NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement-2006

[HairOnFire]

As to the specific issue of PBS naming rights, I regard that as a bullsh*t prop being used by buttheads like Snyder. Even if Mikey were to sell the rights, that would bring in maybe $1-2 million a year, hardly enough to matter. But it's a big, obvious issue they can use to smear Mikey.

EDIT: Coda to the naming rights issue: the rights were indeed sold. The purchasers name? Click here and scroll down. (.pdf)

Need a little help here. My computer locks up when I attempt to follow the link provided. In fact, my computer locks up everytime I see the Adobe Acrobat logo. Never mind though, just tell me who purchased the naming rights to PBS.

[ArmyBengal]

Here's what it said about PBS...

NAMING RIGHTS

When Bengals owner Mike Brown obtained the rights to name the stadium, he opted to name the stadium after his father and founder of the franchise- Paul Brown. Naming rights were valued at $16.7 M over a 30 year period with a percentage to be paid to Hamilton County. Instead, the Bengals paid $5 M to the county and waived the potential income. Brown stated, “With so many stadiums being named for enterprises that have nothing to do with the game, we decided it was time to make a statement. This honors the tradition of our game. I remember how my father never made a speech or endorsed a product for money. He did that for a principle, and we stood up for a principle by having the stadium reflect his name and the tradition he represents. Although the Bengals did not sell the naming rights to the stadium, that didn’t stop them from making a deal with Provident Bank in December of 1999 that allows the Cincinnati- based bank to include its name and logo above both scoreboards and on the stadium marquee facing downtown. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but experts estimated the deal cost Provident Bank between $1 M and $2 M.

WHODEY !!!

[HoosierCat]

As to the specific issue of PBS naming rights, I regard that as a bullsh*t prop being used by buttheads like Snyder. Even if Mikey were to sell the rights, that would bring in maybe $1-2 million a year, hardly enough to matter. But it's a big, obvious issue they can use to smear Mikey.

EDIT: Coda to the naming rights issue: the rights were indeed sold. The purchasers name? Click here and scroll down. (.pdf)

Need a little help here. My computer locks up when I attempt to follow the link provided. In fact, my computer locks up everytime I see the Adobe Acrobat logo. Never mind though, just tell me who purchased the naming rights to PBS.

Mike Brown, of course! The stadium lease deal, in one of the apparently few sops to Hamilton County, gave them the right to auction off the naming rights and receive the proceeds. Mike won the bidding with a $16.7 million offer over 30 years. Afterwards he negotiated that down to a 1-time payment of $5 million and a waiver of future income from naming rights (not sure if he waived rights or the county waived rights, the pdf is vague on that; if the former he could probably sell them and collect the dough himself, if the latter any monies from selling the rights again would go to HC). But the bottom line is that PBS is named PBS because Mikey paid for it to be called PBS.

[HairOnFire]

Mike Brown, of course!

Wow, I think that was the longest pause between a joke and it's punchline EVER.

Thanks, Adobe Acrobat!

[BengalPappaw]

I can't wait to hear Mikee's explanation.

Hope it is better than the one I heard from Wilson -- Wilson said he didn't understand the proposal.

What I didn't like were some comments about the small market teams "just sitting back and raking in the money from the big market without actively marketing."

I wonder if this was a shot at the Bengal.

Oh, wel, we've got more money -- now lets see if Mikee lets Marvin spent it on some PLAYERS.

[schweinhart]

If it does blow up based on the revenue sharing -- which if I'm understanding this right has no direct connection to the language of the CBA document itself -- it's solely because of the owners.

Well now it looks like the revenue-sharing issue is indeed tied to the new CBA proposal.

ESPN ...

Upshaw tied a revenue-sharing demand to his six-year proposal because he wants to make sure the lower-revenue teams will have enough money to spend on players.

Chris Mortensen just said on ESPN that it is in fact written into the proposal, that the owners must come to a revenue-sharing plan that is acceptable to the union.

