How come this never happens in politics (via reader D)?
Players have written back to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, responding to his letter to them by saying: “Your statements are false.”
By the way, always remember that even if the players make a lot of money, they are still workers, at least in my book. If the negotiations impasse extends into the beginning of the season, you can be that the media will take the owners’ side, that we’ll hear a lot of “I’d play 16 games for a million dollars, heck I’d do it for free”, and that they’ll use the term “replacement player” rather than “scab”.
Yutsano
I think they tried this once. It turned into a mediocre Keanu Reeves movie. Which I fully recognize is a low bar.
Napoleon
And not only that but if tomorrow they started taking only a buck a game you would still pay the same for your tickets, but more of the money would be going into the pocket of Jerry Jones and Dan Snider (sp?).
stuckinred
Ok. time for the whiny “billionaire vs millionare” weenies to show up.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
I hear this argument all the time. My Teapartier boss:
“Athletes get paid too much!”
But it’s the free market. I thought you were in favor of all that?
“Well, people complain about bankers making too much money.”
They do. A higher marginal tax rate would set this problem aright. Or, if you want to talk about a maximum wage with the remainder redistributed where its needed throughout society, I’m all ears.
“…”
Bill Murray
@Yutsano: and sadly every time I see that movie listed as playing on cable, for a fleeting instant, I think that there is finally a show about Paul Westerberg and the gang
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
Nobody pays to see the owners own or the front office manage or the groin strokers put together tax packages for stadiums. They pay to see the talent and to wear their crap, knowing that the talent breaks down physically awfully early in life.
Hunter Gathers
You gotta love it when billionaires bitch, whine and moan about not making enough money. Oh, wait. That’s every day here in the United States of Galt.
FlipYrWhig
@Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): If bankers provided entertainment, they might be worth some money. They don’t. Furthermore, aren’t there vastly more highly-paid people in banking than in sports, Hollywood, etc.?
Dennis SGMM
Cue the footy fans with “This may be our big break.”
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
My impression is best summed up by Chris Rock:
“Shaq is rich. The guy who signs Shaq’s checks is wealthy.”
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@Bill Murray: You know about this?
http://cmomovie.wordpress.com/
FlipYrWhig
@Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): Or, to put it another way, “They get paid millions to play a children’s game! Bankers, on the other hand, get paid millions for something truly mature: trading imaginary money back and forth to one another.”
ppcli
@Yutsano: A mediocre movie, it’s true. But it must be said that Brooke Langton looked quite fetching in that cheerleader’s uniform.
[Disclaimer: I mean that in a completely non-sexist way.]
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): I’d be totally happy going back to pre-Reagan rates. And increasing the tax on capital gains by about ten percentage points. That’d be a good start.
Kirk Spencer
@Yutsano: Personally, I’d be delighted to see the capital gains get treated as income instead of getting a different (lower) tax rate. The intent was good, the execution was awful.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@FlipYrWhig: True. But from down here where me & my boss are arguing (we both run struggling businesses), the difference between millionaires and billionaires, pace Doug Hill, is academic.
In his unreflective way, he finds it easier to get worked up over the athlete wealthy rather than banking wealthy. Part of that is due to visibility, no doubt. The other part? Even though he’d deny it, it’s skin color.
eemom
ah, the lyrical beauty of lawyer-speak; gentle and lovely as the strumming of a harp.
gypsy howell
Then ask them how many decades they’d be willing to shave off their lives to play 16 games.
Dennis SGMM
@Yutsano:
Oooo, ya’ fuckin’ Commie! Raising taxes, particularly on capital gains, would stifle our nation’s booming job creation. And don’t even think about a fraction of a percent tax on stock transactions ya’ Bolshevik.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@Yutsano: I first heard the term “maximum wage” from an employee of the IRS.
He is also a crazy fundie who believes in the rapture but he’s not so far gone that he can’t see the corrosive effects of our not nearly progressive enough system of taxation.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Dennis SGMM:
Besides, tax loopholes are patriotic. Newt Gingrich said so. (No, seriously)
J. Michael Neal
@Dennis SGMM: This may be our big break.
