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| NFL Football/Courtesy: supernfl.com |
So let's get this straight. The billionaire NFL owners and the mega-millionaire NFL players are about to shut down the league because of a strike. And there is a third player in this, the TV Networks who broadcast their product.
All are crying over revenue splits. Not that they are about to go out of business. Not that any of them are poor. And not that any of them are going to be unemployed. No...they are crying about how to split up the billions of dollars that NFL Football generates.
Can someone explain again to me, why I should be happy with this?
The supposed cornerstone of the "Debate" here is the owners wanting an extra $1 billion of the profits that are currently going to players.
Again, can someone please explain how me...or anyone else making "5-figures" a year is supposed to get emotionally involved with this? How do we relate to these "Gazillionaire's"? Is it an example of why the rich get richer and the rest of us pay for it? It sure seems that way.
We'll blindly and gladly hand over $75 for a seat at an NFL game and pay $10 for a beer that you can get for $2 at the corner bar. We'll suffer through the stupid, falling down, barf on other people fans who curse at each and every play in front of our kids...because that's what we do.
Read a summary of where we are about to tread from the Washington Post RIGHT HERE
Here is a question? Is this getting so much play due to the league's popularity? Or because the networks and media conglomerates stand to lose a whole lot of money if they don't have NFL games on TV? Ok, that's actually 3-questions...sorry. Prepare yourselves. You are about to get "Up-Close and Personal" with a lawyer named DeMaurice Smith. You are also going to hear from a battery of NFL Type lawyers and even more, a battalion of "Legal Experts" trying to explain all this on ESPN.
Sure, the league and its players are "Meeting" today with an arbitrator to try and come to an "Agreement" before the self-imposed deadline of Friday. And that's swell. I'm happy for them. But I have another related question. State's are trying very, very hard to take all the teeth from and restrict any collective bargaining rights that teachers, government employees and other unionized workers have. But nobody is willing to tread into the NFL's battle.
How is it that when the "Million or Billionaire--rich and famous are involved", we are all expected to be sympathetic? It wasn't that way in 1988, the last time the NFL had a strike. It wasn't that way the last couple times Major League Baseball had a strike and it sure wasn't that way the the NHL had their strike.
And yet we are supposed to be crestfallen. We are supposed to be petrified that we may not have NFL Football to watch on Sunday's this fall. We are supposed to cower in fear that there may not be a quick settlement and the disagreement could drag out for more than a year.
No. We shouldn't. But we'll be told that we should. And we'll believe it. Yeah, in some parts of the country it will create withdrawal symptoms. The Northeast lives, eats and breathes their NFL Football. But in most of the rest of the country, you've still got college football. And that ain't so bad.
No, somehow, someway, we'll live without NFL Football. We'll live without seeing Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers. We'll survive without Rex Ryan and Bill Belichick or however you spell his name. Unlike baseball and hockey, which had to deal with the backlash of their strikes, we'll come back to the NFL. We've done it before.
We'll survive and when they come back, the people will come back. En masse. Because that's what we do.
If you want to know what happened the last time we had this discussion...it helped spawn this movie...and the legend that is....SHANE FALCO!!!!!!
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