Should NFL owners get paid by the win?

[Rain Man]

We've heard more talk recently about whether teams should - or do - intentionally tank seasons now to get a top draft pick. While it's for the most part stupid and crazy talk by people who don't know the difference between life and video games, the incentive does exist, and we do know that the Colts did it a couple of years ago since there were over 150,000 options better than Curtis Painter.

I don't know exactly what the profit level is for a typical NFL tam, but if you set aside a pool of TV money and gave teams a set amount per win at the end of the year, enough to make a difference in their bottom line, would it encourage owners to put the best team on the field every year?

I don't know if that number is $100,000 per win or $500,000 or $1 million. You'd want to make it enough that it would make the owner's silicone-heavy trophy wife squeal in glee after each win, but not so much that it puts a losing team in huge financial jeopardy. You'd want it to be enough that an owner would prefer an eight-win season over a two-win season if he can control it, so that fans get the best product during their TV-viewing experience.*

Or now that I think about it, maybe it's not a bad idea to make the owner of a perennial loser start taking a bath every year so he'd sell the team.



* - Because no one can afford to go to the games in person any more since the owners are maximizing revenue regardless of how bad their team plays.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

The PGA Tour has always had the best salary structure, but it doesn't easily lend itself to team sports.

That said, I still think that owners should get pro-rated shares of TV money based upon RS W-L records and playoff success.

You want to do everything possible to make sure that people like Al Davis or the Hunt family never own NFL teams. There's no financial incentive to build anything worthwhile for the fans, which is asinine for an entertainment product you have to pay to attend.

[Bufkin]

No. Mainly because I'm a big Shao Kahn fan and I want him to get paid regardless of how shitty Jacksonville is. I'm not actually a big fan, I just like his mustache.

[Rain Man]

The PGA Tour has always had the best salary structure, but it doesn't easily lend itself to team sports.

That said, I still think that owners should get pro-rated shares of TV money based upon RS W-L records and playoff success.

You want to do everything possible to make sure that people like Al Davis or the Hunt family never own NFL teams. There's no financial incentive to build anything worthwhile for the fans, which is asinine for an entertainment product you have to pay to attend.

What's the PGA structure? I don't follow golf since it doesn't have many violent collisions.

[-King-]

No.

[Hootie]

the TV money idea is actually pretty good...

I'd love to see that happen.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

What's the PGA structure? I don't follow golf since it doesn't have many violent collisions.

Almost every tournament has a 36 hole cut. Top 70 players and ties in most events, or if you are within 10 shots of the lead in some.

At the conclusion of the tournament, players are paid based upon order of finish. If you don't make the cut in a regular tournament, you don't make a dime. It doesn't matter if you're Tiger Woods. You still have to cover your own travel expenses and the loop for your caddie.

Guys can still make a comfortable living off of endorsements, but even those contracts are about 40 percent what they were before the real estate bubble burst.

If you wrench your back, you don't make any money that year. If you have a career year and then do nothing for the next half decade, your ass is shipped back to the mini tours.

It's one of the only true meritocracies in sports.

[OnTheWarpath15]

The PGA Tour has always had the best salary structure, but it doesn't easily lend itself to team sports.

That said, I still think that owners should get pro-rated shares of TV money based upon RS W-L records and playoff success.

You want to do everything possible to make sure that people like Al Davis or the Hunt family never own NFL teams. There's no financial incentive to build anything worthwhile for the fans, which is asinine for an entertainment product you have to pay to attend.

This.

[Psyko Tek]

but that would create a lower level of teams, once you start winning you have more money to keep buying more players
or is the salary cap still same and covered by Tv revenue and this is just extra money in owners pockets?

[DaFace]

I think it would cause a lot of problems between teams to try and move the league forward. Teams with a franchise QB would be pushing for more rules to benefit offenses, for example. It's already happening, and adding money to the issue would just make it stronger.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

but that would create a lower level of teams, once you start winning you have more money to keep buying more players
or is the salary cap still same and covered by Tv revenue and this is just extra money in owners pockets?

Cap stays the same, but the profits the owners make on the team are based upon how good the team is.

