Is It Much Adieu About Nothing?

The NFL is still back, and everyone still seems to be breathing a collective sigh of relief.  No courts have invalidated the labor deal....and none will.

The NFL beat the deadline of missing out on preseason game revenue...something the owners were very in tune with.  What many people don't realize is that everything during preseason is full price (namely tickets) and that players are only being paid a stipend (basically for food and lodging) during training camp.  Players' big checks don't come until the regular season starts, so preseason games are cash cows for
the owners.

The NFL did have a different offseason than in years past, but free agents and rookies (drafted and undrafted alike) are negotiating and signing with teams, and trades are also taking place.  Except for a much smaller time window for these events to happen, as well as the new financial rules to operate under with the new CBA, how is this year different?

In previous years, when the free agency window opened, all of the big name free agents were signed within the first few days...often on day one...just the same as this year.  For example, in 2009 when Albert Haynesworth (that years most sought after free agent) left the Titans for the Redskins, his deal was announced during ESPN's morning show Mike & Mike in the Morning (which runs from 6-10 a.m. EST) on the first morning of free agency.  Bottom line, the big names go quickly.  The only part of free agency that's different this year concerns second and third tier players who usually start signing with teams a week or two after the big names have inked their deals.  Now, a little of that will happen this year, but their timeline has shifted, as most are signing deals no so that they can get into training camp with their new teams.

As mentioned in my last post, OTAs were missed this year, but many teams still had players get together and practice on their own.  It wasn't officially OTAs, but it was teams preparing for the upcoming season.

A few days of training camp may be missed this year, but each team will still get four preseason games in advance of the 16 game regular season.  The 20 games are almost exactly what each team had last year, with the only difference being the Hall of Fame preseason game was cancelled this year.  (This was supposed to be a fifth preseason game for the Bears and Rams.)  After all the drama of the lockout, no real games were missed and only one 'fake football' game was skipped.

So back to the title, are the events, post lockout, in the NFL much adieu about nothing?  I believe the answer is yes...expedited...but yes.  When the regular season kicks off in Green Bay on September 8th, the events of this summer will be a distant memory.

Does Anyone Else Feel This Way?

So professional football is back.  The deadline league struck again.

Congratulations to the NFL (Owners) and Players Association...I mean trade union...for figuring out a way to share at least $9 billion ($9B) annually.  I say 'at least' because in a few years the TV deals will expire and new richer ones will be negotiated.  Experts...whomever they are...say that the nine billion number may be more like 13-15 billion.  Holy crap.

Now that the lockout is over, who won and who lost?

The Winners

The Owners – One of their overall goals was to keep the players' share of the revenue under 50%.  At one point the players thought 49% of the revenue was a real possibility for themselves, but in the end, the players settled for 48%.  Players received other benefits that brought the number down to 48%.  Also, now that everyone's giddy about football being back, nobody seems to remember that it was the owners who (in 2008) opted out of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that was just two years old and put us in the current situation.

The Players – Grown men are going to be paid a lot of money to continue playing a game.  Yes, it's more than just a game because of the entertainment it brings to countless people, but when you cut out the fluff, it really is simply a game.  Players also got to miss out on their spring organized training activities (OTAs).  Like Allen Iverson, NFL players don't like to attend offseason practice....yes Allen, we're talking about practice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDBR2L5kzI <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDBR2L5kzI> ).  One final benefit the players acquired is guaranteed contracts for injury.  Players who have remaining years on contracts who suffer career ending injuries are now guaranteed at least $1.M.  Nice deal.

The Fans – We get uninterrupted professional football for the next ten years.  Unlike the CBA of 2006, the CBA just agreed to has no opt out clause for either side.  That's right, ten years of labor peace, with absolutely no mention of either the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals or Judge Doty.

Retired Players – This one is missed by a lot of people.  Over the next ten years of the CBA, retired players are going to be a paid a total of $945M in retiree benefits.  One thing that I can't find good clarification on is who is paying this money?  Yes, the NFL owes the players of yesteryear a great deal for helping build the game into what it is today, but isn't it the players who should be taking care of their own?  Come on, without Archie Manning, there's definitely no Peyton or Eli...both on and off the field.