/women’s ice hockey fan
The NCAA semifinals last night were something of a disappointment. Boston College did nothing to abuse me of my notion that what happened last week was the Gophers simply failing to show up. The final score was Wisconsin 3, BC 2, but that’s only because the Eagles converted two of the four decent scoring chances they had, on two outstanding individual plays; they had no assists on either goal. The Badgers dominated the game in every other way.
In the nightcap, the MVP was whichever Boston University trainer slipped tranquilizers into Cornell’s gatorade. I haven’t seen a more lethargic performance since North Dakota in the 2006 NCAA men’s semifinal. They made the Gophers of last week look dynamic. BU played a very solid game, avoiding mistakes. The Big Red gave them a hell of a lot of help, though, because it’s hard to make a mistake when your opponent is asleep.
Given how much I’ve been telling my father about how good the women’s hockey is, it was a bit of a letdown.
J. Michael Neal
@The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik: You tried to attach the word “seriously” to a sentence involving the word “Gingrich,” but not the word “whacked.” Bad commenter.
Yutsano
@Dennis SGMM: Da, tovarishch. Gimme my Little Red Book and bring on the proletariat.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@FlipYrWhig:
Totes. Or better still, making bets on someone else trading imaginary money.
RossInDetroit
@Yutsano:
We kinda liked it, but we were two bottles of wine past objective.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@J. Michael Neal:
Dude, women’s sports AND hockey? I’m surprised anyone would listen, that’s like a double dose of ‘Americans don’t give a fuck’ of sports.
(And I say this sadly as a Anahiem Ducks/Carolina ‘Canes fan)
J. Michael Neal
@Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): Or buying insurance on someone else’s bets on someone else trading money.
RossInDetroit
@J. Michael Neal:
One of those guys works for me now. He’s getting written up on Monday for not keeping the urinal stall walls clean. bad attitude. Dunno why.
Ed in NJ
If 67% of bankers were black, you can bet you’d be reading alot more about how overpaid they are. Heck, even in the NFL, you never hear a word about choker supreme Phillip Rivers’ $92 million contract, but people were apoplectic when Donovan McNabb got $78 million.
Roger Moore
I don’t think they’re going to wait for the impasse to extend into the season before taking the owners’ side. I’m amazed that they’ve been as objective as they have so far. Remember, this was a press that treated the 1994-5 Baseball strike/lockout as being all the players fault even after Sonia Sotomayor ruled the owners had negotiated in bad faith and granted the players an injunction.
Yutsano
@Ed in NJ: Didja know the President is
blackity blackity black black blacka Democrat too? It’s like we’ve learned nothing since MLK was shot.Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@RossInDetroit:
Gotta wipe those suckers down or they’ll rust up in a heart beat. Tell him from me.
@J. Michael Neal: Oy. The head spins.
Steaming Pile
@FlipYrWhig: And then I’d reply, “most of you pansies won’t let your children play football, so STFU.
Citizen_X
Too bad for them, then, that the sentence “Scab football sucks!” is blunt, bumper-sticker concise, and glaringly, blatantly, true.
alwhite
@J. Michael Neal:
We were so disappointed at the Gophers failure to step up against Wisc after dominating UMD the day before. The NCAA selection committee was a farce, designed to ensure there wouldn’t be an all WCHA final. Sadly, the Gophers managed to provide the NCAA with an excuse by not playing anything like they could.
When the top teams (US/Canada or MN/UMD/Wisc) play there is no better game in the world.
I am sick to death of the NFL and the way they treat the actual talent (as untouchables when they are winning and as disposable all other times) is a crime.
PKed
It’s also easy to forget that the average NFL career is only 3.5 years long.
MikeJ
@Dennis SGMM: If they played it in the right season.
virag
lots of skeletons in those ledgers, so there’s no way they want to open the books to the players. billions in tax money to subsidize absurdly wealthy owners while the average cost of attending a game for a family of 4 is widely quoted to be $500-$600. one game!
John D.
Accurately, though.
The union decertified in order to take the league to court, so any replacement players would not be scabs, as there is no union.
Roger Moore
@PKed:
And that’s a mean; the median is shorter. There are a lot of players who are drafted low or undrafted, play for a year or two, and get replaced as soon as their minor nicks and bruises start to add up. But even to get to that point they’ve put up with years of brutal hits, and their diploma probably isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
WaterGirl
@Kirk Spencer: Kirk, I have seen you here a few times lately, and each time I wonder how you are doing … I think you are the person who had some crazy bad mortgage stuff going on. Do I have that right? How are you doing?
