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First let’s clear one thing up, no one wants the NFL lockout to effect the scheduled season. Not the fans, not the players, and no, not even the owners. That’s right, although many players, fans and media members have made it seem like the owners would love nothing better than to ruin a season that is not the case. Certainly they are more willing to take that route than the players because they can afford to lose more, they still would lose revenue from ticket and merchandise sales. The reason this is a possibility however, is because the issue is not about the present, but the future. A common misconception is that the owners claim to be losing money, while still making substantial profits. In actuality the owners are still making money, just not as much as they were in the past. Why then did they opt out of the collective bargaining agreement and implement the lockout? The answer is, purely business.
The truth of the matter is, when a company’s profit margins start shrinking (meaning they are making less than they have in the past, but not necessarily losing money) any company owner starts to worry. Ideally this problem is addressed before the company starts losing money, which is what the owners are trying to do. Though many players point to team profits in the tens of millions of dollars to back their case, this is irrelevant if that number is significantly lower than it was five years ago. Many times in these situations the owner of a company will simply work to cut costs, by either finding ways to become more efficient or though the practice of laying off workers. While the latter may be an unpopular practice, popularity is generally not a concern for multinational companies as very few people will boycott them for trying to save money. NFL owners however do not have that option, as they may alienate fans by getting rid of the wrong people (Imagine the reaction if Robert Kraft decided to “lay off” Tom Brady). Also, because such a large margin of team expenses go to the players, laying off a number of mid-level executives would not save much, and cutting multiple backup players from the roster would put a team at a competitive disadvantage. So that leaves the owners with one choice, cutting salaries.
This is where the current dispute starts as nobody wants to take a pay-cut, not even those who make $5 million a year, and they certainly don’t want it being taken by billionaires. This is also where it gets easy to take the players side, as people think the owners already have enough money as it is. There are other factors to consider however, before taking sides. One must take into account ballooning player salaries since 2000 along with the economic recession that hit in 2008. Owners no longer have the option of compensating for rising player costs with increased ticket prices because the fans do not have the money to pay for them. So with the trend of costs going up along with having no way to balance them out the owners realized that eventually owning an NFL team would be a money-losing venture. This is why it would not have been logical for them to simply extend the recently expired CBA, this is why before one starts placing all the blame on the owners they need to consider their side of it; it’s just business.
