Football The Bizarre Cult Of Pro-Owner NFL Fanboys - Page 5

Skyy God · 05-12-2011, 02:08 PM

http://deadspin.com/5800887/the-biza...er-nfl-fanboys

Here's a tidy summation of how we've managed to get to where we are with the NFL lockout. A few years ago, the players and owners agreed to a new CBA, with only Ralph Wilson and Mike Brown voting against the agreement, in Wilson's case because he's old and easily confused by things.

Then, almost immediately after that agreement was approved, all the other owners suddenly decided WHOA HEY! THIS AGREEMENT BLOWS! And so, this March, they opted out of that agreement and locked out the players. The players, for their part, were happy with the terms of the original CBA and wanted to keep playing. But then Roger Goodell, who is a ****ing stooge, told the world that players being happy with the CBA means the CBA is totally unfair.

Now, the players decided to break up and sue the NFL to get the lockout lifted, which it was for seven seconds leading up to the draft back in April. The owners then fought to have the lockout reinstated while they appealed, and managed to temporarily prevail. So here we have one side that has shut down the operations of football TWICE, and another side who A.) didn't instigate the lockout and B.) sued to STOP the lockout and get football played again. This is now the longest work stoppage in NFL history, and it is the result of a labor battle initiated by the owners. Those are facts. It should seem obvious whose cause you, Mr. NFL Fan, ought to get behind.

So it baffles and angers me that there appears to be actual people out there who are squarely in the owners' corner when it comes to this labor war. I went to this post at PFT the other day, where Florio outlines a rumor about the league going out of business if they lose their appeal, and the number of pro-owner comments were just … ****ing … I don't even know. They must be plants. They have to be plants. That's the only explanation. How else do you explain comments like these? (Click to enlarge.)

It's like a group of people went directly to their computers after walking out of a screening of Atlas Shrugged. You can find reeruned commenters at virtually any Internet forum (why, just scroll down!), but the idea that there are people out there who would like to see the owners succeed in PREVENTING THE PLAYING OF ACTUAL NFL GAMES to spite NFL players strikes me as … what's the word? Oh, right. ****ING INSANE. Please God, let these people be planted there by Jerry Richardson. Don't tell me there are people out there this breathtakingly hardheaded.

Do you know how many NFL teams are owned by people who inherited their respective franchises? Eleven. ELEVEN. Over one third of all NFL teams belong to people who did nothing to deserve them except shoot out of the right uterus or **** the right spouse. Two more NFL teams are owned by scions of American industrial giants (the Lions and Jets). And somehow this makes them business geniuses who deserve to lock out their employees and rob the country of its favorite sport? Really? The same shrewd people who apparently screwed themselves into such an allegedly shitty labor deal not but a few years ago? Is there ANY situation in which a billionaire can be ****ing wrong, then? Or is their wealth simply an overriding character trait that trumps all flaws?

There's a distinctly political turn to much of these lockout arguments among fans. I guess if you think the players are right (and I do), that makes you a dirty liberal and there can't possibly be a decent case to be made. All unions are bad, which means the NFL players are ungrateful and lazy and deserve to be booted out on their ass because the owners are the beginning and end of why the NFL is successful.

No success is ever entirely self-made. Billionaires don't just crawl out of a ****ing swamp and then work 23-hour days until they're filthy rich and deserving of every penny. There are a million factors that go into the making of a successful person, and hard work is merely one of them. There's an element of luck. There's certainly an element of breeding. There's an element of good timing, of catching the wave at the precise right moment. All of those things factor in, not to mention the millions upon millions of tax dollars used to subsidize the stadiums many of these fine gentlemen happen to now own. But these pro-owner people seem to believe that NFL owners are ****ing magical money unicorns that came out of a glowing cistern on a mountaintop, and they have carte blanche to strongarm people accordingly.

I hope they're planted by the league. I really do, though some polls suggest otherwise. Because if you are a real, living, breathing person and you're actually rooting for the league to continue to, you know, not playing, then you can go ****ing die. If you have a beef with the union breaking up and suing the NFL, then you're too stupid to understand that suing the league was essentially ALL the players could do, because for years now the owners have been hellbent on losing games in the 2011 season specifically to squeeze more money out of the players, as much as humanly possible. Many owners didn't bother to show up for the initial negotiating sessions in March. They want their lockout, and they're going to exhaust every shitty, awful option they can to make it happen. And they sure as shit don't care about your concerns in the process. You're the fan. You're just a ****ing sheep.

