If there is no NFL this year...

G

greghammel

Well-Known Member
NCAA football will be even bigger. Do you think they would dare to play some games on Sunday? I know the NFL would not be happy about it, but would that stop the NCAA from doing it?

Heck, if the NFL doesn't play... I am even a fan of Monday Night College Football game replacement.

The NFL is really screwing up right now... both sides are being so greedy that they are both going to end up losing a lot of money. I know I am in a small percentage of people when I say that they should just keep playing with whoever they get to suit up.

Small scale, they are arguing about how to split $10. After a lock-out they will be arguing about how to split $7.

Time for the NFL owners to take a stand and tell them that the owners own the league. This is contracts and benefits available... if you don't like the payscale of our company... go find another job.

The abolute worst thing about a union is that any player who plays as a replacement during a strike will have a hard time on any team after the strike ends. Bullying and Blacklisting any player who chooses to play. The players on strike will stand in front of the stadiums with signs and yell at our children.

Get over it, come to an agreement. I think the fans should start a union, but we are so weak as a whole that we would never follow through with a threat of boycotting ourselves. Maybe if we just could concentrate on a couple weeks? Could we not go to football games for 1 week? Could we make a pact not to buy season tickets? I doubt it. I just can't see any way at all for the fans to form a union... we like football too much!
 
I really want there to be an NFL season but if they're not going to play because they're fighting over how to split 9 billion dollars then screw them...college football is better and a more exciting season anyways.

If the NFL does sit out the entire season, I would LOVE to see the NCAA take advantage. Maybe have a special game of the week Sunday afternoons where one game gets national exposure. There's always so many good games on each Saturday, you could move a big one to Sunday and have it on CBS or ESPN and you could try to rotate it so all conferences would get a fair shake. Have Ohio State-Wisconsin on one week, Oregon-Stanford the next and then Florida-LSU or Oklahoma-Texas A&M
 
Screw the NFL......College football all week long. Better football, Better fans..........who needs the greed of any of the parties arguing in the NFL deal.......not me
 
I doubt any of the networks have the guts to show games on Sunday if it meant upsetting the NFL. These are the same folks who agreed to pay the NFL $4 billion even if there weren't any games. That's how big the NFL is these days.
 
pumpdog20 said:
I doubt any of the networks have the guts to show games on Sunday if it meant upsetting the NFL. These are the same folks who agreed to pay the NFL $4 billion even if there weren't any games. That's how big the NFL is these days.
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Too bad the B10N is 49% owned by FOX.
 
Both sides are being greedy in this. The players have the right to negotiate new deals. Letting the owners just say "we own the league, so it's our way or the highway" is not much different than it used to be in baseball before free agency.

Letting one side have all the power is just not asking for good things to happen.
 
NFL player writing home-

Dear Dad- My paycheck of $2.3M just isn't enough. I thought about quitting and moving to another job. I applied to be a school teacher and they accepted, but told me that I would only be making $36K annually... who do they think I am... a FAN of the NFL? I can't afford to work for that, who can?

I love to play football, but it is starting to feel like a job. Can you believe the owners feel they should make more money than us? I mean name another company where the owners make more than the employees?

Love you Dad, your NFL playing son.
 
I could see the Pac 12 playing some Sunday games. 3/4 of the nation does not watch their games because of the time difference and this seems like something their commish would take advantage of.
 
greghammel said:
NFL player writing home-

Dear Dad- My paycheck of $2.3M just isn't enough. I thought about quitting and moving to another job. I applied to be a school teacher and they accepted, but told me that I would only be making $36K annually... who do they think I am... a FAN of the NFL? I can't afford to work for that, who can?

I love to play football, but it is starting to feel like a job. Can you believe the owners feel they should make more money than us? I mean name another company where the owners make more than the employees?

Love you Dad, your NFL playing son.
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36k as a first year teacher? I can tell you this much, this guy isn't applying in Iowa. That's about 15% too high. Maybe by year 4 or 5.
 
tm3308 said:
Both sides are being greedy in this. The players have the right to negotiate new deals. Letting the owners just say "we own the league, so it's our way or the highway" is not much different than it used to be in baseball before free agency.

Letting one side have all the power is just not asking for good things to happen.
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I have to side with the players here. The NFL has very little with intrinsic value that can't be duplicated. They have the trademarks, logos and team names, the film archive, some of the owners may have a piece of the stadiums, they have contracts with the networks. Face facts, if there is no NFL this year and the NFLPA disbanded and they got together with a private equity fund that had a few billion in cash, they could duplicate the NFL with relative ease. Of course, the team names would have to change and they'd have to find front office guys and coaches, but I think a competing league (where the players are the majority owners) is a possibility. The ratings for a two week long draft wherein all players were redrafted onto new teams would be absolutely enormous.

Normally, I side with management in these sorts of disputes because the union goons are generally just fungible labor units, but in football, the players make or break the teams. Everyone wants to see Peyton and Brady. Very scarce labor is the product in the NFL. The taxpayers built many of the stadiums and there's no reason for them to get left holding the bag in this thing.
 