If the Chiefs were any other business they would have shuttered their doors thirty years ago. The owners should not be guaranteed eight figure profits each year just because they happen to own an NFL team. Produce a competitive product or get fucked. Happens with movie studios, video game developers, TV networks, publishers, etc.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

I think it would cause a lot of problems between teams to try and move the league forward. Teams with a franchise QB would be pushing for more rules to benefit offenses, for example. It's already happening, and adding money to the issue would just make it stronger.

The owners should not have the power they do. The commissioner is a goddamned puppet. There should be an independent competition committee of people not affiliated with any NFL team that makes decisions on rules.

[CapsLockKey]

I don't see a single owner blatently not trying to win. I guess you can try and make a case for the Colts tanking on purpose, but it's not like Irsay went and took a baseball bat to Mannings neck just do he could draft Luck.

[GloucesterChief]

Almost every tournament has a 36 hole cut. Top 70 players and ties in most events, or if you are within 10 shots of the lead in some.

At the conclusion of the tournament, players are paid based upon order of finish. If you don't make the cut in a regular tournament, you don't make a dime. It doesn't matter if you're Tiger Woods. You still have to cover your own travel expenses and the loop for your caddie.

Guys can still make a comfortable living off of endorsements, but even those contracts are about 40 percent what they were before the real estate bubble burst.

If you wrench your back, you don't make any money that year. If you have a career year and then do nothing for the next half decade, your ass is shipped back to the mini tours.

It's one of the only true meritocracies in sports.

Tennis the same thing but it really only works for non team sports. Now, head coaches I could see getting this deal. Might make them more aggressive.

[GloucesterChief]

I don't see a single owner blatently not trying to win. I guess you can try and make a case for the Colts tanking on purpose, but it's not like Irsay went and took a baseball bat to Mannings neck just do he could draft Luck.

True it is more a problem in baseball but it seems like something has happen where a lot of the recently horrible teams have gotten a lot better ie Cinci, Pittsburgh, KC, Seattle, and Baltimore.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

It's not pulling a Rachel Phelps, but being a Donald Sterling (as an owner, not a human being) for 25+ years that must be prevented. Sterling didn't give a rat fuck if his team won or not because he made hundreds of millions of dollars just by owning an NBA team.

That should never happen.

[cdcox]

Yes.

First 50% of league revenues is split evenly between all teams, for 1.56% per team.

Other 50% of revenue is split between playoff teams as follows.

Super Bowl Champ 12% bonus

Super Bowl Loser 8% bonus

Conference Champ losers 2X5% bonus

Division round losers 4x3% bonus bonus

Wild Card losers 4x2% bonus

I don't really care about rewarding 8 wins vs 2 wins. It is about championships.

[cdcox]

I think it would cause a lot of problems between teams to try and move the league forward. Teams with a franchise QB would be pushing for more rules to benefit offenses, for example. It's already happening, and adding money to the issue would just make it stronger.

Right now the perception about TV ratings drive rule changes. My scheme would make teams favor rules that would benefit their style of play and likely slow down the rush to fast-break football.

I'd put player salaries on a similar incentive basis at a team level.

[Hootie]

Yes.

First 50% of league revenues is split evenly between all teams, for 1.56% per team.

Other 50% of revenue is split between playoff teams as follows.

Super Bowl Champ 12% bonus

Super Bowl Loser 8% bonus

Conference Champ losers 2X5% bonus

Division round losers 4x3% bonus bonus

Wild Card losers 4x2% bonus

I don't really care about rewarding 8 wins vs 2 wins. It is about championships.

THIS. THIS. THIS.

[Hootie]

I'd put player salaries on a similar incentive basis at a team level.

NOT THIS.

The last thing I want is to have to listen to all the "me first" receivers and running backs complaining about not getting enough touchdowns to pay their child support.

[cdcox]

NOT THIS.

The last thing I want is to have to listen to all the "me first" receivers and running backs complaining about not getting enough touchdowns to pay their child support.

Team basis (wins), not individual basis (stats). I'd have to think about the details but players should be incentivized for their team to win. Of course that will put huge pressure not to be the goat.

[Hootie]

hmm...

maybe a $5K bonus check to everyone on the active roster for every win?