As I suspected, this has been the major hold up all along yet the owners not only refused to deal with it until now, they actually tried to cover it up.

IMO, the owners have been fundamentally dishonest with the Fans concerning this whole matter.

If the NFLPA laid down some law on the sharing of local revenues among the owners, it must've been through language that was more general than specific. The reason for thinking that is the owners "melded" in the words of Tags, the Jet-Patriots model of local revenue sharing -- that proposed 25% of those revenues be pooled from each team and distributed to low-revenue teams -- and the Steelers-Ravens plan -- that Clayton has wrote would significantly expand the $40 million existing pool of shared local revenues.

IOW, those specific numbers and how the money will be distributed were worked out by the owners without any further approval needed by the NFLPA.

Tags said those numbers are $500 million total over the first 4 years of the deal and a proportionately higher number of millions over the last 2 years to get to a total of $850 to $900 million in "incremental revenue sharing." Tags went on to say the sharing is rated with the Top 5 local revenue generators providing the most followed by the second tier of the next 6 to 10 and a lesser degree by teams 11 to 15. Tags said those teams would pay "differing proportions to fund the lions' share of the revenue sharing."

Also interesting was that he said the melded proposal was sponsored by 9 teams -- the Jets/Patriots with their model, the Steelers/ Ravens with theirs and the Giants, Panthers and Broncos for proposing to Tags that the 2 models get melded. After that, the Falcons and Cowboys attached their endorsement and brought the thing to vote.

For now, it boils down to a salary cap for 2006 that Tags said is at $102 million and Upshaw said may be as high as $103 million.

[HoosierCat]

Just as a note, there was this buried in a C;layton piece from earlier (pre-deal):

One of the concerns Wednesday morning was the support for the low-revenue clubs. If the deal passes, the 2006 cap is expected to be $102 million, and could be $109 million in 2007. Though player costs will be reasonably fixed because of a cash over cap formula that prevents teams from dramatically outspending other teams, some of the low-revenue teams are concerned that this deal will cost too much.

Bills owner Ralph Wilson sounds like an owner who will vote against the CBA. He's troubled by the numbers. He related a conversation between former Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley and former baseball union leader Marvin Miller.

"Walter told Marvin, 'Don't steal it all at once. Just steal a little bit at a time,'" Wilson recalled.

Wilson says this deal takes too much, and it troubles him.

It caught my eye because it quoted Wilson. In the end, it may be that he and Brown weren't objecting to the revenue-sharing plan (and from schweiny's description I can't see why they would since they'd benefit) but to the CBA -- namely that it represented too much of a giveaway to the players. That would certainly be consistent with standard Bengals negotiating procedure, which starts with the premise that you can never offer too little.

[schweinhart]

FWIW Bills owner Ralph Wilson just said he didn't vote in favor of the deal because he didn't understand it. He said he didn't think he was a drop out, but maybe he is after all -- his words on the NFL Network. His main beef seemed to be he only had 45 minutes to decide how to vote after all the revenue sharing calculus was presented. Hard to blame him for not wanting to jump in on faith but somebody there should've been able to prepare him better for what was coming.

It'll be interesting to see what Mike's take was -- if it ever gets publicly issued.

[schweinhart]

It caught my eye because it quoted Wilson. In the end, it may be that he and Brown weren't objecting to the revenue-sharing plan (and from schweiny's description I can't see why they would since they'd benefit) but to the CBA -- namely that it represented too much of a giveaway to the players. That would certainly be consistent with standard Bengals negotiating procedure, which starts with the premise that you can never offer too little.

That is most likely true -- they both probably had some aversion to the coughing up that much to the players.

