Four weeks ago today, NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith conducted a pre-Super Bowl press conference. He insisted during his presentation that the league has asked the players to take an “18 percent pay cut.”
The league promptly responded, via a conference call conducted by NFL general counsel Jeff Pash. “These kinds of figures are misrepresentations of what our proposal is,” Pash said at the time. “We have asked for 18% credit against the revenue base to reflect costs
that we incur that we do not receive credit for today. From that
revenue base, the players would then continue to get the same
percentage that they get today under the salary cap. The change is
nowhere close to 18%, probably half that.”
In four weeks since then, the NFL has echoed that view in multiple different ways and with various voices, including that of Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Through it all, the NFLPA has never responded to the characterization of its position as a mischaracterization of reality.
Today, the NFLPA finally responded, via a memo to all players signed by retired guard Pete Kendall -- and presumably written by someone with an advanced degree and without NFL playing experience. In a meandering and convoluted explanation, “Kendall” explains that the 18-percent reduction to the revenue base results, as a practical matter, in an 18-percent reduction in the player’s cut of the revenue.
He’s right, but it translates to an “18 percent pay cut” only if the numbers are constant from one year to the next.
Taking 18 points off the top of the union’s current 59.6-percent share reduces the union’s take to 48.82 percent of the revenue pool. Under Pash’s reasoning, that’s a gross percentage reduction of 10.78. From the perspective of the prior size of the slice of the pie, the drop from 59.6 to 48.82 represents a contraction in the amount of precisely 18 percent.
So, yes, the players’ 59.6-percent cut will be reduced by 18 percent. But it’s only an “18-percent pay cut” if the total dollars generated remain constant. For the NFL, the total dollars generated have grown at a dramatic pace, and will continue to do so.
The simple truth is that the NFL wants the union to accept a smaller slice of an ever-growing pie, like taking a third of a large pizza instead of half of a small.
The league’s response to the Kendall memo, however, isn’t quite so direct.
“The NFL owners are looking for a fair system that allows continued investment to grow the game,” the league now says. “NFL player compensation has almost doubled in the last decade because of investments made by the clubs. If we continue to invest and grow, current players will have higher compensation, former players will have higher benefits, and fans will enjoy a better game. Expenses for NFL franchises have risen faster than revenue in the current agreement and the economics must be adjusted. But, as we have repeatedly emphasized, constructive and creative negotiations can lead to a balanced agreement that will not reduce current player salaries.”
In the end, it’s all semantics. And if it took the union four weeks to come up with a plausible response to the league’s position on this point, a new CBA might not be fully hammered out before the end of the century.