[Rain Man]

I don't think you can have a bonus for players that's based on winning. In the era of free agency, it would influence players to go to stronger teams over weaker teams, and would essentially give a stronger team a higher salary cap.

I think you only do it for the owners, and you have to take it out of shared money now so that it hurts the perennially bad teams enough that the owners will sell, while giving every team a notable incentive to "win now".

[-King-]

I don't see a single owner blatently not trying to win. I guess you can try and make a case for the Colts tanking on purpose, but it's not like Irsay went and took a baseball bat to Mannings neck just do he could draft Luck.

Even in the Colts situation tanking doesn't really make any sense. Who tanked? The GM that was fired? The coach that was fired? The players that were eventually cut?

They just sucked as a team IMO. They weren't necessarily trying to tank.

[cdcox]

hmm...

maybe a $5K bonus check to everyone on the active roster for every win?

Not nearly enough to make any difference.

Here is what I am thinking. Players negotiate their contract as usual. They get 75% of their pay as normal. The other 25% goes into the playoff qualifier pool that is distributed to players just like the owners pool in proportion to that players take of his team's salary cap.

If a player had a contract of X his compensation for the year would be as follows:

Winning the SB 2.67x
Losing the SB 2.03x
Losing the conference Championship 1.55x
Losing a Division Round Game 1.23x
Losing a WC game 1.07x
Not qualifying for playoffs 0.75x

[Ming the Merciless]

LOL this is not a serious question, right?

GM maybe

Owner?

LOL

[listopencil]

If the Chiefs were any other business they would have shuttered their doors thirty years ago. The owners should not be guaranteed eight figure profits each year just because they happen to own an NFL team. Produce a competitive product or get ****ed. Happens with movie studios, video game developers, TV networks, publishers, etc.


The Chiefs aren't a business. The NFL is a business. It is ridiculously successful and rakes in a shit load of cash.

[cdcox]

I don't think you can have a bonus for players that's based on winning. In the era of free agency, it would influence players to go to stronger teams over weaker teams, and would essentially give a stronger team a higher salary cap.

I'm trying to decide how much this represents a flaw in my system. Lets remember that the total salary cap (before playoff bonuses) will be the same for every team. Let's call the percentage of a player's salary that is performance based "p". If p=0.99, clearly there is a huge incentive for the best players to go to the best teams. But even then it is balanced against the ability to claim a significant portion of a teams cap. If Tom Brady can only claim 3% of a team's cap due to signing other super stars, he probably should go to another team to maximize his income. The expected income of any player is given by:

CAP * (expected value of performance bonus = f(p)) * chances of reaching team goals * fraction of cap allocated to that player

At any given point, players are trading off chances of reaching team goals vs. the fraction of the cap they can claim. Bird in hand vs. bush. For any value of p this trade off is unclear. For high values of "p" this evaluation is very important. For low values of "p" this evaluation isn't important at all. I think there is an optimum value of "p" that makes this evaluation moderately important and maintains the balance between seeking a competitive team and going to a team that can really benefit from your talents. GMs would be hugely important under this model.

I think you only do it for the owners, and you have to take it out of shared money now so that it hurts the perennially bad teams enough that the owners will sell, while giving every team a notable incentive to "win now".

I'm more concerned with weeding out the perennially bad and perpetually mediocre than providing an incentive to "win now". The teams making a profit over the last 30 years should be:

Steelers
Ravens
Pats
Colts
Broncos
Giants
Cowboys
49ers
Packers

Everyone else should be breaking even or losing money.

[Ming the Merciless]

The Chiefs aren't a business.

I would be willing to bet the owner disagrees with you.

I would be willing to bet the GM on down the line disagree with you...

It seems more likely to say that they are both businesses....The Chiefs are more like a "franchise" or independently operated branch or something....

The chiefs are in business to sell tickets / parking and beer, hotdogs and sodas...and make money....

The owner should make as much money as he can, and pay people according to their performance...

Maybe have the GM rake in a bonus for wins, who knows....but I think the owner already knows his business will lessen of the product is bad.

Look at the Chiefs..."operation sell tickets" is happening right here, right now.

[cdcox]

LOL this is not a serious question, right?

GM maybe

Owner?

LOL

Clearly this is a speculative question about what would make the game better and not something that owners are likely to implement.