Edit: either that, or you are the fellow who lost his kitty shortly after I lost mine. But I think my first answer was the correct one.
vtr
The players – and probably all professional athletes – most likely are 98th or 99th percentile in talent and skill development or they wouldn’t be professionals. Last NFL walkout saw a lot of “replacement players” who were pretty darn good, but after the settlement was reached only a few hung on to their jobs. Most notably He Hate Me. Pretty good but not good enough to fool fans.
Spaghetti Lee
“My own position is while the players don’t deserve all that money, the owners deserve it even less.” -Jim Bouton.
JWL
I’ve been a fan of the NFL all my life. From the age of 12, say, when my “got to go outside and play” spirit began to wane and my inner couch potato began to rear its lazy ass, I’ve possessed the patience to sit and watch entire games (and that’s exactly what I’ve done). I was also lucky enough to live a short bus ride away from 49er games throughout my childhood, and went to a lot of games.
Which is to say, I’m a die hard fan.
The players ARE the game. I’d like to see them organize themselves into co-op ownerships, and run today’s owners into the ground. I support them 100%, and if that means no football for years, so be it.
Observer
The true liberal or progressive solution would be for the legislators to remove the NFL’s exemption from anti-trust laws and also legislate that the draft is illegal, which it is and also outlaws player “trades” as illegal collusion, which again is anti-trust.
The easiest way to think about this is to imagine the next (or last time) you decide to switch jobs. See no you can’t but your employer can decide to call up it’s competition in your market and determine (this is the anti-trust part) if it makes sense for you to work for them instead. So if you work for, say, Pepsi then the call up Coke and go over all your performance reviews, salary details and Coke’s staff needs and then they do a swap if they think this makes sense. Oh, never mind you are living in NYC and Coke is out of Atlanta and you have kids…you’ll just have to uproot your family and move.
The NFL operates under the opposite of competition and before some of you go “that’s how a sports league has to work” …think of the Euro soccer leagues which conform to labor laws or the stock market which essentially was the same thing as a sports league.
Icewaterchrist
“I’d play 16 games for a million dollars, heck I’d do it for free”
I love when I hear this, especially with respect to football.
These tough guys wouldn’t literally survive an NFL game, much less walk off the field uninjured.
FlipYrWhig
I feel like the NFL and, by extension, NFL owners get way too much credit for the competitive balance of their league — thus the NFL seems more fair and equitable as a system and less likely to be dominated by deep-pocketed teams. NFL owners have done a very good job of marketing themselves as good guys rather than greedy blowhards.
FlipYrWhig
@Observer: But that’s just it: the NFL has done more than any other sports league to sell itself as the embodiment of fair play, where as many teams — and cities — have a chance of winning as possible, etc. Because freer player movement would mean less competitive balance, they get to play one kind of American mythology against another.
BombIranForChrist
Yeah, I don’t watch a lot of sports, so when I first hear about millionaire players complaining about salaries and whatnot, I don’t have a lot of sympathy.
But then the owners open their mouths, and … yeah … my attitude changes real quick.
As a dirty fucking hippie, I wish we spent as much money on teachers as we do on sports people and movie stars, but that’s just the organic cheeba talking, and the owners are still dicks.
petorado
A quick way to debunk the “billionaires v. millionaires” tripe is to look at the life expectancy and quality of life of retired NFL players due to the damage from their profession v. the owners who are living to a ripe and comfortable old age. NFL players can expect to live to 55, 22 years less than the average American male. The average NFL owner is 69.
I worked at a hospital that treated a lot of professional athletes and saw a number of younger football players walking like old men because of constant pain (not to mention the constant dependence on drugs to tolerate the discomfort.) A good many of these guys will pay a price long after their career is done. The players aren’t asking for more in this latest round of negotiations, the owners are trying to take money away from the players. The owners need to just shut up and pay the man.
J. Michael Neal
@alwhite:
Holy shit, you’re a tough crowd. They dominated UMD the day before, but they had to work their asses off to do it. Bucky not only had an extra three hours of rest from having the early semi, and are not only the best team in the country, but they dominated North Dakota team that put up a pathetic effort, and the Badgers yawned while doing it. Then, despite that, the Gophers *did* dominate against Wisconsin for 50 minutes before running out of gas. I wasn’t confident about holding that 4-2 lead after two periods, because my seats are right nest to the Gophers’ bench, and they were exhausted. Sarah Davis looked like she had died after every shift in the second half of the second period.