DeMaurice Smith – The Players brought in a labor lawyer to get a new deal done for them, and that's just what he did.

Robert Kraft (Patriots owner) – Numerous reporters have said it, and the Colts’ Center Jeff Saturday confirmed it, a deal would not have gotten done without Kraft’s work.  When the CBA was falling apart, he was the driving force for working through all of the differences.  That said, Kraft has been through too much lately.  On top of the contentious negotiations, his wife of 48 years, Myra, lost her battle with cancer.  Hate the Patriots as much as you want to, but Robert Kraft is one of the best owners in sports.  He was before this summer’s saga, and he will continue to be going forward.

The Losers

Roger Goodell – Yes, it's only a few, but there have been some very vocal players preaching their dislike and distrust for the Commissioner.  Unfortunately, the loudest, most outlandish voices are the ones that get microphones put in front of them because "they're always good for a quote."  What's lost on me is that Commissioner Goodell is the head of all the owners.  He represented all 32 owners though out the entire lockout.  Yes, he's the overall face of the league, but the hatred shown towards the Commissioner should be pointed at all 32 owners.

The Players – A couple things come to mind here.  The CBA starts this season with a salary cap number of $120M per team.  While many teams will have to increase their 2010 payrolls to get to this amount, what makes this a loss for the players is that the salary cap number for 2009 (the last capped season) was $128M.  (2010 had no salary cap.)  Yes, the cap will increase in the years to come, but the players lost out on at least $8M per team.  (‘At least’ because that was in 2009 money.)  The other potential loss for the players is just a question from me right now.  Why did the owners not want an opt out clause in this contract?  Please don’t say that it was for the good of the fans.  In my opinion, there is at least one thing in this contract that is very favorable to the owners, which they don’t want to have the players take away after just a few years.

Sal Paolantonio, Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen (and their counterparts at other tv networks, websites, newspapers, etc.) – This was supposed to be their offseason.  At least they get a break now…oh wait…season’s about to start.

Rookies – Missing spring OTAs may be a good thing for veterans, but rookies need the extra snaps.  I believe offensive rookies (especially the QBs) will have slower development this year than in years past, which is especially troubling because four of the top 12 picks in this spring’s draft were QBs.  Also, a new rookie wage scale has been agreed to within the new CBA.  This year’s number one pick Cam Newton can make $22M over four years, while last year’s number one pick Sam Bradford will receive a guaranteed $50M.  Tough for some of these guys to make it on $22M, but it is over a 50% decrease.  (At least the money previously spent on rookies will go to the veterans who’ve actually earned their money on the NFL playing field.)

All Other Professional Sports – This was supposed to be the time during the year that other leagues had their day in the sun, but the lockout was talked about on tv and on the radio every day this summer.  Even when there were great sporting events to cover, the NFL loomed large.

The Fans – Finally, we lost too.  We’ve gotten jerked around for the last 135 days, under constant threat that there would be no football.  Also, who do you think gets to pay the $9B for the NFL to divvy up?

I have to admit that I’m kind of soured on football right now.  Of course that may all disappear with fantasy football drafts and the kickoff to the season on September 7^th.

Can We Please Wait to Crown Rory McIlroy the Next Golf King?

First off, congrats to Rory McIlroy for lapping the field at Congressional last week to win this year’s U.S. Open.  He played remarkable golf for four days to win by eight shots on a course that played a little easier than expected.  The USGA aims to have the winning score for the four rounds at even par, but this year on a wet course, 22 golfers finished at even par or better.  All that said, McIlroy decimated that course, finishing every round in the 60s.

