What Will We Do On Sundays?

By Danny Lombard | gargoyle@flagler.edu

Sunday morning, wake up eat breakfast, sit down on my couch, watch football, drink beer and eat all day long while watching football. This might not be happening next season.

“What the heck!” I think to myself immediately after hearing about some NFL lockout while watching ESPN. This news could quite possibly ruin Sundays for a year or two of football, meanwhile hurting advertisers around the country.

This is no nightmare dream I had last night. It is very possible that next season we as a country will be without NFL football. It seems crazy right? This is all happening due to the owners of football teams wanting their players to agree to take less money because the teams overall profit margins have gone down and they are making less and less money each year. According to The Associated Press, “owners claim too much (nearly 60 percent) goes to players.”

They say they have huge debts from building stadiums and starting up the NFL Network and other ventures, making it impossible to be profitable. However, their players are hungry for money and can’t imagine taking a pay cut. Recently Reggie Bush of the New Orleans Saints Tweeted “@reggie_bush what working person wuld think an 18% pay cut wuld b reasonable? I wuld not except that either! Exactly!” If the owners do end up going through with the deal, we will not have football until the players agree with whatever the owners decide.

This might seem like a steep statement, but it’s the truth. The owners will clearly have the upper hand when players are losing homes and not able to pay for their Mercedes Benz on 20s.

As of right now according to ESPN, “players are being asked to accept an 18 percent pay cut — the $340,000 per-player-average figure.” This is a big sum of money in which it would definitely impact a lot of players’ lives. My stand of the whole issue is the owners need to get together with player representatives and meet half way in the middle.

There needs to be a deal where the $340,000 is cut down to $150,000 and do not pay new rookies Tom Brady like salaries without proving themselves first. For example JaMarcus Russell who played for the Oakland Raiders was one of the highest paid quarterbacks of all time coming out of college. If you look up “bust” in the dictionary you will see JaMarcus Russell. Russell did manage to get cut from the team and walk with over $31 million. Not to shabby for being a horrible NFL player right? Wrong! Players in the NFL should have to earn their money and become a star, not automatically be paid like one.

According to the Boston Sports, “Right now, the important number to focus on, since the 2006 agreement was struck, we’ve generated $3.6 billion in incremental revenue, and $2.6 [billion] of that has gone to the players – 2.6 of that.” These numbers are crazy to even think about, but its right there in front of me which makes me almost feel bad for these filthy rich owners. I probably shouldn’t because they are all overpaid but the players really are getting away with murder these days for ” playing a game they love.”

Another problem is the NFL lockout will destroy companies trying to make advertisement deals for the coming season. Think, if you were Budweiser would you have 20 ads on sunday to show your beer commercials knowing that the season is locked out and no ones watching? I know I would have a hard time making a commitment this early in the game.

Kevin Collins, a sports buyer at Initiative, an ad —buying firm that has MillerCoors as a client, says, “If there’s a lockout, which seems to be inevitable in my mind, it’s a concern for all advertisers.” “Moving forward we’re thinking of contingency plans to replace those ratings points. The people who are going to be hurt the most are the fans, viewers and the players.”

All in all, I hope that an agreement is made soon so we can stop worrying about what we plan on doing on Sundays come next football season. I don’t know about you, but I definitely don’t want to be watching movies and doing yard work when I’ve had a perfectly good excuse in previous years ” I can’t my teams playing.”