With eight minutes left in the game, they just ran out of gas. It was like someone flipped a switch. Wisconsin has some enormous players (Hilary Knight is a *big* woman) and wore us down. The third line’s disappearing act (seven goals all season) left Frost relying on just the top two lines. Those six forwards gave everything they had. Kelly Terry was still moving fast, since that’s the only speed she has, but there was no power behind it. I was amazed they kept Wisconsin from scoring for the first fourteen minutes of OT.
No, the disappointing part was the performance last week against BC. I think they could have beaten the Wisconsin team that played last night, though I suspect that they would have had to play a much better one had they been there.
The Gophers lose two checking forwards and a backup goalie to graduations. They have the WCHA Rookie of the Year (who I don’t even think was the best freshman on the team), and unlike her brother, she won’t be leaving for the pros this summer. I’m really looking forward to next season.
And thank goodness Megan Duggan won the Patty Kazmeier. If Agosta had taken it, it would have proven (again) that the voters don’t understand strength of schedule.
J. Michael Neal
@FlipYrWhig:
No kidding. The three guys who should get all of the credit for competitive balance in the NFL are Normal Distribution, Standard Deviation, and Small Sample. The salary cap didn’t change competitive balance at all. Not an iota. I ran the numbers on it at one point, and by every definition for that phrase I could come up with, competitive balance has been exactly the same since the cap as it was before the cap.
A professional sport with a 16 game season will *always* appear to have a more level playing field than one with an 80 or 162 game schedule.
Roy G
Let’s see how the owners respond to a Congressional review of their sweetest entitlement: the NFL’s antitrust exemption.
It’s easy to see how unequal the pro football labor situation is, but the situation is actually much worse for the unpaid serfs, er, ‘student athletes’ of NCAA football. Lots of greedy ‘owners’ to be taken down there as well.
JPL
@stuckinred: I don’t think that the term “billionaire vs millionaires” is out of line.
The majority of Americans think that football players are over paid and that the owners are not. I think that it’s okay to point out that the owners are billionaires.
The situation is ridiculous. The owners are trying to change the terms of the previous contract on profit sharing and the players want health care for life. I know that there is a lot more going on like playing additional games but imo, the owners suck.
arguingwithsignposts
after reading the excellent field of schemes blog, i have developed a generous hatred for ownersw of every sports team in north america.
maya
Practically, this would never work as they would all be right side tackles, guards, and linebackers. There would be virtually no one lining up left of center.
tkogrumpy
There are not a lot of parallels between the players union and the unions you and I know. All of the money they are fighting over is descretionary spending. The athletes deserve almost all of it, and certainly no one else should get rich from it. However you can’t compare a machinist or a janitor with NFL athletes. How many janitors hire their own personal lawyer to negotiate for them?
Linus
Why do you all think there is such a strong urge for people to defend the owners in this case? And it seems like it’s not just the media, which would surprise no one, but lots of fans, too. I was shocked at the public reaction to the negotiations between Albert Pujols and the Cardinals management.
JPL
@Linus: IMO, it’s because the players are painted as greedy millionaires rather than workers who provide the owners with lots of money.
How many times do you hear the media discuss the billionaires? The fans are just going with what they have heard.
MikeJ
@tkogrumpy:
All of them that can afford to.
Lawnguylander
Being a janitor must be a tough life but your odds of getting brain damage and dieing in your 50s are a lot lower and you can make a living as one for many years longer. I bet there are a lot of ex-NFL players who can barely walk or think straight these days who, if they could do it all over again, would choose to become janitors instead.
@FlipYrWhig:
Some immensely wealthy bankers provide me with entertainment every weekend when they put on their coaches’ hats. Stomping around angrily and yelling in the other dugout or on the other sideline because they can’t control their emotions when their kids can’t find the strike zone or cradle a lacrosse ball properly. One of these days I’m going to put some of their best performances on YouTube so their talents can finally make them productive members of society.
jl
Heard a story today that said many of the NFL players are having a hard time getting health care coverage without contract or union, no matter how much money they have.