Meanwhile, the players, who used legal recourse to return to the field, are the bad guys? Why? Because you think they may try and get rid of the draft, even though that will NEVER happen? (And it should be noted here that getting rid of the draft and making all incoming rookies free agents is far more in the spirit of unbridled capitalism, though that apparently only matters if the beneficiaries of said system are white billionaire one who sucks the peniss.) Are you that ****ing dumb? The idea that players are just dumb assholes who should be grateful that their noble employer sees fit to pay them ANYTHING is a bizarre and downright feudal stance to take. These strike me as the thoughts of someone with a massive political blind spot, where your politics so utterly consume you that you can't be bothered with the reality staring you in the face. This doesn't need to be a political argument, and yet there are people out there desperate to make it precisely that.

I love football. Football is pretty much what I live for, and it seems to me that only the players are interested in making football a reality this fall. So if you're somehow on the side of management in this NFL dispute, please know that you are wrong and that you are stupid and that I ****ing hate you.

**notorious** · 05-12-2011, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jspchief

So you think NFL owners want to price their product out of range of their customers? Not very sound business.

They are already.

Besides, most of their money is made outside the stadium a.k.a. TV.

jspchief · 05-12-2011, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by notorious

They are already.

Besides, most of their money is made outside the stadium a.k.a. TV.

This isn't just about tickets to the game.

The price of sunday ticket has doubled in less than 5 years. Please don't tell me you are naive enough to believe there isn't a ceiling on what networks will pay to give you free football on TV. The groundwork has been laid for PPV and Sunday Ticket is just feeling out the price point.

Business owners keep their margins. I'd rather they do it by cutting employee pay than passing costs on to the customers.

**alnorth** · 05-12-2011, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jspchief

So you think NFL owners want to price their product out of range of their customers? Not very sound business.

The owners are motivated by profit, not affordability. If they could find 100 fans each willing to pay 1 million dollars per ticket, they would do that in a heartbeat even though it would mean their stadiums are as empty and silent as a mausoleum.

Ticket prices are based on maximizing revenue, raising price just to the breaking point but not quite beyond (for many people, not all). The owners don't give a rat's ass about keeping tickets affordable, nor should they.

**Bugeater** · 05-12-2011, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by notorious

They are already.

Besides, most of their money is made outside the stadium a.k.a. TV.

That doesn't mean the in-stadium money isn't just as important. If it wasn't, they would be holding cities hostage for new digs.

tk13 · 05-12-2011, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jspchief

So you think NFL owners want to price their product out of range of their customers? Not very sound business.

That's where I think people might get lost on this. They're trying to apply real world mom and pop store ideas to a business that's printing money. We've yet to truly see where the limit is on this... and you can certainly argue the owners are going to push the limit until they find out.

kcfanXIII · 05-12-2011, 08:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

The players started the lockout by decertifying...which is a sham to begin with..and are the ones that walked away from the bargaining table. Not the owners.

You are wrong on the first part. And for part two of your post had the owners not backed out of an extremely successful CBA, there would be no reason to negotiate. I side with the op that pro owner fans (current lockout specifically) are misinformed or are just too ****ing stupid to understand.

**DaFace** · 05-12-2011, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcfanXIII

You are wrong on the first part. And for part two of your post had the owners not backed out of an extremely successful CBA, there would be no reason to negotiate. I side with the op that pro owner fans (current lockout specifically) are misinformed or are just too ****ing stupid to understand.

What exactly made the previous CBA "extremely successful?"

jspchief · 05-12-2011, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alnorth

The owners are motivated by profit, not affordability.

Of course they are motivated by profit. That's the point of owning a business.

The difference is, an owner wants to profit off his football team for the rest of his life. A player knows he has a limited number of years to collect his paycheck from football.

Do you think any player gives a shit if they run the league out of business in the long run?

Answer the 3 questions I posed in my first post.

**DaFace** · 05-12-2011, 08:52 PM

Oh, and apparently I'm too ****ing stupid too understand what's going on. Please help me! I'm intellectually deficient.

**alnorth** · 05-12-2011, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcfanXIII

You are wrong on the first part. And for part two of your post had the owners not backed out of an extremely successful CBA, there would be no reason to negotiate. I side with the op that pro owner fans (current lockout specifically) are misinformed or are just too ****ing stupid to understand.

personally, I'm open to the possibility of sympathizing with, and siding with the owners. I don't get caught up in this "the players struck so we should blame them/ the owners locked out so we should blame them" idiocy. Who cares who started the conflict through whatever legal mechanism, both sides must be happy with the deal at all times, or there will be a strike/lockout.

