Howard Bryant: Upshaw and Union leave Vick to the dogs

Given the reality of professional football and what it does to men physically, anyone who got the owners to guarantee contracts wouldn't be running a union. He'd been running an extortion and rackateering business, and it would require guns, not negotiating skills.

I disagree with your first statement about the union being an affront to what you consider real unions. Pro athletes are one of the rare instances in which unionizing and collectively bargaining actually works (and makes sense). The proof is in how other unions have died off, but players salaries have shot through the roof. The players have a skill that can not be easily replaced. It gives them the kind of leverage people in much less skilled jobs don't have--why it's ridiculous for a guy manning a cash register to believe that a union can magically give him any leverage. It's why most other unions have died, but the NFLPA, MLBPA, etc. are still going strong and their players are earning way more money than they used to. This is what a REAL union looks like, JR. A union that has bargaining chips. In football, the players have less leverage, because of the injury factor, how short careers are, and how relatively easily replaced most grunts are. When those are your chips, you have no chance to negotiate the guaranteed contracts you think Upshaw is supposed to miraculously get the owners to agree to. What the NFLPA has done, though, is use the leverage the players do have (and they have quite a bit) to get the owners to fork over a huge slice of the NFL pie. The players take almost 60 percent of total football revenues, which is not just a huge percentage for "labor," but was amazing to pull off since it required the smaller market owners to agree to it without insisting that owners like Jerry Jones fork over more.

People talk about the salary cap as if the union is weak, but that cap has the owners handing over significantly more than half of what they make and it will transfer about a billion dollars between the owners and the players over the six-year life of the current extension. I don't see how this makes the union a lapdog of the owners. What was the union supposed to do, get the owners to hand everything over and declare bankruptcy? The owners have a wee bit of leverage, too, you know?

As for the retired players, Upshaw doesn't represent them. He's the first to say it. Upshaw earns a multimillion dollar salary. Those retired players aren't paying it. Upshaw is representing the people who pay him. It is sad and we can debate the morality of the current players not tossing some cash back to care for the guys who paved the way, but that is the way the world works. Upshaw has a fiduciary responsibility to represent the guys playing right now. He has no responsibility for the guy who played 30 years ago.

 

The salary cap in the case of the NFL is very rational--on the part of the owners AND the players. The NFL is the strongest pro sports league financially and has boosted its revenue to unbelievable levels since the cap, because of the parity and the fan interest it creates. A Green Bay Packers fan knows his team is at least starting out on a level playing field with the bigger-market teams each season. It doesn't mean his GM will be smarter than Scott Pioli, but it does give every fan hope. This makes guessing the final standings every year harder than it is with most other sports. That combined with some savvy marketing has kept fans more interested. That increased fan interest has led to booming revenues--the NFL is doing better than any pro sports league. As long as the players union is taking close to 60 percent of those total revenues, I would bet they don't care whether you believe they are a "house union." Yeah, the players and owners have partnered to a degree. It's just smart business. They have both gotten much richer than they would have, as a result. That would seem smart to most people.

 

No irony at all. One, Ayn Rand has nothing to do with anything.

That stupidity aside, though, I heartily encourage you and your friends to go out and start a rival league to the NFL. Have at it. You don't just get my blessing, you get my full encouragement! And if you can make it work, you get my admiration.

 

You brought up capitalism out of the blue. What was YOUR point? Red herring? I was answering you directly. What are you looking for?

There are no artificial barriers to entry stopping you from starting a football league. If you want to characterize my beliefs in pithy little statements, at least get them right. And there is a good place to start. I believe that if you can put together a product to rival the NFL and make money doing it, there should be nothing stopping you--no artificial barriers to entry, no government anti-trust exemptions... nothing. The NFL is not predicated on old-fashioned government socialism that makes it illegal for anyone to try to compete--the type you and I have spoken about on the board, and which I believe you advocate (correct me if I am wrong about that). Go to it, if you want to compete with the NFL. I am all for it.

The reason few people do is that the NFL at this point has a natural monopoly. There is nothing stopping you from trying to compete, but your chances of doing it are not good. The fact that there is not a competing league on the same scale, offering players the same kind of wealth, makes the dynamic between labor and management different than it is for 99 percent of other industries, in which there are rival businesses for labor to sell their services to. It's more than offset, though, by the fact that pro football players have a lot of leverage of their own that offsets the monopoly the owners own, due to their athletic ability. This is the leverage they use at the negotiating table. The owners can't threaten to replace them, because if there was another Peyton Manning out there to replace him with, he'd already be in the NFL. It creates an interesting dynamic that despite the natural monopoly, gives players way more leverage than most workers in more competitive industries. It's why NFL players earn the salaries they do.