How many players will be come Bolsheviks deathmurder collectivist progressive and support health care reform after this?
And, many players are not filthy rich, so cannot self insure effectively. There will be serious side to this story, if the strike lasts long.
Stefan
The NFL operates under the opposite of competition and before some of you go “that’s how a sports league has to work” …think of the Euro soccer leagues which conform to labor laws or the stock market which essentially was the same thing as a sports league.
The easy way to think of this is that poncing gay European football (i.e. soccer) operates as unfettered free-market capitalism, while red-blooded American football is protectionist state-sanctioned socialism.
Not, of course, that American fans can accept that fact without their heads exploding.
Lawnguylander
On the bright side they’ve almost all got some kind of chronic injury as a result of their careers that will make them eligible for one of the pre-existing condition plans that HCR created. Unless there’s some provision in the law that bars people in the middle of labor actions from buying into one. Can’t be bothered to go find out.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
i am 100% on the side of the players. the money they make doesn’t disgust me. as far as performers go, the money justin beiber and hanna montana make disgusts me..
but the owners have been laying in a marketing strategy for this lockout for three years. the players are still comparing themselves to slaves….
from a pure pr standpoint, its hard to remind folks of the core facts, especially if they are conservatives.
the owners want consessions from the players, while revenues are at an all time high, and they don’t even want to say why.
add into that, the owners obligation to seek the highest revenue possible for broadcast rights. the fact that they cut a deal to take less, in order to insure revenue even during a work stoppage. money to pay the bills on everything they have leveraged.
the team, its stadium, or anything else where the increase in franchise value since they bought it provided the financial backbone to their empire. let them deleverage themselves, its not the players problem.
Stefan
The NFL operates under the opposite of competition and before some of you go “that’s how a sports league has to work” …think of the Euro soccer leagues which conform to labor laws or the stock market which essentially was the same thing as a sports league.
The easy way to think of this is that poncing gay European football (i.e. soccer) operates as unfettered free-market capitalism, while red-blooded American football is protectionist state-sanctioned soshulism. [misspelling mandated by dread moderation]
Not, of course, that American fans can accept that fact without their heads exploding.
Stefan
However you can’t compare a machinist or a janitor with NFL athletes. How many janitors hire their own personal lawyer to negotiate for them?
If any machinist or janitor could afford a personal lawyer to negotiate for him, he’d be a fool not to hire one.
Stefan
If the negotiations impasse extends into the beginning of the season, you can be that the media will take the owners’ side, that we’ll hear a lot of “I’d play 16 games for a million dollars, heck I’d do it for free”, and that they’ll use the term “replacement player” rather than “scab”.
And then you have to explain to the “I’d play 16 games for free” guy that (a) no one is going to pay hundreds of dollars a ticket to spend several hours at a stadium to watch his fat untalented ass play, and (b) the TV networks aren’t going to be able to sell ads for games featuring him, and so won’t broadcast the games.
Corner Stone
@Lawnguylander:
If you can find 2 I will eat my hat.
Corner Stone
@Stefan: This is the fantasy of every kid turned older (won’t say “adult”). All of us at some point have said the equivalent of, “Hell! Give me $2M and I’ll tear it up doing XYZ! Then never have to work again!”
Cassidy
@jl: A lot of the minority players do. They grew up poor. They know how hard it is. It’s the white, suburban, Jeebus lovers (Kurt Warner)who side with the shittiest people in our country.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@jl:
Damned straight. And once their careers end, all the expenses for those extra surgeries on knees, shoulders, backs, necks and hips come out-of-pocket. They’re quite un-insurable.
Roger Moore
@J. Michael Neal:
No the guys who really deserve the credit are Public Relations and Fawning Press. For all the claims about the NFL having great competitive balance, it’s funny how often you see dynasties there. The Patriots have been to the Super Bowl 4 times in the past 10 years, the Steelers 3 times, and the Colts twice, and those three teams have won 6 of the 10 championships. Somehow, this is treated as being a great example of competitive balance, but baseball is supposed to have a problem.
