Rooney. Weaver Propose Revenue Plan

[HoosierCat]

http://www.jaguars.com/story/4408.asp

Sounds sensible to me. At the very least, it's a good starting point point that based in what's already being done.

[schweinhart]

Long live collusion

Any up in shared revenues keeps the players happy with the promise the cap goes up. And the owner dregs like Jerry Jones and Snyderbrenner can pretend to gripe about the unfairness of the whole thing until they get to keep a few concessions off the board.

Just so long as some measure of parity among teams continues and there's no work stoppage, all's well.

[HoosierCat]

Any up in shared revenues keeps the players happy with the promise the cap goes up. And the owner dregs like Jerry Jones and Snyderbrenner can pretend to gripe about the unfairness of the whole thing until they get to keep a few concessions off the board.

Yup. My bet is that something along the lines of the Rooney/Weaver plan is adopted, with a few tweaks -- probably a lower percentage, like 25%, and some kind of minimum contribution level that rises slightly each year, to keep cheap teams from sponging off everyone else.

[Kirkendall]

I love Robin Hood. Great story. I'm not sure how that would be fair to all teams. Perhaps a few more bobble-head doll promotions would do the trick.

And I agree with you JC, 34% is a little too high and would never get enough popularity from ownership to pass. But if they want to have a high number, like 1/3, then there should be safeguards against the small market teams from low-balling their team's payroll to make a bigger profit.

If it's about parity, let's make it parity for all 32 and not just give the small markets another way of making a profit with the “poor me” excuse at the expense of the other 31 teams -- that, as does big payroll teams, hurts the game's parity.

[HoosierCat]

And I agree with you JC, 34% is a little too high and would never get enough popularity from ownership to pass. But if they want to have a high number, like 1/3, then there should be safeguards against the small market teams from low-balling their team's payroll to make a bigger profit.

Well, that already exists in the form of the Minimum Team Salary, aka the "salary floor." Per askthecommish.com...

How is the NFL Salary Cap determined?

 

Answer:The Cap is determined through a complicated calculation system. The Cap is based on income that the teams earn during a League Year. A percentage of that income, termed Defined Gross Revenues (DGR), is allocated for player expenditures. The DGR is based on ticket sales, merchandise sales, and broadcasts. The DGR is divided equally amongst all 32 teams.

For all of you nerds out there, here is the actual mathematical calculation:

  Projected DGR x CBA Percentage = Players Share DGR

  Players Share minus Projected League wide Benefits =

  Amount Available for Player Salaries

  Amount Available for Player Salaries / Number of Teams =

  Unadjusted Salary Cap per Team

The CBA Percentages were agreed upon in the 1998 and 2001 extension to the CBA are as follows:

 

1998-2001 63%

2002 64%

2003 64.25%

2004 64.75%

2005 65.5%

2006 64.5%

2007 Uncapped Year

 

NOTE: Minimum Team Salary (MTS) is 56% for the remainder of the CBA. If a team does not allocate at least 56%, then the players on the team roster for that year will be directly paid the shortage. 

Like I said before, I think a bigger worry will simply be that teams without a lot of local revenue will be content to sit back and sponge off the big guys, so I think there will end up being some kind of minimum contribution, i.e. 20% of all local revenues or $10 million, whichever is larger

[bengalboomer7]

Exactly, they have to find that magic number that keeps the high end teams happy and keeps the low end teams from reaping too much revenue benefit. It's a really sensible plan and with a few tweaks should be implemented.

[Kirkendall]

Here's an added perspective http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/3678374

[HoosierCat]

Good find, kirk. I figured there'd have to be some kind of "mortage interest deduction" to this as well; squabble appears to be over what kind of interest (representing what kind of projects) is allowed to be written off.

Funny how the Bengals keep getting dinged. Back before the taxpayers built PBS, they were 31st in local revenues; now they're "below average" and "in the bottom third" per Hobson. From which I figure they're somewhere around 25th (when you start fudging like they do you're hiding something, in this case a pretty healthy jump in dough, IMHO). So clearly, contra Czarnecki's smart-ass comments, the Bengals have been bringing their revenues up.