Congrats to Rory on winning a major, it really is a great accomplishment, something that only a small fraction of professional golfers ever do, but let’s not anoint him as the Next Best Thing quite yet.  Is his future bright?  Absolutely, but let’s not lose site of the fact that this was only the third victory of his career.  Someone on ESPN’s PTI or Around the Horn (I apologize for not remembering who) said that until Rory wins another major he’s merely Todd Hamilton (little known/remembered 2004 British Open Champion).  It’s a great point.  Rory has all the potential in the world, but he’s got a lot of ground to make up if he wants to catch the career win totals of Jack Nicholas or Tiger Woods.  To catch Tiger, Rory needs to win 68 more titles, including 13 more majors, and to catch Jack he needs to win 71 more titles, including 17 more majors.  Daunting?  Yes.  Impossible?  Can’t say impossible, but improbable?  Absolutely.  Nicholas holds the distinction as owning the most major titles, but it’s the legendary Sam Snead with 82 total PGA Tour wins that everybody’s chasing.

We live in an instantaneous society, where everybody wants immediately to crown the Next Best Thing, but Rory’s one major win isn’t causing Jack, Tiger, Phil or any of the two plus time major winners to lose any sleep.  Let’s see how Rory does at the majors over the next two years.  I say two years because it took Tiger from the Masters in 1997 until the PGA in 1999 to win his second, but after that, Tiger put on an absolute clinic, winning four of the next five to complete the Tiger Slam (held all four major titles at the same time, but not won in a single calendar year).

Will the success of winning one major cause Rory to settle or will it stoke the fires inside like it did for Tiger?  It’s going to take a bonfire inside Rory for The Sports’ Question Mark to crown him the Next Golf King.  I promise, when he wins his 19^th major, I’ll be the 355^th to crown him once he’s completed all of his mandatory post round interviews.

What is the Greatest Trophy in Sports?

The doldrums of summer have now officially hit in the worlds of professional and collegiate sports.  Now that the NBA Finals and NHL Stanley Cup Finals have wrapped up, we only have Major League Baseball and a week of the College World Series from Omaha (somewhere in middle America) to entertain us until preseason football games in Aug...well maybe.  Yes, there's also MLS and auto racing...which will both be ignored.

So let's talk championships and more specifically championship trophies.  Now, I'm not going to be limited here by a "trophy" being defined as a two to four foot tall metal object, I'm talking about a prize given to an individual or team for winning a tournament, race, event, etc.  Yes, the monetary prizes for winning these events can be massive, but inquiring minds want to know what the best hardware is.

I'll build from the bottom to the top of the trophy pantheon.

MLS - Who knew that U.S.'s soccer championship trophy was simply called the MLS Cup? The trophy looks pretty cool, but the name of it and stature of the league make it fall way down the ranks.

NCAA Football - Cool crystal football, but you can't do anything with it except put it in a display case.  Look at the photos/video of all the coaches raising the thing after they've won the BCS title game.  They hold that thing more delicately than they hold babies.  Also, based on recent events, there's a greater than 10% chance that a championship team is going to give their title back due to improper benefits.  (USC confirmed and Auburn speculated.)

NASCAR - There are 37 trophies to choose from here (including the overall championship trophy), but I think only four are memorable.  The Daytona 500's Harley J. Earl Trophy is pretty special because of the history of the race, and sometimes it's awkward for the small drivers to lift the thing over their heads after they've won it.  After winning at Texas, drivers are given two six shooters to fire off from Victory Lane...pretty cool.  Winning at the Brickyard earns drivers a trophy with a brick...no joke.  http://www.life.com/image/82081261  One of the best trophies has to be for Dover's Monster Mile race http://www.doverspeedway.com/track/news/article.php?dir=200409&id=2 .  The only thing that tops this is that outside the stadium is a full sized monster http://www.aolnews.com/2008/01/29/bristol-goes-non-smoking-dover-gets-miles/ .  While all of these are nice to put on the mantel, there are too many to choose from.  Also, a winner of the Brickyard 400 isn't going to take his silver brick out and hope to pick up women with it.

