The NFL Doesn't Care About You

To me, the collective bargaining agreement debacle is a public relations nightmare. The owners look selfish, the players look whiny and all around the media the league is getting negative press coverage and losing the respect of its fan base, which ultimately pays for its existence.

This longstanding feud between the owners in the NFL and the NFL Player’s Association has been irritating me since day one. The owners, who make the most money by far, have proposed that they should get $2 billion (they currently take $1 billion) off the top of the $9 billion in revenue the league currently enjoys. The rest is split 60/40 among the players and the owners.

So, the way it is currently the players essentially get around $4.8 billion to split and the owners get $1 billion off the top, plus another $4.2 billion to share. Why are they so upset? They’re getting more than the owners!

Well, there are 32 teams. That’s 32 owners splitting $5.2 billion. Rosters are made up of 53 players. I’m not sure if practice squad players get a split of the money, so I’ll leave them out for the sake of this math problem for now. 

The (Sad) Math

32 teams with 53 players each equals 1696 players (1952 with practice squad). That’s a little under $2.8 million per player, while the owners are receiving about $162.5 million a piece. If you throw in the practice squad players (eight per team), the players receive around $2.45 million a piece.

That means the owners, who request the $1 billion off the top to combat their operating expenses (which the owners haven’t shown numbers to account for), get a majority of the money (per person), while the players take all the physical risks and do all the work. And they’re still asking for more.

Why Should I Care?

Okay, so why should we care? It’s billionaires against millionaires. They both make more money than we do, and we make ends meet, right? Well, yeah I guess so. But I for one love the NFL and I’m not sure what I’d do without it. I’d be a sad panda, that’s for sure.

Hey, you – look over here. Yeah, you NFL. It’s me, a fan. You know, the reason you make any money at all. Get something done for us. Not once have I heard anything about the fans in the entire collective bargaining agreement discussions.  Do us a favor and put your egos and wallets aside and get this thing done.