NFL vs NFLPA

Roberto Ruiz-Maki

I have had just about enough of this. The NFL and the NFLPA have been discussing a new collective bargaining agreement for a week now, and I am pissed. Football is the heart of America; it is our sport, and we show that by pouring billions of dollars into the industry every year. Billions. Now the players union and the team owners can't agree on a way to divide the money up? They had a CBA in place already, where the team owners got one billion off of the top of the total profits, and then the rest was split up 60-40 in favor of the players. The owners backed out of the agreement after the players started to make more money than the owners did every year.
This has the feel of two children squabbling over who gets to go first in the lunch line. Does it really matter who gets paid a little extra when it comes to billions of dollars? I am all for the players getting paid more than the owners anyway, since we watch football because of the players. I don't sit down every Sunday night to watch the NASDAQ stock rise and fall, nor do I enjoy watching a bunch of billionaires complain about who is getting paid more than them. I will, however, sit down and watch 106 highly trained athletes competing against one another.
The biggest argument I am hearing for the owners is that there is no other company where the workers get paid more than their bosses do. I agree, it would be ludicrous for a waiter to make more than the restaurant owner, just as it would be insane for a book editor to make more than the writer. This is not your run of the mill job, though, and we should not treat it like one. No other business is based on the popularity of the workers as much as the NFL is, and you can't just replace these guys with anybody. I would not watch football if the players were fatter, slower, and sloppier. The owners need to realize that they do not make a living off football, they are all owners of other companies that make them more money, but the majority of players make their money solely from football.
This is not a player strike, this is a lockout. If there is not football next year then billions of dollars will be thrown into the garbage by the owners. The players are not at fault here, and it is unfair to blame them for this. The agreement was drawn up several years ago, and the owners were the ones pushing for that specific format.
As kids, didn't we all hate that kid who complained when the class got cookies because his did not have as many chocolate chips as every other cookie? Shut up, kid, stop being a brat, go to the corner and think about what you are doing.