But there's also another % that probably caused Mike some heartburn if I heard Tags right -- teams can spend up to 65% of their own revenues on cash over cap. That 65% figure followed a media question I couldn't quite make out but it followed right after Tags said their was an objective standard set for cash over cap -- he just didn't say the % at first. If that's right, that's a far cry from the 2% flat of the cap itself that had been floated at first. But the 5-year signing bonus (except for 2007--6 years) ought to take some of the sting out of that for the low-revenue teams. Still, that leaves teams with cap slash and burn practices at the high end of the revenue spectrum to spend a whole lot of money on player contracts.

[HoosierCat]

It'll be interesting to see what Mike's take was -- if it ever gets publicly issued.

I'm thinking it's probably something like this:

Like any big corporate meeting, you end up getting split up into "working groups" tasked to come up with a solution to some problem which you will then present to the main body. So here's Mikey. He's been living in a hotel at the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport for two days. To begin with he's ticked off because this hotel costs $300 a night and he could have stayed at the Red Roof Inn 45 minutes away for $49.95 and collected points on his RR Card. And now he's been sitting at a boardroom table for who knows how many hours and his 'roids are acting up.

At the other end of the table, Ralph Wilson is struggling to recall his second-grade multiplication tables and how to calculate percentages by hand. He has a calculator, but it's a solar powered model and Al Davis won't let him open the windows because it would interfere with his creating a legion of undead zombies like himself (on his way in he struck a deal with DFW airport brass to create the mindless animated corpses as TSA staff, no one would notice).

Tom Benson, wearing about 200 bead necklaces and still several sheets to the wind from Mardi Gras, keeps alternating between bitching about how slow things are going and how it's keeping him from getting back to his room where there are six co-eds filming the latest New Orleans "Girls Gone Wild" video; and vowing to vote no to any deal unless it allows him to move to San Antonio.

Meanwhile, Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder are huddled at a corner cocktail table in hour 36 of a game of Monopoly being played with real money. Jones, sleep-deprived, keeps rocking back and forth between rolls, humming disjointed fragments of bad country music. Snyder keeps muttering something about wanting to get the game over so he can go back to Duckburg and swim in his money vault.

Bob Kraft is supposed to be in the group but he's holed up in his room lobbying George Bush to invade Russia so he can get his Super Bowl ring back.

And the final member of the group, Jacksonville owner Wayne Weaver, has been sitting in a corner sucking his thumb the whole time. He was the first in the room, saw a bunch of empty chairs, and just collapsed to the floor muttering, "the horror, the horror."

Mikey vote no? Can ya blame the poor guy?

[schweinhart]

No doubt -- it is a motley crew!

And the undead zombies -- jeez -- old Uncle Al looks like he should be cast in the next remake of Dawn of the Dead. Before it's too late!

At least one of the owners really should have demanded that Kraft's ring finger be put on the table and left there when the deal was done!

[HairOnFire]

Snyder keeps muttering something about wanting to get the game over so he can go back to Duckburg and swim in his money vault.

[HoosierCat]

Snyder keeps muttering something about wanting to get the game over so he can go back to Duckburg and swim in his money vault.

Somehow, I thought if anyone would get that one, you would. The real ??? is, is Joe Gibbs Huey, Dewey, or Louie?

[JPW]

IOW, those specific numbers and how the money will be distributed were worked out by the owners without any further approval needed by the NFLPA.

Well at this point I really don't think that the union would withhold their approval even if they could.

The big thing is that there is now a new agreement ...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think that it will take a few days until we find out all the details of what actually is in it but at least there is an agreement.

Wilson said that he voted against it because he simply didn't understand it and I am sure that we will all be very interested in hearing why Mike Brown voted against it.

But I am thinking that any increase in revenue-sharing has to be a plus for the Bengals.

Even though the Bengals are a low-revenue team they are near the top in profits and any increase should translate into more money that they can use to remain competitive.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jerry Jones said something to the effect that even the owners that vote for the new agreement were not real happy-campers over the deal.

So it sounds like it was a tough deal all the way around and I think that it is very unlikely that the Bengals ended up being really screwed by it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Still I will be very interested in learning the details as the actual contract is released to the public.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[JPW]

NM ...