MLB - It's sad to say that as lame as MLS's trophy's name is, MLB's Commissioner's Trophy is even worse.  Come on, couldn't you name it after the original Hall of Fame class?  The Cobb-Johnson-Mathewson-Ruth-Wagner trophy (although a mouthful) is infinitely better than the Commissioner's Trophy.  This trophy looks interesting with all of the pennants on it, but I'd be afraid to parade it around because those posts look like they could snap.

NBA - As you've learned, I'm not a big fan of the NBA, but congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks for winning this year's Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy.  This trophy is indeed iconic, but others are more so.

Wimbledon - Sorry guys, you get a trophy that looks like too many other trophies, it's the ladies that earn the best hardware...or in this case tableware.  The humongous plate...maybe it's so big it's a platter...is great.  It would be higher on the list, but in all the years of playing and following tennis I've never seen anyone eat off the thing.  You've just won the most prestigious tennis tournament ever ladies, enjoy the biggest serving of strawberries and cream on that trophy!

NFL - Everybody knows this polished silver trophy with the football on the top.  Almost everyone even knows the name of it, the Lombardi Trophy.  It is very iconic...it's named after one of the most famous coaches of all time...but the one thing I find wrong with it is it lacks a certain mystic or reverence...more on this with #1.

World Cup - It's a little gold trophy lacking an original name (FIFA World Cup Trophy), but every soccer playing nation hopes to have their team claim this, and the title of World's Best.  The trophy is small and isn't a polished work of art, but can billions of soccer fans be wrong?

Augusta - The coveted Green Jacket.  While Europeans may claim that the Claret Jug of The Open Championship (what we call the British Open) is the greatest prize in golf, no golf award is more iconic than the prize given to the Masters' Champion.  While it's not very stylish, who would ever tell a golfer wearing it to remove it?  That's why it's this highly ranked.

Olympic Gold Medal - (Thanks to my son for adding this to the list when I was thinking of trophies.)  Years of sacrifice and sometimes even the pressure of a nation make this the second greatest trophy of all time.  It's an award that you can take with you forever, but here's an interesting thought...someone once wrote that earning the Gold medal is sometimes a relief after all the hard work and earning the Silver can sometimes leave a somewhat bitter taste because that individual was so close to earning Gold.  The Bronze medal may be the best to earn because you got a place on the podium, edging out all the other finalists.  Nobody remembers who got fourth in an Olympic event.  One final thing, earning a Silver or Bronze does set an individual up for a higher medal when someone tests positive for performance enhancing drugs and is thus stripped of their hardware.

NHL - By far the greatest trophy in sports is in fact a trophy...The Stanley Cup.  Named for Lord Stanley (General Governor of Canada starting in 1888), who first presented a cup (actually it was a bowl) to the best amateur hockey team in Canada, it is the only trophy of a major sport's league in North America that is passed from one year's champion to the next.  Only one Stanley Cup exists.  What changes on it are the bands with the championship teams' player's names.  When all of the bands become full, one is removed and put into the Hockey Hall of Fame and a new blank one is added for future engraving.  What I think distinguishes this trophy is two things.  First, every player who wins this trophy is given 24 hours to do whatever they want with it.  For instance, when the Colorado Avalanche won one of their titles it was taken to the top of one of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks.  Most people hold parties with the trophy and drink various beverages out of the silver cup that sits atop it, but the bottom line is, each person can do whatever they want for their 24 hours.  But, the greatest thing about the Stanley Cup is that if you're associated with hockey and you've never won it as a player or executive, YOU DON'T TOUCH THE CUP!!!  (I wish this applied to fans as well.  Some adhere to it, but others don't.  I promise, I will never lay a finger on the cup...can't do it...unless of course I become an NHL executive and my team wins it.)  Hockey people hold the Stanley Cup in reverence.  I hate when they have promotional shots for the Super Bowl and players and coaches are shown holding the trophy in advance of the game.  You haven't won it, put it down.  Numerous stories have been told about NHL players giving a wide berth to Lord Stanley's Cup if they're ever in a room with it.  The Stanley Cup is revered and I wish other sports would do the same with their championship trophies.