What I care about is figuring out who is right, no matter who started it.

The NFL owners adamantly refuse to open their books, even though NHL/NBA/MLB owners open their books to their player unions. So, by default the owners lose the PR battle in my mind. Don't wanna open your books? Too bad, you are asking the players to allow you to do things that are normally illegal and all of your peers open their books to their players. Still wanna act stupidly with your lack of transparency? Fine, f*** 'em, the owners deserve all the blame until they come to the table with every piece of information the players want.

joesomebody · 05-12-2011, 08:54 PM

I don't care either way. Just get the dog and pony show back on the field dammit.

**alnorth** · 05-12-2011, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jspchief

Of course they are motivated by profit. That's the point of owning a business.

The difference is, an owner wants to profit off his football team for the rest of his life. A player knows he has a limited number of years to collect his paycheck from football.

Do you think any player gives a shit if they run the league out of business in the long run?

Answer the 3 questions I posed in my first post.

don't be dumb. The owners do not give a rat's ass about affordability, UNLESS affordability is the point where supply and demand cross on the theoretical chart. If ticket prices are affordable, I give the owners NO credit WHATSOEVER because they were FORCED into making the game affordable by solid unforgiving economics.

kcfanXIII · 05-12-2011, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaFace

What exactly made the previous CBA "extremely successful?"

Jerry Jones was confident enough to build a billion dollar stadium. Oh ya... Its the most successful league in sports. Competitive balance that baseball fans dream of. Sorry i feel the players are entitled to all the money they can get. They are the reason butts are in the seats. They are the product that people pay 1000s of $$$ to see live, not Jerry Jones (but dont tell him.) Its not rocket science. I really expected you to be smarter then this.

**DaFace** · 05-12-2011, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcfanXIII

Jerry Jones was confident enough to build a billion dollar stadium. Oh ya... Its the most successful league in sports. Competitive balance that baseball fans dream of. Sorry i feel the players are entitled to all the money they can get. They are the reason butts are in the seats. They are the product that people pay 1000s of $$$ to see live, not Jerry Jones (but dont tell him.) Its not rocket science. I really expected you to be smarter then this.

Ahh...so all that success occurred between 2006-2010?

And would you say that Jerry Jones is an "average" NFL owner?

Okie_Apparition · 05-12-2011, 09:09 PM

Unless it's your livelihood. If the loss of an NFL season effects you enough to upset your daily exsistence. You're just a little bitch no matter what side you're on