I guess this isn’t surprising. The NFL gets a free pass on all kinds of stuff. Just by a casual observation of their players, one would assume the NFL has a serious problem with performance enhancing drug abuse. If the press were doing it’s job, or if it were reporting on any other sport, it would recognize that the testing policy is toothless and treat the occasional player who’s caught as the tip of the iceberg. Somehow, though, the NFL gets a free pass, players with grossly abnormal physiques are treated as unexceptional, and the occasional player dumb enough to get caught is accepted as proof that the tests work.
RossInDetroit
@Stefan:
I’ve been both a machinist and a janitor. Lawyers? Only if the other option was going to be jail.
As far as job negotiations go I had one yesterday for a promotion. The extra pay for much more difficult work and lots more ‘casual’ (unpaid) overtime won’t buy an extra Starbucks venti per day. Luckily my only work injuries in the last 2 years still allow me to walk.
ranger3
You wouldn’t do it for free. Not if you had the skills these players have, worked as hard to develop those skills, and then took the risks these guys take. No way. You’d be a fool to do it for a dime less than you deserve.
jl
I do not care much for this ‘American futbol’ sporting association, whatever it is, so am not particularly worried about what happens with the strike.
Except, I hope the less rich and non rich players can get insurance (and I will try to remember to look into why the new health insurance regulations don’t seem to be helping some of them find insurance, if that story is true. It may not be, since I am sure some PR rump operation remains from the players association).
As for sporting franchise owners, I do not see how anyone can sympathize with them. Most of them are filthy rich, most of them are stingy and/or full mental jackasses, and I think it has been that way for about 130 years in the US, which is coincidentally or not, the whole history of US professional sports.
jl
Except if the 49ers can remember how to play football, I might care again.
As a very very bitter ex Raidahs fan, I look forward to their messes, for the black tragicomic relief of it. Which is bad of me, and I will pay some karma for it. But that is the way it is.
JWL
Mike Silver (of Yahoo sports) weighed in on the owners a few days ago:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ms-how_to_run_a_business_communist_party_style_031711
jl
@JWL:
Nice title:
How to run a business, Communist Party-style
Dennis SGMM
@RossInDetroit:
Same here. Back in the day, top machinists earned good money. I didn’t need to negotiate anything because they paid me fair wages. My employers made good money too – it’s just that they decided that they could make even better money by sending the work overseas. Still have my rollaway and my top chest and all of my tools just because they helped me keep a roof over our heads and food on the table for more than twenty years.
Citizen Alan
@Roy G:
Is there any serious chance that the NFL antitrust exemption is in danger from this Congress?!? I would assume the Repukes would abolish the Sherman Act tomorrow if they could.
Citizen Alan
@Linus:
It is because increasingly the American people have been indoctrinated into viewing the wealthy as a higher form of life to whom the peons should defer. Players are typically from a lower class background, and therefore their wealth is unearned and an example of rising above one’s station. I got that when I finally realized out what the Tea Party was actually all about: Imagine a peasant, who has spent his whole live working in the fields and groveling whenever a noble rode by in a carriage, and who gets angry at the freedman who won’t even take off his cap and furious at the beggar to whom the rich man occasionally throws a copper piece. That’s the modern Tea Bagger.
Citizen Alan
@Corner Stone:
That’s a valid point. Honestly, if I had to choose between 20 million in the bank, my kids all going to top schools, and living in a mansion before dying at 56, or slaving until I’m 67 at minimum wage, knowing I’d never be able to provide a decent life for my family and that after retirement, I’d have another ten or so years of trying to get by on SS benefits until I finally died poor, well sign me up for an NFL jersey and all the concussion I can stand.
alwhite
@J. Michael Neal:
What got us what that they played flat-footed the whole game. Wisc was always out-skating them, when they did complete a pass they were not moving & turned it over. While they did get the lead early they seemed to just be holding on. But yeah, Gopher fans are spoiled!
Chet
@J. Michael Neal: And the funny thing is, even with all those structural “parity” advantages, the NFL has brought championship titles to fewer of its cities than MLB has over the last decade.
NFL: Ravens, Patriots (3), Buccaneers, Steelers (2), Colts, Giants, Saints, Packers
MLB: Diamondbacks, Angels, Marlins, Red Sox (2), White Sox, Cardinals, Phillies, Yankees, Giants
Chet
@Roger Moore: Notice, too, how even after the police-blotter escapades of Ray Lewis, Pacman Jones, Michael Vick, Ben Roethlisberger, et al., nobody ever thinks to hang the NFL with the “thug league” label that’s so often affixed to the NBA.
