Superbowl and Players Shares

The last of the holidays for a while is the super bowl Sunday. The Green Bay Packers won the Superbowl over the Pittsburgh Steelers on the strength of two interceptions and the accuracy of Cal Berkley's Aaron Rogers.

So what did they play for? There is the Superbowl ring, and the title and being bookmarked in the era. The cash bonus shares worked out to be 83,000 dollars for the winner and 42,0000 dollars for the loser. Thats a nice piece of change for one game but it is probably less than most people would consider as a winning cut. The one minute commercial adds on TV were going for 3 million and there seemed to be plenty.

Many of the players were hoping to show their skills for lucrative contracts in the future. But wait, there may be no future. The contract with the owners expires the 5th of March. Both sides have braced themselves and their positions for a long battle. The players want a bigger piece of the pie. The owners want them to have a smaller piece of the pie and play two more regular games. They also want a rookie salary cap.

The last piece, the rookie salary cap is an interesting proposal. They want the player contract to limit the offers the owners have to make to rookies in the league. At the table we come across similar concepts. The management which has the right to do do certain things, wants a contract in place to police its own managers. Then, it can all be blamed on what the employees want as the root of the evil rather than their own lack of management discipline.

It is not evidently clear that most markets are sending the owners to the poor house. This is because there really isn't full disclosure of the profits that are made by pro football teams in any area. The lack of a pro team in LA, one of the biggest markets and the highly successful Green Bay Packers franchise in a market that should not be able to sustain the cost is a tribute to the equitably of the football market and the overall lack of future sustainability of the product. The football market loves and pays for the little guy whereas the baseball market without its restraints has no qualms about wiping out its weakest link while allowing its biggest markets to dominate. The SF Giants win of the World Series is really the exception. Players and teams are allowed to re-assemble at will until the last 5 weeks of the season. The Giants are an excellent example of this. Sustainability of a fan base is much fore difficult under these terms.

So I hope that everyone enjoyed the game on Sunday. It looks to me that there won't be much football next year. Just like there wasn't much in 1987. It will be good for yard work.
: ) Pat