[HairOnFire]

ESPN's Tom Rinaldi claimed that the new agreement actually makes it easier for...."a Jerry Jones or Daniel Snyder to buy a championship."

He gave almost no details to support his claim, but did mention that signing bonuses can be prorated over one additional year.

[The_Next_Big_Thing]

I think Mike Brown voted no because after reading what I have about the actual agreement, I think it looks like a complete and utter mess that is going to be a royal pain in the butt. It looks like they just faked something out, and will probably end up trying to redo it.

[skyline]

Brown speaks.

[HoosierCat]

Here lies...

Loyalty

CLAUSE

Born 2000

Died 2006

Rest In Peace

[HairOnFire]

Here lies...

Loyalty

CLAUSE

Born 2000

Died 2006

Rest In Peace

Damn, what are you guys going to gripe about now that the loyalty clause is gone?

The more details that leak out about the new CBA the more it sounds like Mike took one in the shorts. A form of revenue sharing gets passed, as it had to, but it's basically a sweetheart deal for the big revenue franchises. Loyalty clause providing additional protection from cancerous players is surgically removed. Stadium naming rights may have to be sold again, probably to a Japanese car company or a local maker of soap products, and if rumors are true Mike doesn't get to keep any of the money. Steinbach and Levi become free agents much quicker. The cost for every player signed, free agent or drafted rookie, just went up. Way up. And last but not least, the new salary cap makes all 32 teams a player in free agency this season, and increases player payroll costs by nearly 17 million from the previous year....but without changes team revenue remains the same.

If I'm Mikey boy, I'm ticket raising prices. Now.

[HoosierCat]

Damn, what are you guys going to gripe about now that the loyalty clause is gone?

Oh, you know me, I'll find something...

[The_Next_Big_Thing]

This CBA is crap. As far as I'm concerned, the loyalty clause may be gone, but they can't prevent Mike Brown from lowering salaries and offering loyalty bonuses.

[HoosierCat]

This CBA is crap.

If so, the owners have only themselves to blame. It isn't like this snuck up on them all of a sudden. That's why the whole bit by Wilson about not having time is a real howler. But they let it wind all the way down to the very end, and ended up approving a deal that isn't even officially written up yet.

As far as I'm concerned, the loyalty clause may be gone, but they can't prevent Mike Brown from lowering salaries and offering loyalty bonuses.

Loyalty bonuses? Just how would you get those? Do you have to take a loyalty oath? Genuflect each time you walk in front of a Brown family member? Remember to send them birthday cards? Give them your firstborn?

(See, Hair, told ya I'd find something! )

[BengalszoneBilly]

Brown speaks.

Whew! Wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I'm relieved that it's over and life in the NFL can resume.

First, free agency. Then the dreaded...

[The_Next_Big_Thing]

This CBA is crap.

If so, the owners have only themselves to blame. It isn't like this snuck up on them all of a sudden. That's why the whole bit by Wilson about not having time is a real howler. But they let it wind all the way down to the very end, and ended up approving a deal that isn't even officially written up yet.

As far as I'm concerned, the loyalty clause may be gone, but they can't prevent Mike Brown from lowering salaries and offering loyalty bonuses.

Loyalty bonuses? Just how would you get those? Do you have to take a loyalty oath? Genuflect each time you walk in front of a Brown family member? Remember to send them birthday cards? Give them your firstborn?

(See, Hair, told ya I'd find something! )

For a loyalty bonus, I'd set players salaries up as you got your signing bonus, now here is the league minimum pay. You'll make a lot more if you perform. You'll make even more if you perform without causing problems for the team. End up in the press with negative publicity for my team because you think you can hide dope in your shoes and drive without tags, you're going to lose some of your bonus. Say you don't want to play for your team, your going to lose a lot of your bonus. Be a good mature adult player, be a leader on the field, in the locker room, and in the community, and you stand to gain more money than you would anywhere else in the league.