Is Tiger Woods still relevant?

No.

(Easiest blog post ever.)

Who else is losing interest in the NFL?

So nothing's currently going on with the NFL’s labor issues and absolutely nothing will happen until after the upcoming June third hearing.  Two whole days of court mandated labor talks recently wrapped up with guess what...no agreement.  So let's recap and deconstruct.

The Players initially won what seemed like a major legal battle when a judge lifted the lockout and ordered the official league year to begin.  The next day, the NFL Owners appealed this decision to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, who a few days later ruled that the lockout was indeed legal, pending the aforementioned June third hearing.  We'll know the outcome of that hearing in mid to late June, but the prevailing opinion by legal analysts is that the Owners will triumph again.  Here's why...the first ruling for the Players’ was from a Democrat appointed judge, where the Owners’ victorious ruling was from a three judge panel, of which two are Republican appointees.  The dissenting opinion in the latest 2-1 vote was from a Democrat appointed judge.  So where we are now is 2-2, Republican appointed judges versus Democrat ones, an even split.  The judges can't even agree if the lockout is legal and should thus keep going, so how should we?

One of the main issues I struggle with is a side issue of the lockout.  A major fact remains, no Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) exists between the Owners and Players.  Even if there was no lockout, the Owners opted out of the CBA which was agreed to in 2006.  If the final final final ruling came down tomorrow after the appeals and appeals, what rules of free agency, revenue sharing, rookie wage scale, etc. would the Owners and Players operate under?  There is no agreement.

As it stands right now, the owners are in a very good position because the latest ruling went in their favor and that ruling is expected to be extended.  The players are hoping to get money from the TV rights lawsuit that they won, but how quickly will they burn through it?  There are hundreds of players in the league who would all want a piece of that estimated nine figure pie...come to think of it, I'd like at least a tiny sliver myself.

(So to my neighbor who's been asking for a new post, Happy Birthday...literally.  As much as you want a piece of that pie too, you're getting cake.)

Because talks are not taking place between the Owners and Players and the legal ruling won't be reveled for a month or so, football this fall will be impacted.  There is the real possibility that games will be missed, but even if an agreement is reached (relatively) soon, the quality of the performance on the field will be lower.  Teams are missing minicamp and organized team activities (OTAs) now, and even if players say they're enjoying their time off, a reduced number of repetitions does hurt the quality of the product.  I also believe that rookies will have less of an impact this season, especially offensive ones because they're not able to work with their new coaches, learning new NFL schemes and terminology and the overall way of doing NFL business.

Will we watch the NFL in the fall?  Sure.  Will the fan base be smaller?  My guess is yes.  Not significantly, but some fans are growing more disenfranchised by the day.

The Broncos were terrible last year, so my love for the NFL was already waning...unfortunately it's slipped even farther.

What's going on with sports' ownership?

Where have the times of Ownership peace gone in professional sports?  It seems that merely a year ago, only America's fifth (and forgotten) league, Major League Soccer, had any unrest, as the owners and players came to a deadline deal agreement to avoid a lockout.  (You know how far off the radar a sport is when you only find out about their labor strife over a year after the event.)  Even though an MLS lockout was narrowly avoided, the league was moving forward with expansion at the time (one team in 2010 and two in 2011), so those of us who knew about the potential lockout knew that a resolution wouldn't be far off.

A year ago the NFL was still trying to come to grips that the Saints had won the Super Bowl and labor discussions weren't a priority.  Knowing what we know now, maybe they should have been.

MLB was only dealing with a polarized fan base because the Yankees were kicking off the season as the defending World Series Champions (you either love or hate them), because no ownership issues remained.  I say remained because the Cubs had been sold and were under new ownership (no hostility) and the Rangers were moved from the broke Tom Hicks' control to MLB's to the current ownership group lead by MLB great Nolan Ryan.  (The sale was settled in bankruptcy court.)  Although there was some contention with Hicks being removed as owner, the public outcry wasn't enormous because he was too far overleveraged to continue as an owner.

