Eric Winston: Don't care if NFL 'dies out in 20 years' because of work stoppage

[kccrow]

The NFL finds itself behind other sports in paying players, but they also pay more staffing. So, without financial reports of every single major sports' league team, it'd be difficult to judge just where they sit.

Superficially, this is how the major leagues stacked up in 2016 (did my best to get it to show up):

SPORT	ROSTER	TEAMS	TOTAL PLAYERS*	TEAM CAP**	LEAGUE CAP***	AVE PLAYER SALARY	APPROX .REVENUES	APPROX. PLAYER SHARE
NFL	53	32	 1,696 	 $155,270,000 	 $4,968,640,000 	 $2,929,623 	 $13,000,000,000 	38.2%
MLB	40	30	 1,200 	 N/A 	         $3,633,530,244 	 $3,027,942 	 $9,500,000,000 	38.2%
NBA	15	30	 450 	 $94,140,000 	 $2,824,200,000 	 $6,276,000 	 $4,800,000,000 	58.8%
NHL	23	31	 713 	 $73,000,000 	 $2,263,000,000 	 $3,173,913 	 $3,700,000,000 	61.2%
*Not all leagues must meet the Max Roster Size, so approximate to show comparison								
**NFL and NHL have hard caps, NBA has soft cap w/ exclusions and special allowances so may be higher, MLB does not have a cap.								
***MLB reported as total of Opening Day Salaries

Any way you slice it, there's an issue here.

For starters, the salary cap has not aligned with the supposed 48/47% of revenues agreement in the CBA, which means that it looks like NFL teams are receiving approximately 19% of revenues from Non-AR related activities (Reference page 62 of the CBA, I'm not explaining this here).

If I'm the NFLPA, I'm pushing for a hard 47% of prior year's total revenues rule for the next CBA and a doubling of the current Vet Minimum scale along with guaranteeing all contracts for injury.

This would have pushed last year's cap to about $176 million, an increase of $21 million.

I kind of used the Chiefs as a close approximation for changing the minimum wage scale, assuming an approximate 37 players tiered as 5 at 0 yrs, 5 at 1 yrs, 6 at 2 yrs, 6 at 3 yrs, 5 at 4-6 yrs, 5 at 7-9 yrs, and 5 at 10+ yrs. This is probably a bit rich, but better to be conservative. This would push vet minimum salaries in this situation from an estimated $27.9 million to $55.8 million. The approximate increase in salary cap based on the hard 47% would about cover the increase in veteran wage scale.

This ensures that all players make at least $1 million per year.

I don't expect the NFL to pay players more than other leagues on a per player basis, that'd be ridiculous. They should, however, be putting all athletes in a situation where they'd be financially stable within their first 3 years in the league as they'd otherwise be in other sports.

I also don't expect NFL owners to pay as much as the NBA and the NHL do to players. Staffing and Stadium operating costs are significantly higher and you cannot get around that. The NFL also have the 88 Benefit and other provisions that don't exist in other leagues. And this may be a contention point going forward, what to do about CTE and how much of the burden NFL owners should be responsible for.

My theory is that the owners should provide the safest possible environment for players, but they shouldn't be held completely responsible for CTE. Players know the risk and are paid handsomely to play a game. I think players should plan to insure themselves in that event and know that it's a likely outcome.

In any event, my 10 cents.