NFL Owners to opt out of CBA?

[Iamcanadian]

Originally Posted by bearsfan_51

Ugh....do we REALLY need to have this argument again?

Football would not become like baseball. If you don't understand why do some actual reasearch about the finances of both sports. Or just shut up.

If we got rid of the salary cap it would not make nearly the difference people think it would.

I have to disagree. While there is a lot of revenue sharing in the NFL unlike baseball, big cities would still have a substantial advantage over smaller ones especially in merchandising. Teams like Buffalo, Cincinnati, Arizona and a few others have substantially less revenue that most of the other bigger city teams. There is a reason why Buffalo wants to play in Toronto.
They might not actually get down to 4 or 5 teams dominating the league financially but the effects would be noticable nevertheless and any sense of equality would disappear quickly.
Anyways, it's not going to happen because if the NFL were to pull out of the CBA which I highly doubt, a strike would surely follow and before it is all said and done, the NFL could lose and face a far worse CBA. There are no guarantees in a strike and with NFL revenues are at an all time high, I just cannot see how they would throw the dice by negating the current CBA and risk everything they have accomplish toi win some relatively minor concessions.

[bearsfan_51]

Originally Posted by Iamcanadian

I have to disagree. While there is a lot of revenue sharing in the NFL unlike baseball, big cities would still have a substantial advantage over smaller ones especially in merchandising. Teams like Buffalo, Cincinnati, Arizona and a few others have substantially less revenue that most of the other bigger city teams. There is a reason why Buffalo wants to play in Toronto.
They might not actually get down to 4 or 5 teams dominating the league financially but the effects would be noticable nevertheless and any sense of equality would disappear quickly.
Anyways, it's not going to happen because if the NFL were to pull out of the CBA which I highly doubt, a strike would surely follow and before it is all said and done, the NFL could lose and face a far worse CBA. There are no guarantees in a strike and with NFL revenues are at an all time high, I just cannot see how they would throw the dice by negating the current CBA and risk everything they have accomplish toi win some relatively minor concessions.

Those teams already have more revenue, and higher payrolls.

I'm not saying "yay strike!!", but people have this totally misguided idea that the salary cap is the only reason (or even a main reason) why there is parity in the NFL.

[Iamcanadian]

Originally Posted by bearsfan_51

Those teams already have more revenue, and higher payrolls.

I'm not saying "yay strike!!", but people have this totally misguided idea that the salary cap is the only reason (or even a main reason) why there is parity in the NFL.

Here I agree with you, scheduling has a lot more to do with parity than talent although the top teams with the top QB's are going to dominate in the end anyways. However, neither you nor I can predict what no salary cap would do to the league itself. Certainly the richer teams would benefit and the poorer team would pay the consequences. Besides, it will never come to no salary cap even if the CBA was negated, there simply won't be a season or any games till a new CBA is negotiated. Heck, the NFL would lock the players out before they'll play a season with no CBA and no salary cap.

[Stash]

Originally Posted by Iamcanadian

Here I agree with you, scheduling has a lot more to do with parity than talent although the top teams with the top QB's are going to dominate in the end anyways. However, neither you nor I can predict what no salary cap would do to the league itself. Certainly the richer teams would benefit and the poorer team would pay the consequences. Besides, it will never come to no salary cap even if the CBA was negated, there simply won't be a season or any games till a new CBA is negotiated. Heck, the NFL would lock the players out before they'll play a season with no CBA and no salary cap.

Shane Falco time?

[JT Jag]

Good. The current CBA is killing the Jaguars and Wayne Weaver, along with many other small-market teams.

I have no doubt that a better CBA will be negotiated if this happens.

[Bengals1690]

Players make the revenue. They are what drives the juggernaut called the NFL. They should get as much of the money THEY make as possible.

[wogitalia]

The NFL CBA is fine how it is. Only change that I can see that would be beneficial to the league would be some form of scaled rookie contracts, like the NBA has.

You look at the other sports...

MLB - Same teams year in year out dominate because of no cap.
NBA - The soft cap is even worse than no cap, it allows stupid owners and GMs to effectively screw a team for the future. Also, fully guaranteed contracts are a joke. They mean it only takes 1 Scott Layden or Isiah Thomas and the team has no chance for 5 years.

The NFL has it right, no guaranteed contracts, a hard cap, parity, revenue sharing. It is just spot on, anyone who doesn't see this, be they player or owner, has been blinded by greed. Any fan who doesn't see it should go and watch a Knicks game or two.

[OzTitan]

The NFL has guaranteed money in contracts. In fact, it is one of the tools that teams with more monetary resources use to somewhat exploit the cap system. Teams like the Redskins can afford to make their player contracts heavier with guaranteed money particularly in the form of signing bonus, which gives them and teams like them an edge when signing free agents (A team like the Bills won't be able to match some signing bonuses), and it also can even make the cap impact lower since signing bonus is prorated. Of course this can back fire if the player busts making him harder to get rid of, but it's getting easier and easier these days for teams to fit under the cap with the recent cap spikes so such tactics aren't seemingly punished easily.

So more money still plays a role even in the current NFL, just not as much as the MLB obviously, but no cap could certainly change that. Remember though, the NFL was still a great league before the cap and drafting is still king (which every team can do), so it probably won't be a huge issue, just a disappointment IMO as the NFL has the best sports salary cap system in the world bar none, and I don't want to see it go.