If you think the NFL owners are greedy, it's nothing compared to the tv networks. There will certainly be NCAA games on Sundays if the NFL is not playing. They have to try and recoup some of the NFL money. The networks make plenty of money off the NFL, I'm quite certain they are not happy about this either and there will likely be lawsuits from them directed at the NFL too, if the lockout continues into the season.
 
okeefe4prez said:
The NFL has very little with intrinsic value that can't be duplicated. They have the trademarks, logos and team names, the film archive, some of the owners may have a piece of the stadiums, they have contracts with the networks. Face facts, if there is no NFL this year and the NFLPA disbanded and they got together with a private equity fund that had a few billion in cash, they could duplicate the NFL with relative ease. .
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You really believe that creating The Wisconsin Wombats vs the Pennsylvania Peckers has the same value as the Packers vs the Steelers? You really think that the players will make as much money in this scheme? Do you really think that television will be excited about this replacement league?
Face it... If the players did this USFL type move, the NFL would be clear to start again and you know what... I would still watch the Packers vs the Bears with whoever is in those uniforms. This new league of yours would last about 3 years before they went bankrupt and players would slowly fill back into the NFL.
Drafting them NFL players into odd teams around the nation would require a lot of new contracts, moving around, stadiums, television contracts, coaches, staffs, training rooms, facilities, transportation, services... it isn't going to happen. Nobody is a fan of the Wisconsin Wombats or the Pennsylvania Peckers.
Bottom Line: It would not be easy to duplicate the NFL. Who is going to televise their games? Who is going to watch this over replacements in the NFL when television contracts are already in place?
 
I really believe there will be NFL football this fall. We have seen this before(decertification, blah, blah, blah). We also shouldn't be so hard on the NFL for it's greediness. What about the BCS and it's corrupt bowl committees, corrupt conferences, cheating teams etc.
All sports are tainted and it really makes you question why we(myself included)support them like we do.
I know we would like to believe in the "student/athlete" and playing for the love of the game - but it's just so difficult to find those kind of stories anymore.
 
There will be a season, it may be a abbreviated, but there will be season. Too much money to be lost by both sides not to have one.
 
greghammel said:
You really believe that creating The Wisconsin Wombats vs the Pennsylvania Peckers has the same value as the Packers vs the Steelers? You really think that the players will make as much money in this scheme? Do you really think that television will be excited about this replacement league?
Face it... If the players did this USFL type move, the NFL would be clear to start again and you know what... I would still watch the Packers vs the Bears with whoever is in those uniforms. This new league of yours would last about 3 years before they went bankrupt and players would slowly fill back into the NFL.
Drafting them NFL players into odd teams around the nation would require a lot of new contracts, moving around, stadiums, television contracts, coaches, staffs, training rooms, facilities, transportation, services... it isn't going to happen. Nobody is a fan of the Wisconsin Wombats or the Pennsylvania Peckers.
Bottom Line: It would not be easy to duplicate the NFL. Who is going to televise their games? Who is going to watch this over replacements in the NFL when television contracts are already in place?
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If there were a league in which the players were granted phantom equity in their teams such that they had the same economic standing as the owners AND the top players today went into that league, they would beat the NFL with scrubs. The USFL's downfall was that they only had certain stars, like Flutie, Moon and Walker, if a new league had ALL the stars and offered equity in the team, they could continue to pull the top stars.

In terms of stadium contracts and TV contracts, a new league could land those at least for a year. The taxpayers own a lot of stadiums and they aren't going to let them sit idle. The networks would televise the best players, but they have probably signed up to some sort of exclusive arrangement with the NFL (which would probably not stand up in court and subject the NFL to treble damages in an antitrust case). The NFL would have a hard time enticing viewers when Austin Arnaud is throwing the ball to Ed Hinkle in a Bears-Packers game when a competing game featuring Peyton versus Brady was on.

The cries of poverty from the welfare queen NFL owners are patently absurd. Yeah, I get it, some proles would rather blindly cheer for a trademark irregardless of the quality of the product (similar to Apple fanboys) but a lot of people care more about seeing a good product with high quality players. Again, I would argue there is way more value in the star players than there is in the logos and team names. If a league were thoughtful in designing teams and logos and they set up the league with say 24 teams so there is less dilution of talent, they could shake things up tremendously. Additionally, if you're in that new league, you don't let the NFL fart without filing an antitrust suit. Hell, the players association wouldn't even have to do it, the mere threat of it would send the owners back to the negotiating table. Given the significant advances in technology and TV distribution, the players have market power that they did not have in 1987. I remember watching those games with scrubs and if I had been given the choice of watching Elway versus Montana or watching a Broncos-Niners game played by the scabs, I would have watched Elway-Montana.
 
greghammel said:
You really believe that creating The Wisconsin Wombats vs the Pennsylvania Peckers has the same value as the Packers vs the Steelers? You really think that the players will make as much money in this scheme? Do you really think that television will be excited about this replacement league?
Face it... If the players did this USFL type move, the NFL would be clear to start again and you know what... I would still watch the Packers vs the Bears with whoever is in those uniforms. This new league of yours would last about 3 years before they went bankrupt and players would slowly fill back into the NFL.
Drafting them NFL players into odd teams around the nation would require a lot of new contracts, moving around, stadiums, television contracts, coaches, staffs, training rooms, facilities, transportation, services... it isn't going to happen. Nobody is a fan of the Wisconsin Wombats or the Pennsylvania Peckers.
Bottom Line: It would not be easy to duplicate the NFL. Who is going to televise their games? Who is going to watch this over replacements in the NFL when television contracts are already in place?
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I'm with Fitzgerald4prez on this. Back in '06 the owners didn't have to agree to the CBA they signed. They see the salary cap keep going up and up, now they want that money back.....well it's too late.

Like every other labor dispute in professional sports, it's not players vs. owners, it's owners vs. owners, those with large and various revenue streams and those that don't.
 
It definitely seems stupid to complain about how much money you're getting paid when it's in the millions. But I'm with the players as well. Asking them to take a pay cut AND add a couple more games to the schedule? I'll never understand how the owners thought that would ever fly. It shouldn't fly.
 
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