[Ming the Merciless]

Clearly this is a speculative question about what would make the game better and not something that owners are likely to implement.

You misunderstand me...

Obviously it is speculative, but the owner gets paid for the hot dogs and the beer etc...and running the business...

The GM and the coaches would be the ones who would need to get paid by the win for this to work.

If the team got more money the more they won, the system would collapse with the good teams having all the cash....and the chiefs having jack shit

because we are the chiefs

[cdcox]

I would be willing to bet the owner disagrees with you.

I would be willing to bet the GM on down the line disagree with you...

It seems more likely to say that they are both businesses....The Chiefs are more like a "franchise" or independently operated branch or something....

The chiefs are in business to sell tickets / parking and beer, hotdogs and sodas...and make money....

The NFL is 2/3 a monopoly owned by 32 team owners colluding to maximize profits of the NFL and hence each of the 32 owners acting as a collective. The other 1/3 of its identity is encapsulated as teams acting as individual businesses where the actions of the owners and their agents can affect revenue and team value.

[Ming the Merciless]

The NFL is 2/3 a monopoly owned by 32 team owners colluding to maximize profits of the NFL and hence each of the 32 owners acting as a collective. The other 1/3 of its identity is encapsulated as teams acting as individual businesses where the actions of the owners and their agents can affect revenue and team value.

Oh you mean the chiefs ARE a business?

Ok

[cdcox]

You misunderstand me...

Obviously it is speculative, but the owner gets paid for the hot dogs and the beer etc...and running the business...

The GM and the coaches would be the ones who would need to get paid by the win for this to work.

If the team got more money the more they won, the system would collapse with the good teams having all the cash....and the chiefs having jack shit

because we are the chiefs

Dallas sells more hot dogs than Jacksonville. For this and many other reasons, the Dallas franchise is worth more than the Jacksonville franchise.

In my proposal the salary cap is still in place.

[mikey23545]

We've heard more talk recently about whether teams should - or do - intentionally tank seasons now to get a top draft pick. While it's for the most part stupid and crazy talk by people who don't know the difference between life and video games, the incentive does exist, and we do know that the Colts did it a couple of years ago since there were over 150,000 options better than Curtis Painter.

I don't know exactly what the profit level is for a typical NFL tam, but if you set aside a pool of TV money and gave teams a set amount per win at the end of the year, enough to make a difference in their bottom line, would it encourage owners to put the best team on the field every year?

I don't know if that number is $100,000 per win or $500,000 or $1 million. You'd want to make it enough that it would make the owner's silicone-heavy trophy wife squeal in glee after each win, but not so much that it puts a losing team in huge financial jeopardy. You'd want it to be enough that an owner would prefer an eight-win season over a two-win season if he can control it, so that fans get the best product during their TV-viewing experience.*

Or now that I think about it, maybe it's not a bad idea to make the owner of a perennial loser start taking a bath every year so he'd sell the team.



* - Because no one can afford to go to the games in person any more since the owners are maximizing revenue regardless of how bad their team plays.


LMAO

Absolutely one of the most truthful quotes ever on this board full of egotistical draft-tards that I've ever seen...If I knew how to give you a million positive positive reps all at the same, I would.

You'll just have to settle for one.

[cdcox]

Oh you mean the chiefs ARE a business?

Ok

The financial identity of the Chiefs is 2/3 NFL which is a monopoly. Yes a business can be a monopoly. But the decisions that the Chiefs make do not really have much of an impact on this fraction of their financial identity.

The other 1/3 is a business operating in the context of this monopoly conglomerate.

It is not a business in the same way that Microsoft is a business.

[Ming the Merciless]

Dallas sells more hot dogs than Jacksonville. For this and many other reasons, the Dallas franchise is worth more than the Jacksonville franchise.

In my proposal the salary cap is still in place.

Oh sorry, I didnt review your proposal.

I was just talking about the idea in general of paying the owners 'by the win' & how it could lead to unintended bad results like teams spiraling into some kind of death cycle
where they start losing games and cant afford stuff needed to help make the team better / stadium better / ,make
cash...leading to further collapse.

My comment wasn't directed at your proposal at all.