The NBA was even in a relatively peaceful state.  The Lakers were kicking off the playoffs in defense of their 2009 Championship (which they would successfully defend), and everyone was happy, except for people in Cleveland who were wondering if this was going to be their final postseason with LeBron.  Just 5 months ago, the league office did buy the New Orleans Hornets franchise due to the owner's financial struggles, but there was relative peace in the league.

A year ago, the NHL was also in as peaceful a state as playoff hockey will allow, and one of the Original Six went on to win the Stanley Cup Finals (the Chicago Blackhawks).

So what's gone wrong?  Unfortunately, millionaires and billionaires have not been immune to financial issues, and as we've all learned recently with the NFL labor negotiations...it all boils down to money.

As we all know, NFL labor negotiations are ongoing, but due to the court ordered gag order, we have no idea if any progress is being made, which I think is miniscule at best.  If real progress towards a labor deal is occurring, why is the next mediation session not until May 16th?  If the sides were close, they’d still be meeting this week to hammer out the remaining issues.  OK, so why does this matter in April?  Besides the lack of offseason team training sessions, the NFL draft is less than a week away.  Because a CBA is not in place, teams cannot trade players currently on their roster.  The Randy Moss trade from Oakland to New England in on Draft Day 2007 would not have been allowed under current rules.  That season Moss went on to break the single season TD reception record and was within 35 seconds of a perfect 17-0 season.  Several players, including QBs Donovan McNabb, Kevin Kolb and Carson Palmer, would have been perfect draft day trade material, but not this year.  As mentioned a month ago, there is currently no sense of urgency between the sides.  The notorious deadline league isn't pushing any of their season killing deadlines yet.

The Players’ Association does appear to be showing the first signs of cracking (as guessed by almost all the “experts”), as a splinter group of mid-tier players have hired their own legal representation because they feel their voice isn’t being heard.  I can’t say that I disagree with them.  Of the names on the players’ lawsuit against the owners, one player about to be drafted is named alongside several superstars such as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.  It appears that the voice of the common NFL player is missing. 

One of the most storied franchises in MLB history is now under league ownership and a messy legal battle is ahead...in addition to the messy divorce legal battle tied to it.  As it turns out the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles and Major League Baseball are currently tied up in two types of divorces.  First owner Frank McCourt is trying to settle his divorce from his wife Jamie…who claims 50% ownership of the Dodgers.  Just this week, MLB took over the day to day operations of the Dodgers because of the financial instability of the McCourts.  The Dodgers have had to borrow money in order to make payroll.  Speaking of financial instability, the Mets are also under scrutiny as millions of dollars were made by their owners in the Bernie Madoff scheme.  The Wilpons claim to not have known about the illegal practices of Madoff, but that hasn’t stopped the trustee of the Madoff victims from suing them for hundreds of millions of dollars.  (A billion dollar number has been mentioned, but that includes others besides the Wilpons.  In order to pay off their debt (whatever the actual amount), the Wilpons are trying to sell a minority stake in the Mets.)  Last fall the Mets too had difficulty paying their debts and approached MLB for assistance.  Neither the Mets nor the Dodgers situation is good, especially since these are two of the richest teams in baseball.  (One good note about baseball is that even though their CBA expires towards the end of this year, protracted heated talks are not expected.)

The NBA, like the NFL, is on the verge of a lockout as their CBA is set to expire this summer.  In past months, NBA Commissioner David Stern has stated that owners would like to cut salaries by a third, which, of course, hasn’t gone over well with the players.  More recently, Stern stated that the NBA needed to get back to the bargaining table because they wanted to avoid “the mess” that the NFL situation has become.  Still, I will be surprised if a lockout is avoided.

The NHL seems to be the only league of the big four with some form of stability right now.  Just this week, a new 10 year TV deal was agreed to which will pay the league $200M per year.

Hopefully, peaceful labor/owner times will return soon.