NFL Players vs. Owners

Not that I care that much about millionaires or billionaires fighting over who gets richer, which side would you support if it made a difference.

I would choose the players, since it is they who we want to see play. Owners tried using scab players years ago, and attendance fell sharply. The owners use taxpayers dollars to subsidize their businesses and enjoy a special trust exemption so they have the market to themselves.

If it wasn't for the adverse economic impact it would have on our city, I'd like to see the lockout take place.

Owners like Dan Snyder of Washington get no sympathy from me.

Players of course they get pretty beat up for enjoyment

I would side with the owners IF a win for the owners translated into lower ticket prices and other improvements that made professional football games more accessible to your average blue collar working guy. But we all know that isn't going to happen, so the issue really boils down to a bunch of greedy f*cks fighting over who gets the richest.

The whole reason the owners are trying to squeeze more revenue out of the players is because the owners can't agree amongst themselves on revenue sharing. Large market owners (Jones, Snyder, et. al.) don't currently have to share anything other than TV revenue, which gives them a much better cash flow situation than small market teams like Carolina, Buffalo, or Jacksonville. The owners as a group are whining about how much money they're losing on their (largely publicly financed) stadium deals but aren't willing to open their books to prove it--which leads me to assume they're lying through their teeth. They pay lip service to player safety but want to expand the season by two games while cutting players' salaries. And these are the same generous fellows who sold more Super Bowl tickets than they had seats and charged people $200 each to watch the game on TV in the parking lot. They've been planning a lockout for two years (when they signed the TV deal that just got shredded by a federal judge), so if games are missed it is purely and totally the owners' fault.

CORPORATE WELFARE MONOPOLY

There's yer problem right there.

Where are my free market conservatives? I don't hear any cries of "SOCIALISM!!!". In fact, it's rather quiet.

I'm sure there are lots of angles to this; but, the one thing I have heard about is the two extra games.

Some have proposed eliminating a few of the pre-season games, to make it even....but I don't think they are even worth comparing.

The trend in the league is towards increasingly hard to comply with rules, about where you can hit a reciever, etc., in the name of safety...but then the league wants the players to go two extra games? The two don't seem to compute.

I'm sure there are more items in play than just this one; but, on this item, I side with the players. These guys really get beat up by the end of the season.

(BTW, I do think the push for a longer NFL season is a backdoor way to justify a longer college season in some people's minds, which would enable a college playoff season)

CORPORATE WELFARE MONOPOLY

There's yer problem right there.

Where are my free market conservatives? I don't hear any cries of "SOCIALISM!!!". In fact, it's rather quiet. Originally Posted by Longermonger

If you're complaining about cities paying out huge amounts of money for new stadiums, I'm right there with you. I don't like it, and think it should only be done if agreed to by the people via referendum.

If you're sounding off on the latest talking point that the NFL is socialist, so there!...I've always found this to be a very strange argument.

got these nice stadiums, might as well use them year-round. how bout a 52 game schedule. a never ending season like the NBA. the owners make a lot of money and get taxpayers to subsidise them, but it's just never enough.

I would side with the owners IF a win for the owners translated into lower ticket prices and other improvements that made professional football games more accessible to your average blue collar working guy.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
That was a joke wasn't it?