The NFL is to America’s sports landscape as the GOP is to her political one: the equivalent of a secular state religion, with all the boot-licking deference and freedom from critical scrutiny that implies.
Stefan
Which is exactly why unions were formed in the first place.
I’ve been both a machinist and a janitor. Lawyers? Only if the other option was going to be jail.
Right. One janitor can’t afford even a bad lawyer. 50,000 janitors banded together in a union can afford a great one.
Stefan
NFL players can expect to live to 55, 22 years less than the average American male. The average NFL owner is 69.
If the average NFL owner is 69 at present, that means that their life expectancy is probably around the 80-85 year mark. So all in all they’ve got 25-30 years on their players.
FlipYrWhig
@Linus:
In particular negotiations, it’s because the team is the city.
I find it much harder to explain why people defend the owners as a group, across the board, in all sports. I think it’s just that athletes seem to live a charmed life — they’re rich, they’re strong, they’re fast, they’re handsome — and people don’t like that someone who already has all those advantages over them is also still trying to negotiate to get more. Furthermore, to be successful in business, to the point where you _own_ a sports team, I think seems to people like something you’d have to work hard at, while athletes seem to be born that way. The thinking is sort of like, “I could never be LeBron James, because he’s a freak of nature, and he’s damn lucky to be that way. But the guy who pays LeBron had to work hard his whole life in some kind of corporate job, like I do.”
That’s my best attempt to explain. I think it’s screwy myself.
Lawnguylander
@Corner Stone:
Dave Duerson and Mike Webster. Bon appetit, douchebag.
Matt
@FlipYrWhig:
I think I would pay $50 a seat to watch the brass of Gold Man-sacks take on an NFL defensive line… ;)
RossInDetroit
wrong thread. Never mind.
Roy G
@Citizen Alan you’re right it won’t go anywhere, but Conyers is calling a hearing, and having some light on the issue will be something in the right direction.
J. Michael Neal
@alwhite: I’m pretty sure you didn’t watch the game. For 50 minutes, the Gophers controlled it. That they were ahead wasn’t a fluke. Oddly enough, I’ve had some confirmation of that this weekend. I’ve had lengthy chats with the father of Brooke and Brittany Ammerman and the family of Mallory Deluce. All of them agreed with my assessment of that game. They did say that wearing us out was an anticipated strategy, because Wisconsin is so deep. But we scared the hell out of them.
Minnesota was holding on for the third period. That I agree with. In fact, that was the thesis of my original post. Even then, though, they controlled the first ten minutes of the third. The Badgers couldn’t get any offense going, and when you’re protecting a two goal lead, that means that you’re controlling the play.
Minnesota played some epic games with Wisconsin this year. The series at Ridder in November was fluky. The Gopher win on Friday was one of the most ridiculously sloppy games I’ve ever seen two good teams play. The next night, Wisconsin buried us. But the Minnesota team that went to Madison in late January had put itself together. They only collected one point that weekend, but that was entirely due to the habit they had for much of the year of forgetting to play the first ten minutes of the game. After that, those were very even games.
If your argument is based upon the shot totals, you not only weren’t watching the game, you also aren’t familiar with the two teams. Wisconsin takes a ton of shots from the outside. Minnesota takes a lot fewer, but most of them are from close in. There were a number of games this year, against inferior opponents, that the Gophers won big while being outshot almost 2-1. It’s the way they play. (This is quite aside from my suspicion that Noora Räty’s save percentage is padded by the official scorer at Ridder being very generous in awarding the other with shots.)
So, sod off. Are Minnesota fans spoiled? Yeah. I’ll agree with that. It doesn’t change the fact that they outplayed Wisconsin for 50 minutes, but just couldn’t finish the job. It had nothing to do with being flat-footed, and everything to do with being exhausted.
Chet
@FlipYrWhig: Add to all that the fact that an increasing percentage of the players in sports like football, basketball, baseball, etc. are nonwhite.
Captain C
@maya: You’d have to have a center-eligible very unbalanced line. Sort of like the wildcat on many steroids. The defense could either just redefine right and left or all line up to the right of the ball from their perspective.
Chuck
@Bill Murray:
There is. It’s called “Color Me Obsessed”
Check it out.