05-12-2011, 02:08 PM
Skyy God 11-5, baby Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Livin the dream Casino cash: $2191557	The Bizarre Cult Of Pro-Owner NFL Fanboys http://deadspin.com/5800887/the-biza...er-nfl-fanboys Here's a tidy summation of how we've managed to get to where we are with the NFL lockout. A few years ago, the players and owners agreed to a new CBA, with only Ralph Wilson and Mike Brown voting against the agreement, in Wilson's case because he's old and easily confused by things. Then, almost immediately after that agreement was approved, all the other owners suddenly decided WHOA HEY! THIS AGREEMENT BLOWS! And so, this March, they opted out of that agreement and locked out the players. The players, for their part, were happy with the terms of the original CBA and wanted to keep playing. But then Roger Goodell, who is a **ing stooge, told the world that players being happy with the CBA means the CBA is totally unfair. Now, the players decided to break up and sue the NFL to get the lockout lifted, which it was for seven seconds leading up to the draft back in April. The owners then fought to have the lockout reinstated while they appealed, and managed to temporarily prevail. So here we have one side that has shut down the operations of football TWICE, and another side who A.) didn't instigate the lockout and B.) sued to STOP the lockout and get football played again. This is now the longest work stoppage in NFL history, and it is the result of a labor battle initiated by the owners. Those are facts. It should seem obvious whose cause you, Mr. NFL Fan, ought to get behind. So it baffles and angers me that there appears to be actual people out there who are squarely in the owners' corner when it comes to this labor war. I went to this post at PFT the other day, where Florio outlines a rumor about the league going out of business if they lose their appeal, and the number of pro-owner comments were just … ing … I don't even know. They must be plants. They have to be plants. That's the only explanation. How else do you explain comments like these? (Click to enlarge.) It's like a group of people went directly to their computers after walking out of a screening of Atlas Shrugged. You can find reeruned commenters at virtually any Internet forum (why, just scroll down!), but the idea that there are people out there who would like to see the owners succeed in PREVENTING THE PLAYING OF ACTUAL NFL GAMES to spite NFL players strikes me as … what's the word? Oh, right. ING INSANE. Please God, let these people be planted there by Jerry Richardson. Don't tell me there are people out there this breathtakingly hardheaded. Do you know how many NFL teams are owned by people who inherited their respective franchises? Eleven. ELEVEN. Over one third of all NFL teams belong to people who did nothing to deserve them except shoot out of the right uterus or the right spouse. Two more NFL teams are owned by scions of American industrial giants (the Lions and Jets). And somehow this makes them business geniuses who deserve to lock out their employees and rob the country of its favorite sport? Really? The same shrewd people who apparently screwed themselves into such an allegedly shitty labor deal not but a few years ago? Is there ANY situation in which a billionaire can be ing wrong, then? Or is their wealth simply an overriding character trait that trumps all flaws? There's a distinctly political turn to much of these lockout arguments among fans. I guess if you think the players are right (and I do), that makes you a dirty liberal and there can't possibly be a decent case to be made. All unions are bad, which means the NFL players are ungrateful and lazy and deserve to be booted out on their ass because the owners are the beginning and end of why the NFL is successful. No success is ever entirely self-made. Billionaires don't just crawl out of a ing swamp and then work 23-hour days until they're filthy rich and deserving of every penny. There are a million factors that go into the making of a successful person, and hard work is merely one of them. There's an element of luck. There's certainly an element of breeding. There's an element of good timing, of catching the wave at the precise right moment. All of those things factor in, not to mention the millions upon millions of tax dollars used to subsidize the stadiums many of these fine gentlemen happen to now own. But these pro-owner people seem to believe that NFL owners are ing magical money unicorns that came out of a glowing cistern on a mountaintop, and they have carte blanche to strongarm people accordingly. I hope they're planted by the league. I really do, though some polls suggest otherwise. Because if you are a real, living, breathing person and you're actually rooting for the league to continue to, you know, not playing, then you can go ing die. If you have a beef with the union breaking up and suing the NFL, then you're too stupid to understand that suing the league was essentially ALL the players could do, because for years now the owners have been hellbent on losing games in the 2011 season specifically to squeeze more money out of the players, as much as humanly possible. Many owners didn't bother to show up for the initial negotiating sessions in March. They want their lockout, and they're going to exhaust every shitty, awful option they can to make it happen. And they sure as shit don't care about your concerns in the process. You're the fan. You're just a ing sheep. Meanwhile, the players, who used legal recourse to return to the field, are the bad guys? Why? Because you think they may try and get rid of the draft, even though that will NEVER happen? (And it should be noted here that getting rid of the draft and making all incoming rookies free agents is far more in the spirit of unbridled capitalism, though that apparently only matters if the beneficiaries of said system are white billionaire one who sucks the peniss.) Are you that ing dumb? The idea that players are just dumb assholes who should be grateful that their noble employer sees fit to pay them ANYTHING is a bizarre and downright feudal stance to take. These strike me as the thoughts of someone with a massive political blind spot, where your politics so utterly consume you that you can't be bothered with the reality staring you in the face. This doesn't need to be a political argument, and yet there are people out there desperate to make it precisely that. I love football. Football is pretty much what I live for, and it seems to me that only the players are interested in making football a reality this fall. So if you're somehow on the side of management in this NFL dispute, please know that you are wrong and that you are stupid and that I **ing hate you.
Posts: 22,416

05-12-2011, 08:52 PM	#69
DaFace Kind of a mod Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Donkey Land Casino cash: $-1693101	Oh, and apparently I'm too ****ing stupid too understand what's going on. Please help me! I'm intellectually deficient.
Posts: 53,134

05-12-2011, 08:54 PM	#71
joesomebody Waiting to be voted off Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Baltimore, MD Casino cash: $9994900	I don't care either way. Just get the dog and pony show back on the field dammit.
Posts: 2,584

05-12-2011, 09:09 PM	#75
Okie_Apparition Banned Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: floatin cobwebs n the sky Casino cash: $10004900	Unless it's your livelihood. If the loss of an NFL season effects you enough to upset your daily exsistence. You're just a little bitch no matter what side you're on
Posts: 7,012

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