Fox does a point/counter point.
The players proposed three weeks ago to split it down the middle. That prompted the owners to act like scorned 4-year-olds on the playground and get up from the negotiating table. That’s pathetic. The players deserve 50 percent of all revenues. They are world-class athletes performing at the highest level. It is supply and demand. The game has never been better or more popular, and that’s because of the players. We pay to see the players. We watch to see these compelling sporting events. We get mesmerized by Tom Brady, Andre Johnson, Troy Polamalu and Clay Matthews. They deserve it.
And I don’t want to hear the mismanaged, clueless teams like Cincinnati or Buffalo complain that the system isn’t fair. Here’s an idea: Go sell naming rights for your stadium. It’s idiotic to say there is a divide between the big-market and small-market teams. Green Bay just won a Super Bowl. Indianapolis is managed brilliantly. There’s a divide between intelligent and moronic management. As a result, the owners aren’t all on the same page, and that’s a huge problem in these negotiation
The owners aren’t looking to fund and build any new ones (and pay the massive mortgages on them) until the players agree to share a bit more of the financial return. Fans don’t want to hear about the financial minutiae of this “billionaires vs. millionaires” war, but the way the owners and players split the annual gross revenue ($9.3 billion is the expected figure from the 2010 season) heavily favors the players.
The owners feel that they got burned with the 2006 CBA by not reading the fine print, and they want to ensure they learn from their mistakes. Though the owners have refused to open their books and it’s assumed that none of the 32 teams is actually in the red at the moment, it’s understood that under the current business model, they quickly would be headed down that path.
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