Monday, February 21, 2011

Haven't broken out the "something that doesn't suck" label in a while

But earlier tonight, there I was: reading a well-written and intelligent piece of sports journalism. The subject is the pending NFL lockout and Roger Goddell's warm-hearted promise that he'll take a salary of a dollar this year if the labor problem causes skipped games. Take it away, Ray Ratto:

The commissioners were, are, and will always be employees of the owners. It should be that they are paid by both the owners and players, but the owners would never share their go-fers -- not while they have so many people baffled into thinking they are running things.

Put another way, Goodell acting like the man means Jerry Richardson doesn't have to, and with Richardson's gift for loose-cannon-hood, Goodell is already worth his weight in platinum.

Ohhhhh yeah. That's good stuff.

The NFL being first to play the lockout game this time, it gets to be the first to hear the nation say with one grating voice, "Oh, shut your stupid mouths."

If only. The NFL is so popular right now that I'm pretty sure about 90% of fans are riveted to the back-and-forth between the two sides.

Everything the league has done to make the players look like the evil ones while failing to mention that this lockout is actually a referendum on the rich-owner/richer-owner dichotomy has made a joke of the coverage.

The average fan's response is unfortunately still DUHHHHH FOOTBALL FOOTBALL FOOTBALL HEY THE DRAFT IS COMING RIGHT UP IN TWO MONTHS! Ratto is 100% right though. The coverage is a fucking travesty.

So we'll say this again. If the owners want to refuse any income, then we'll say they're serious. Anything short of that, and the argument that they take the risk and should reap the rewards will be even more idiotic than it usually is.

I know I usually say this about sportswriters, but I'm going to change it up tonight: (most) owners of "big four" sports franchises are the worst people on the planet. I hope they all die broke and lonely.

Click the link and read the whole thing. It's pret-tayyyyy, pret-tayyyyyyyy, pret-tay good.

5 comments:

Jeff said...

My quick thought in reading this is - how/why would an owner refuse income by choice? Income is the result of business decisions. Aren't they giving up income by initiating a lockout?

(I'm not following the lockout mess - just reading the statement literally)

Larry B said...

If there's a lockout, the owners still get the TV money owed to them by the networks. So FOX, CBS, NBC, and ESPN will still be sending very very large checks to the league (I think it accounts for more than half the league's total revenue) which the owners will split up as usual while paying a grand total of $0 to the players. The owners lose ticket, concessions, and parking revenue but I don't think that's too big a deal to them in context.

Jeff said...

I see.

Wow, those are some shitty TV contracts. They are the only real guaranteed money in the NFL....

Thanks.

rondoman said...

Larry thats misleading. Owners would have to pay that money back plus interest if any games are actually cancelled...

Larry B said...

Mmmmm, yes and no. They get to keep the NBC and ESPN money outright. They collect the FOX, CBS, and DirecTV money now and have to pay it back over the course of the contract (which, given the power of their revenue streams, isn't really paying it back at all assuming the league is up and running again in 2012). They certainly have a lot less to lose than the players.