Gene Upshaw: "Eight NFL Teams Have Unfair financial advantage"

http://msn.foxsports.com/story/3115354

Gene Upshaw told NFL owners Wednesday he believes eight powerful teams have obtained an unfair advantage over the other 24.

"When we started this process, there were 14 teams above the average and 14 below it, and everyone was close enough to keep things fair," the executive director of the NFL Players Association said. "Now we have eight haves and 24 have-nots and the haves are getting a discount on everything."

This seems especially interesting for hockey fans, in light of the arguments over caps and revenues. I was also interested to learn that the NFL CBA stipulates that the last year of the CBA is uncapped. This forces them to work out an extension whenever the expiration starts coming around, which helps avoid work stoppages. Interesting.

Certainly adds some ammo to the NHLPA's stance of "NFL situation is not good".
But the NFLPA will just get owned again if they decide to strike or something.

What Upshaw is saying is that he wants the cap to remain and more money to be shared which equals more money for the players under a higher cap.

It's only natural that teams who are more successful are going to make more money.

I'm sure as to who these 8 teams are, though. The Cowboys, Redskins, Patriots, and Eagles are the 4 obvious ones.

Giants, Jets, Raiders for markets

It's only natural that teams who are more successful are going to make more money.

I'm sure as to who these 8 teams are, though. The Cowboys, Redskins, Patriots, and Eagles are the 4 obvious ones.

And only the Patriots and Eagles are very good out of those 4, I thought in the world of NFL parity and salary cap restrictions, that any extra profit the individual team makes won't really affect the on-field product. Might lead to nicer facilities, but what's wrong with having teams more popular than others?

Luckily, all 8 of them are still bound by the same cap as the other 24 and the TV contract covers the entire roster expense.

They can offer up more in signing bonus, but all a big SB does is put the money on credit to be paid off later.

Yes, but the salary cap is based on revenues. The complaint is that these teams aren't reporting local revenue they collect, which is then not being shared amongst the other teams, which in turn keeps the salary cap lower. When the NHLPA said they didn't trust the owners to tie salary to revenues, I wondered why I had never heard any complaints about it from the NFLPA. Now we are hearing some. Probably baseless, but interesting anyway.

Giants, Jets, Raiders for markets


I wouldn't be so sure because they share markets.

I wouldn't be so sure because they share markets.

And both teams are extremely undervalued, in large part due to playing in a stadium that doesn't get them very large revenues.

Here's the current value of each of the 32 NFL teams:

http://forbes.com/lists/results.jhtml?passListId=30&passYear=2004&passListType=Misc&searchParameter1=unset&searchParameter2=unset&resultsStart=1&resultsHowMany=32&resultsSortProperties=%2Bnumberfield1%2C%2Bstringf ield1&resultsSortCategoryName=Rank&category1=category&category2=category&passKeyword=

Just a warning to those who don't know much about NFL economics: Don't use this link as a guide necessarily to which teams have the largest fanbases. The teams on top are the teams that are making the most money from ticket sales and ad revenue, which are generally the teams with the newest stadiums. The revenue sharing aspect for just about everything (especially merchandise sales) helps to make the numbers look decieving.

Dear Gene:

Get a clue. No matter how hard you try, there will always be teams with an unfair edge, for example the Cowboys, due to their enormous fan base, will always make more money no matter what. That's the nature of sports.

And yes, some teams are "have nots." That is what happens when your owner is a Bidwell, Brown, Benson, Spanos, etc.

how long have the Cardinals been in the red...is this their first year?

I really expect Toronto to start making some noise soon about the NFL

Steelers definitely gotta be one of those teams. Ungodly huge fan base.

Anyone who saw the Steelers-Cowboys game would know just how huge...

Steelers definitely gotta be one of those teams. Ungodly huge fan base.

Anyone who saw the Steelers-Cowboys game would know just how huge...

"Upshaw's presentation impressed Pittsburgh's Dan Rooney, one of the small-market owners who is a proponent of sharing more revenue."

Steelers definitely gotta be one of those teams. Ungodly huge fan base.

Anyone who saw the Steelers-Cowboys game would know just how huge...
Doubt it. Cowboys, Giants, Raiders, Patriots, Packers, Eagles, Falcons, Redskins would be my guess.

Doubt it. Cowboys, Giants, Raiders, Patriots, Packers, Eagles, Falcons, Redskins would be my guess.

I would scratch the Packers myself.

Lambeau is famous, but also one of the oldest stadiums in the league. It doesn't have much in the way of corporate boxes or luxary suites (then again, Green Bay is a small market and not likely to fill them even if there were lots). Since it is a 'city run' organization, I wouldn't be shocked if a lot of the run-off revenue (parking, concessions) goes back to the city.

Then again, they do sell a lot of merchandise and I am just speculating.

I would bet dollars to donuts that the Giants, Eagles, Redskins, Cowboys and Patriots are on that list. Just a matter of figuring out the other 3.

I can't even fathom how competitive the NFC East would be if there were no salary cap or revenue sharing.

I would scratch the Packers myself.

Lambeau is famous, but also one of the oldest stadiums in the league. It doesn't have much in the way of corporate boxes or luxary suites (then again, Green Bay is a small market and not likely to fill them even if there were lots). Since it is a 'city run' organization, I wouldn't be shocked if a lot of the run-off revenue (parking, concessions) goes back to the city.

Then again, they do sell a lot of merchandise and I am just speculating.
Having thought about it more, I think I'd replace Packers with Broncos.

here's how the teams break down money wise by Forbes as of 03.
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2003/0915/081tab.html

Steelers definitely gotta be one of those teams. Ungodly huge fan base.

Anyone who saw the Steelers-Cowboys game would know just how huge...

Yea, I was surprised by the numbers of Steelers fans there were at that game. Can't believe Dallas fans allowed that to happen ;)