to be honest the only measure (albeit miniscule) of sympathy I have is with the owners.

Historically unions have served an important purpose in bringing some measure of equality to the workplace. The imbalance comes when unions demand so much of their employers that they find it easier to outsource to India than to deal with unions. I am sure that

no one in the states wants to see the NFL outsourced to India. You are a member of a union, because you are not wealthy enough to be the owner. It doesn’t matter how your particular owner got control of your team or business, all that matters is that they do in fact own it. Owners have the right to make profits without apologizing for it. As for unions, they always end up top heavy. Those running the union ask those at the bottom to risk everything while they themselves continue to make their money even in a time of layoffs and recession. So here we are, with Drew Brees running about the country on his righteous crusade seeking end the tyranny of those horrible NFL owners.

In case you missed it, here is what Drew Brees had to say. As you can see Drew Brees is convinced that ownership had the audacity to take advantage of Gene Upshaw’s death by pinning the leader-less billion dollar players union in the corner and bilking them for more money. While I don’t agree with Drew’s impossible theatrics, I can see how the players union was in a tough place after Upshaw’s death. It’s not like the players had the resources to hire a solid representative to look after their interests. They were sadly forced to accept a public defender from the district attorney’s office to try and get them a suspended sentence and public service.Wait…sorry I accidently turned the channel to Law and Order.Come on Drew. You are trying to tell us that the millionaire’s players club couldn’t secure decent legal representation on short notice? Let’s be real for a minute. The average guy who packs up his tools in the truck and shuffles off to a job every morning isn’t going to feel any sympathy for your misfortune, and here is why.

In 2009, the owners paid out 834 million dollars to players selected in the nfl draft’s first round. No, that is not a typo and yes you are reading that correctly. Those 32 players selected in the first round of the draft signed contracts and received signing bonuses totally over 800 million dollars. Of that amount $462 million is in guaranteed bonuses. Hey Drew, tell me again how it is the owners that are sucking the life out of the NFL. Drew Brees and the players union have somehow seen fit to be just fine with this imbalance and idiocy for years but suddenly they are trying to pin their own creation’s stupidity on the owners. Huh? Owners that are willing to dole out that kind of scratch for unproven commodities are obviously not unwilling to spend money.

I did some research on the pension plan offered by the NFL. Players receive between $3000 and $5000 annually per year in the league. So, my quick math skills tell me that if a player plays 5 years in the NFL he will receive between 15k and 30k annually. That may not seem like a ton of money, but the average income in the United States is just under 41k. So, if you take that total combined with a job at a fast food restaurant you find yourself smack dab in the middle of average. The NFL pension plan includes more that just money mind you. The NFL pension plan also includes medical coverage, research and care. You can read more about rule 88 and the Rozelle plan here. Last year there were a little over 3100 claims for annual pay outs from the pension fund.

I am not insensitive to the player’s plight here. I see how they might want to protect the retired players and offer them more income and coverage, as they themselves someday will have to live on their “meager” earnings. The players will tell you that the average career for an NFL athlete is less than 4 years in an attempt to garner your sympathy, but I just don’t see how that argument carries any weight. If you remove the 50 picks in the 6^th and 7^th rounds of every draft that play less than one year that average jumps up considerably. Also, aren’t we forgetting that their football talent should have gotten them a college degree that they can lean on after life in the NFL? If a player plays a couple of years, barring catastrophic injury, he should be more than capable of taking the money he earned, and coupling that with his college education he should have more than enough to build a great life with. Right? So what exactly is the NFL Players Union fighting for? Are they fighting for the athlete that was too foolish during their college tenure to actually learn in class? Or maybe the athlete that was too foolish to invest in their own retirement during a time in their life when they were making a ton of money? I am not sure exactly what they are fighting for beyond their own greed. Isn’t that exactly what those horrible owners are fighting for as well?

If you want me to believe that you care about those retired players, prove it. If the NFL Players are really a brotherhood, you can start by capping those ludicrous rookie salaries and use all of the extra money that the owners have proven they are willing to spend by putting it into the pension fund. Call it the Hello/Goodbye matching funds pension plan. For every dollar spent on the first round picks, a dollar is given to the pension fund. You could simply cap the first round at 400 million, that’s a paltry 13 per pick I know, and use the remaining 400 million for the pension fund over the life of the contracts. Also, you could take a percentage of all signing bonuses on all new NFL veterans contracts and put it into the pension fund. Plus, you could make paying into the pension fund a mandatory expense for all players who draw a salary in the NFL. If you, as the players, are unwilling to take these kinds of steps I have to believe that you are no better than every other union in the world. For every dollar you get the guy at the bottom you are pocketing five. You may start with the right ideas, but you end up with those at the top making all of the money and those at the bottom getting completely used as pawns in your game of greed. Last I checked Mr. Brees, you are at the top.