[bengalboomer7]

I've been reading a little bit about where Mikey is catching s**t for not selling the naming rights to the stadium. Did you know that we are only one of two professional stadiums that son't sell the naming rights. Can you tell me the other?(for all you brainiacs out there)

I say we let Gold Star and Skyline bid for the rights. Skyline Chilli stadium, that sounds nice

[HoosierCat]

And the beat goes on...from profootballtalk.com...

POSTED 9:47 p.m. EDT, June 12, 2005

BROADER CAP THE REAL REVENUE SOLUTION?

The recent article on the Jacksonville-Pittsburgh revenue sharing plan has been removed from the Jaguars.com web site, and word is that the thing was taken off of the front page at the direction of the team.  (Editor's note:  As of this posting, the article is still available right here; however, all references to the story have been removed from the team's web site -- and we have a feeling that the link to it soon will self-destruct.)

While the reason for the removal of the story remains unclear, we've been told that the real root of the revenue problem isn't the fact that some teams are earning a lot more coin than others, but that the ongoing disparity in revenues eventually will make it harder for the low-money teams to remain competitive.

And the solution, we're told, could be a limit on spending extending beyond the current salary cap to all operating expenses. 

By putting a hard ceiling on the money that can be devoted to coaches, front office staff, transportation expenses, etc., the low-revenue teams would be insulated against a team like the Redskins making a ton of money -- and spending more and more of it on things that would make D.C. a more attractive destination for players.

But this doesn't address the problem arising from the NFLPA's desire to include all revenues -- shared and unshared -- within the calculation of each franchise's salary cap.  As we've previously explained, teams like the Cardinals and Bengals would be faced with an artificially high salary cap if the total revenues of teams like the 'Skins and Cowboys were factored into the overall formula.

So we're back to square one in our assessment of ideas for breaking the impasse among the owners and, in turn, between the league and the players.

We believe that the NFL should impose a comprehensive spending cap, but the salary cap should still be based on so-called Designated Gross Revenues.  Then, the unshared revenues will be subject to a tax, and the money collected from each team will be distributed to all players based on objective factors such as performance, seniority, and/or cap number.  This will get more of the total revenues into the players' hands, preserve the incentive to earn as much money as possible, and ensure competitive balance.

The only glitch is that agents won't support the plan because they won't be eligible to earn a fee on the unshared revenue distributed on a league-wide basis.  There's a way, however, to make this pill go down -- the union should abandon the notion of dropping the maximum fee from three percent to two.

Of course, we don't expect the NFL to follow the advice of a smart-ass with a web site.  But there ain't exactly an overflow of good ideas coming from the powers-that-be, and the only decent ones to make it into public view have been inexplicably deep-sixed.

[schweinhart]

Gotta figure some kind of credit for corporate welfare would factor into the equation. Owners that got real debt service for new stadiums no doubt look at Mike Brown with both awe and contempt.

I say the deeper this goes, the less likely it gets straightened out and you wind up with an uncapped year in 2007 with lots of holdouts of players under contract. But at least the cap would be updated, which will no doubt cut into the profits of small market teams.

All the more reason to hope the Bengals can

WIN NOW

[Kirkendall]

I've been reading a little bit about where Mikey is catching s**t for not selling the naming rights to the stadium. Did you know that we are only one of two professional stadiums that son't sell the naming rights. Can you tell me the other?(for all you brainiacs out there)

That "won't" or haven't sold naming rights.

Here are a few without naming rights (at least as far as I know. Hell, I thought Great American Ballpark at first was baseball related). And yes, I looked them up:

PBS

Arrowhead Stadium

Cleveland Browns Stadium

Georgia Dome

Giants Stadium (both Jersey teams)

Lambeau Field

Metrodome

Seattle Seahawks Stadium

Soldier Field

Sun Devil Stadium

Superdome

Texas Stadium

The Coliseum

[Kirkendall]

Here's another Ralph Wilson Stadium

[HoosierCat]

ah, naming rights...which reminds me of one of my favorite borgmann cartoons...

[The_Next_Big_Thing]

ah, naming rights...which reminds me of one of my favorite borgmann cartoons...

I hated that editorial. Paul Brown would be very proud of the stadium, though not with the TEAM that originally occupied it, or the coaching that ruined it's opening year.

[bengalboomer7]

Damn, I should have known better than to ask What I actually meant was what stadiums were named after real people, and you got it.