Mellinger: Clark Hunt must stand up to big-market NFL owners

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by milkman

These small market owners aren't making nearly as much as you seem to think, and if the salary floor gets too high, teams like Detroit and Buffalo will eventually be working in the red.

Jerry Jones, Daniel Snyder and Jerry Richardson, among others, are killing the golden goose.

There's no doubt that richer NFL owners have it easier in that they can fail and still turn a profit. But let me ask why it's such a big deal for an owner to operate in the red. You bring up Detroit and Buffalo. Two teams that have had almost 10 straight losing seasons. Do these owners deserve to make money for doing shitty work? I would love for those guys to operate in the red so they can be fired.

There are a handful of owners I genuinely feel sorry for. Minnesota because they are hamstrung by a shitty stadium, and Jacksonville because it's a shitty market. The others? The fact that Buffalo can post that many losing seasons in a row and still keep the ownership tells you they're not doing too bad.

And I'm not at all convinced that it's easy at all to operate in the red. They share a shitload of revenue. And the majority of them are getting sweetheart deals from taxpayers and the city to keep the team there. Not only that, but they're building them expensive stadiums on the taxpayer dime that gives them the license to charge even higher prices and make more money.

So no, I have a very hard time believing owners are struggling. How many times have you seen an NFL owner sell their franchise because of money? Even really, really bad franchises with poor attendance numbers? Sweetest gig in America--even when you're horribly bad, you can still stay largely in the black.