[Ming the Merciless]

It is not a business in the same way that Microsoft is a business.

Oh so you mean the Chiefs ARE a business?

LOL

[Ming the Merciless]

The financial identity of the Chiefs is 2/3 NFL which is a monopoly. Yes a business can be a monopoly. But the decisions that the Chiefs make do not really have much of an impact on this fraction of their financial identity.

The other 1/3 is a business operating in the context of this monopoly conglomerate.

It is not a business in the same way that Microsoft is a business.

Actually even the supreme court disagrees with you

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5214509


Although NFL teams have common interests such as promoting the NFL brand, they are still separate, profit-maximizing entities, and their interests in licensing team trademarks are not necessarily aligned," said the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for a unanimous court.
I guess other people are having this debate too!

[Rain Man]

I'm trying to decide how much this represents a flaw in my system. Lets remember that the total salary cap (before playoff bonuses) will be the same for every team. Let's call the percentage of a player's salary that is performance based "p". If p=0.99, clearly there is a huge incentive for the best players to go to the best teams. But even then it is balanced against the ability to claim a significant portion of a teams cap. If Tom Brady can only claim 3% of a team's cap due to signing other super stars, he probably should go to another team to maximize his income. The expected income of any player is given by:

CAP * (expected value of performance bonus = f(p)) * chances of reaching team goals * fraction of cap allocated to that player

At any given point, players are trading off chances of reaching team goals vs. the fraction of the cap they can claim. Bird in hand vs. bush. For any value of p this trade off is unclear. For high values of "p" this evaluation is very important. For low values of "p" this evaluation isn't important at all. I think there is an optimum value of "p" that makes this evaluation moderately important and maintains the balance between seeking a competitive team and going to a team that can really benefit from your talents. GMs would be hugely important under this model.




Yeah, it's a good point about superstar players overcrowding the cap. Maybe that would be a strong enough force to keep superteams from coalescing.

Right now, the forces that promote players to build superteams are:

-desire to win a Super Bowl
-desire to win in general
-age if a player's tenure is growing short
-maybe more long-term opportunities like eating for free for life or making money on autographs, though those are too amorphous to really consider.
-some teams have natural advantages for players, like national visibility in New York and bikinis in Miami.

The forces that dissuade players from building superteams are:

-salary cap
-perhaps some ego in some cases if they want to be "the star", though this is probably not a big factor.

In this system, you'd add one more force to the pro-superteam side, which is that they get additional money atop their contract.

The salary cap may well override the other forces, and I agree that it's the biggest single force by far. However, it would still give me the willies if two teams made identical offers to a player, and he had a financial incentive to go to the stronger team atop those identical offers.

[Ming the Merciless]

I wonder if players could be sued for collusion by the other teams if they formed a super team for way less money, just to win a ring

[Beef Supreme]

I think Andy Reid gets paid by the screen pass.

[Ming the Merciless]

I think Andy Reid gets paid by the screen pass.

ROFL

/thread

[Rain Man]

Clearly this is a speculative question about what would make the game better and not something that owners are likely to implement.


Yeah, there's zero chance that the owners would implement this system onto themselves. It adds risk to NFL ownership and probably lowers the value of franchises that go up for sale (because those will for the most part be the unsuccessful franchises).

The only way you could implement this system would be for the owners to say that the system will go into place upon the death of the last current owner. That way, they could do it for the good of the game but do so without causing themselves any harm. It's not noble at all, but it's the only way it could reasonably work.

I'm not sure who the youngest NFL owner is, but it would probably be 40 to 50 years before the new system was implemented, and the question is out whether the NFL will even exist in 40 or 50 years. There are too many people squeezing golden eggs out of the goose.

[Rain Man]

I wonder if players could be sued for collusion by the other teams if they formed a super team for way less money, just to win a ring

That would be a fun movie script. All of the league's best players are aging, and none of them have rings because the Patriots win them all. They all talk at the pro bowl and hatch a plan. They find the most sad-sack, unsuccessful franchise in the league, sign vet minimum contracts, and the season follows the new Chiefs team as they make a one-time Dream Team shot to go out with a championship.

[cdcox]

The NFL is exempt from antitrust laws. That pretty much makes it a monopoly.

