I am neither a doctor nor a lawyer, so I will not attempt to
dissect the merits of the player’s case, but I will guess how the NFL would pay
for such a huge verdict or settlement.
Actually, there is already a precedent in American professional sports
for dealing with a sizeable legal/financial judgment. The owners of Major League Baseball, when
ordered to pay $280 million to the players for collusion in 1990, simply
expanded their league in order to collect money in the form of franchise
fees. That money was then used to pay
for their past manipulations of free agent player salaries between 1986 and 1990.
Prior to MLB expansion in the early 1990's, each of the 26 teams was on the hook
for approximately $10-12 million to pay for their past collusion. Today, that is a 3rd or 4th
starter’s salary for one season, but in 1990, $10 million would have equaled
the average payroll for an ENTIRE team!
Guess who had the highest MLB payroll in 1990….the big spending Kansas
City Royals, at a whopping $23 million.
The local TV deals that drive so much of a teams revenue in today's game were not yet up to steam. The teams were in trouble; the owners needed to find a way to pay their bills, so
they simply expanded the league (kind of like selling stock).
So, you say, what does all this collusion and lawsuit
mumbo-jumbo have to do with Los Angeles, Toronto, and Portland? Well, those are the three largest TV markets
in the U.S. and Canada that do not yet have an NFL team to call their own. Minnesota and St. Louis, two teams currently in danger of losing their teams should rest easy and scuttle any
plans to refurbish or fund any new stadiums using taxpayer dollars because the
NFL can’t afford to move a team into a new city when they need those
markets in order to pay their legal bills.
Rams want to move…let’em try it.
Billionaire owner wants to hold the Minnesota Legislature hostage, let’em. The NFL is about to lose its shirt because of
inattention to the safety of their employees; perhaps the current players would
be willing to accommodate the owners on safety if something like the salary cap
should disappear. The owners can either
pay for the damage to its current players up front in the form of open-market salaries or pay down the
road in the form of a legal settlement.
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