GREED IS GOOD
On this day, March 11th 2011 the NFL players union disbanded. In doing so the former players union eliminated their collective bargaining ability and have turned their financial fates over to the courts. With the way unions were treated in Wisconsin who can blame them. The same way the corrupt Wisconsin politicians blamed the poor teachers, firefighters and janitors for the fiscal woes of the state by saying they made too much money (which by the way was promised to them under contract) is the way the NFL owners are trying to say the players are making too much money. Well I'm here to write you that they are not!

At first it may be hard to understand how millionaires are making too little money and deserve more but let me illuminate the concept for you. You see the players do ALL THE WORK, well MOST of the work, the coaches do some of the work. But you know who does none of the work, THE OWNERS.

Most of the time it isn't even the owners money that goes towards paying the players' and coaches salaries. It's our money, yours and mine, the fans. Yes OUR MONEY that transforms itself through television ratings and becomes advertising/TV revenue for the league to the tune of $9 Billion, that's million with a 'B'. The owners did at some point work hard and acquired enough funds to purchase the team and on a rare occasion as in the case of the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys the owner paid out of his own pocket to build a stadium (even though some of the money still comes from us the fans)

So at the end of the day the owners don't really do much except bitch about how little money they get to keep or how the city should build them a whole new stadium with the tax payer's money, that is our money, essentially asking for a handout. Ironically most if not all owners are republicans, but I digress.

Now to the players. You see they do most of the work, the practicing, the playing, the getting injured, suffering concussions etc. You see without the players there is no league, if the players don't show up who is going to watch (although if that happens the Redskins might actually win a Super Bowl, Redskins have 2 strike year Super Bowls '82 & '87). There are a lot more millionaires in the U.S. then there are NFL players. Since we can have a foreign owner then the numbers of millionaires who can afford an NFL franchise really increase. There are over 2.5 millionaires in the US alone and over 10 million around the world, there are over 262,000 of them right here in LA county, source, http://ask.yahoo.com/20070215.html. Now not all of them can afford an NFL team but the point is that there are only 1,696 NFL players in the league. Thus it is much harder to replace a player than it is an owner. But the owners think they are special because they bought the team, NO, you're just rich.

You own a team because the other egomaniacs who see themselves in you voted you in to their little club. This standoff like all other is about money and the owners who would not allow the player to look at their books don't want to share any of it, because they're greedy and selfish, basically ASSHOLES. They think they are doing the players a favor by letting them play in their sand box. Why don't we conduct a little experiment. Lets lock out the players and see how that will affect the ratings, because it will and then we'll see how much advertising revenue the networks will send your way, which will be nothing.

Gordon Gekko in Wall Street famously said that "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." well he wound up in jail, and that's where I think these assholes, I mean owners should wind up.

And that’s my 2 cents.