As a fan, I agree that it should be a monopoly because it is the best way to put the best product on the field. But as a condition of being exempt from antitrust laws, I'd love to see a proposal such as mine to make more competition within the structure of the league.

In short, I think the NFL should be a monopoly, but their owners and teams should be pressured to be more subject to artificial competitive forces since they are exempt from the major effects of typical market based forces.

[Beef Supreme]

That would be a fun movie script. All of the league's best players are aging, and none of them have rings because the Patriots win them all. They all talk at the pro bowl and hatch a plan. They find the most sad-sack, unsuccessful franchise in the league, sign vet minimum contracts, and the season follows the new Chiefs team as they make a one-time Dream Team shot to go out with a championship.

But they lose, because dramatic effect, and we are the Chiefs.

[Ming the Merciless]

I guess I really dont see the point in allocating even more money to winning teams....and the winning teams are going to reap rewards JUST from winning (playoff tickets, playoff beer/hotdogs...etc.)

What is the goal of this? To give more of an incentive to the owner to win games? To weed out bad owners?


If thats the goal, maybe just have a contract where an owner doesnt win X number of playoff games over a 10 year/20 year period they are forced to sell the team?

I think that would be a better way of handling that goal with a non game breaking method.

[Ming the Merciless]

That would be a fun movie script. All of the league's best players are aging, and none of them have rings because the Patriots win them all. They all talk at the pro bowl and hatch a plan. They find the most sad-sack, unsuccessful franchise in the league, sign vet minimum contracts, and the season follows the new Chiefs team as they make a one-time Dream Team shot to go out with a championship.

ROFL

rep

[Rain Man]

But they lose, because dramatic effect, and we are the Chiefs.


Well, of course. It would be a surprise ending to everybody but Chiefs fans.

I see it playing out with a dramatic drive downfield in the last minute of the game to the one-yard line, and then our future hall of fame kicker would miss an 18-yard field goal as time runs out.

[cdcox]

YHowever, it would still give me the willies if two teams made identical offers to a player, and he had a financial incentive to go to the stronger team atop those identical offers.

1. Luckily there are 32 teams, rather than 2.

2. Let's call the base salary x. The true value of any player, let's call it z, is always unknown. Likewise the value of playoff bonus dollars, let's call this y, for each team is unknown. Teams are trying to maximize z while minimizing x. They have additional motives to maximize y. Players are trying to maximize x + y and want to maximize their z because it maximizes y. It seems like all of the elements for a competitive market are in place. Teams that best estimate z and players perceptions of y will be able to make the optimum offers of x.

In your example, the two teams are offering the same x. Y is perceived to be higher for one of the two teams, thus the estimate of the true ability of the player (z) made by the two teams is different. The team that better estimates z as a reflection of their offer (x + y) will come out better in the end and thus field a more competitive team.

Finally you mention many non-financial factors that would cause a player to select a team, most related to winning, but some related to market size. Since owners now have win to make money, it makes winning even more important since you won't be able to get good players if you don't win.

In many ways, it seems that the proposed NFL model shares aspects of the college model (top players want to go top teams plus trade offs between top team and opportunity to play). It should be noted that there is significant drift among the top college teams from year to year and decade to decade. The top dogs in the NFL would have much more ability to change relative position since the NFL has a parity draft, which colleges do not have.

[cdcox]

Well, of course. It would be a surprise ending to everybody but Chiefs fans.

I see it playing out with a dramatic drive downfield in the last minute of the game to the one-yard line, and then our future hall of fame kicker would miss an 18-yard field goal as time runs out.

I had a visceral emotional reaction just reading that.

[Rain Man]

I had a visceral emotional reaction just reading that.

It would be like the ending of Rocky, but without the moral victory.

[Valiant]

Fuck that.

If that is the case, I would rather all teams become property of the cities they are in. Most of the stadium building costs come from them anyway.

Set ceiling and floors for team salaries. Owner/GM gets a percentage from wins/playoffs. All extra money goes to city. This includes tv/merch. Successful owners/GMs would make more from winning. But the cities could use the profits for schools and lower taxes on citizens.

All of this would be public information though, so the cities can not misuse it or steal it.

[Dayze]

Cddox for commish. :clap: