The NFL: Modern-Day Slavery?

In a recent interview with Doug Farrar of Yahoo! Sports, Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was asked his opinion about the NFL labor situation. Peterson said, “It’s modern-day slavery, you know?”  On July 29, 2007 Peterson signed a contract with the Vikings that will pay him $40.5 million over 6 years. His guaranteed signing bonus for the contract is worth $17 million. I saw the documentary Roots. Kunta Kinte didn’t make that kind of money.

This is just another example of a young, uneducated, misinformed kid using controversy to make a point. The irony is, the ‘point’ that Peterson has is shared by many Americans. Most Americans feel that we are underpaid, and financially taken advantage of by our employer. Unless of course you worked for Ben & Jerry’s (1). However, comparing the NFL or any employer for that matter to slavery is an egregious error in judgment, and as an African-American Peterson should know better. Peterson was close though in his description of what it’s like to be an employee in 2011 America, he just used the wrong words. As an employee he, and the rest of us, is not a slave, rather an indentured servant. We sign a contract and are bound by the terms for a specified time in exchange for payment. No more, no less. We are Billy Budd and our employer is the HMS Indomitable (2).

Where do I stand on the NFL labor issue? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I have way better things to do than waste my time or brain power thinking of an opinion about whose right in a quarrel over money between billionaires and millionaires. The owners, with or without the team that the own, are rich enough, and the players, despite taking part in a violent game that risks their long-term health, are compensated handsomely. Just how handsomely? The NFL’s average player salary in 2009-10 was $1.896 million, with a median of $790, 000 (USA Today Salaries Database). The top 25 salaries in 2009-10 were allover $12 million, with the highest being Philip Rivers for over $25 million (USA Today Salaries Database). Obviously for employees to make that kind of money the business must be doing well, and the NFL is really doing well. The NFL had a revenue growth of 43% from 2006-09 (Forbes), and generated $9.3 billion last year which is roughly equal to the Gross Domestic Product of Macedonia (Fortune). The future continues to look bright. The following statistics come from a collaboration between Sports Illustrated and Fortune, and are listed in the Scorecard article on page 16 of the March 14 issue of Sports Illustrated. ESPN pays the NFL $1.1 billion per year for broadcasting rights, and NBC pays another $650 million. Nike just paid $1.1 billion to land the official apparel sponsorship. Verizon pays $720 million to be the league’s exclusive wireless provider. Anheuser-Busch pays $1.2 billion to be the NFL’s official beer sponsor. As employees of a seemingly thriving industry, do the players deserve to have a percentage of this trickle down to them?
If yes, then all money made in this country by all businesses should end up trickling down to teachers. Fact: companies can’t make money without employees. Fact: employees can’t have the skills necessary to work for companies without teachers. Teachers educate students into knowledge workers (3) and provide them with the information and skills necessary to add value to the workforce. It is next to impossible to own a business without some form of formal education, as it is next to impossible to work for a business without some form of formal education. However, the problem for teachers is that we work in a non-revenue generating industry, and our salaries reflect that. The highest paid K-12 teacher is currently a high school teacher with a median salary of $43,493 (payscale.com). The lowest paid K-12 teacher is an elementary school teacher with a median salary of $40,451 (payscale.com). Comedian Chris Rock, while discussing the discrepancy in earning between whites & blacks, joked that if Bill Gates were to wake up one morning with Oprah Winfrey’s money he’d jump out of a window. What would Adrian Peterson do if he woke up tomorrow morning and was told that he would be paid the equivalent of a public school teacher to run with a football?

1. When Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield founded Ben & Jerry’s they instituted a wages policy that stated no employee’s rate of pay shall exceed seven times that of entry-level employees. In 1995, entry-level employees were paid $8 hourly, and the highest paid employee was President and Chief Operating Officer Chuck Lacey, who earned $150,000 annually. When Ben Cohen resigned as Chief Executive Officer and Ben & Jerry’s announced the search for a new CEO in 1995, the company ended the seven-to-one-ratio policy.

2. Billy Budd is a novel published in 1924 by American author Herman Melville of Moby-Dick fame. The novel tells the story of Billy Budd a seaman who is impressed into indentured servitude aboard the British Royal Navy ship the HMS Indomitable.

3. Knowledge workers are individuals who are valued for their ability to act and communicate with knowledge within a specific subject area. They use research skills to define problems and to identify alternatives in an effort to influence company decisions, priorities and strategies. The term was first coined by Martin Feregrino in 1959.

Keith Detjen
Pierce Arrow Blogger

The Hypocrisy of the NCAA

“It’s not “show friends.”  It’s show business.

Bob Sugar from the movie, Jerry Maguire.

A week does not go by without a news story breaking about another sports agent illegally paying a college athlete in hopes that he will be able to represent the athlete, and cash in, when he turns pro.  Most recently the scandal spotlight shined on Auburn University and its star quarterback Cam Newton.  Prior to beginning his college career, Newton and an agent are alleged to have asked for money in exchange for a promise that he would sign with Mississippi State University.  In its October 18 issue, Sports Illustrated ran a story entitled, “Confessions of an agent,” where sports agent Josh Luchs talked about giving money or some other extra benefit, in violation of NCAA rules, to 30 former college football players during his 20 years as an NFL agent.

Accompanying every one of these stories is the comfort of knowing that the sanctimonious NCAA will hunt down and punish these student-athlete offenders for trying to cash in on their talent.  I’m not saying that what these athletes are doing is right, but what I am saying is that what the NCAA is doing is disingenuous.  Why would an 18-year old student-athlete look to take money from a sports agent or university booster?  For the same reason that the NCAA won’t change its flawed BCS system, is going through conference realignment, and signs incredibly lucrative TV deals.  To get a financial advantage.

With one hand the NCAA slaps the face of the college student looking to make a quick buck, while taking money from another business deal with the other.  On April 22, 2010, it was announced that the NCAA had reached a new 14-year, $11 billion deal with CBS Sports and Turner Sports for the rights to broadcast the NCAA Basketball Tournament from 2011-2024.  In November 2008 the NCAA signed a deal with ESPN for $125 million that includes exclusive television, radio, digital, international and marketing rights for the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls from 2011-14 and the Bowl Championship Series title game from 2011-13.

How much of this money from these two deals will the student-athletes see?  None.  I’m not advocating the paying of student-athletes, but I am advocating that the NCAA be held to the same moral standard that the kids are when it comes to money and greed.  America is a commodity based society.  A commodity is defined as “something of use, advantage, or value.”  The students’ commodity is their athletic talent and the NCAA’s commodity is the students.  The problem is that the NCAA sees cashing in on its commodity as morally righteous, while at the same time it sees that students cashing in on their commodity as morally reprehensible.

Keith Detjen
Pierce Arrow Blogger

Playoffs?

If you’ve ever had me for a class, you would agree with the following statement about yours truly: I am, most of the time, a glass half empty, skeptical, conspiracy theorist who dwells on the negative.  In fact, during the first class of every semester instead of discussing what I did over break, I discuss the things I did NOT do since the last semester ended.   So in the spirit of me, I give to you the top 10 reasons why I am not looking forward to the MLB playoffs.

10) Must win games.  Let’s get something straight, the only “must win” game in the playoffs is an elimination game.  I’m sick of listening to announcers and analysts talk about how after a team loses game 1, they now must win game 2.  Unless MLB changed the playoff format and 2 wins constitutes a playoff series, then that game is a very important game but it is not a must win.

9) Joe Buck.  He sure isn’t his Dad.

8) The Yankees not winning the World Series.  Listen, I’m a die hard Yankees fan.  Deal with it.  I grew up during the Steinbrenner era of Yankees baseball.  Anything short of a World Series championship is considered a disappointment, and when you add to that the fact that the team has a $200+ million payroll, a playoff exit is not just a disappointment it is a failure.

7) The Yankees winning the World Series.  The Yankees have become rap music.  Even to the biggest fan, they are indefensible.   They are the football captain winning homecoming king.  They are James Cameron winning another Oscar.  They are Donald Trump striking oil.  For the right price, I’m convinced that MLB would just sell them the Commissioner’s Trophy and forego the formalities of playing for it.  And, the Yankees would pay for it by raising ticket prices.

6) FOX/TBS.  The late management guru, Peter Drucker, believed that companies need to stick with what they do best.  When it comes to broadcasting, the Fox network needs to implement this strategy and stick with televising karaoke competitions instead of sport competitions.  TBS, the other playoff network, somehow has taken what Fox does horribly and manages to do it worse.

5) Red Sox fans.  Yes, I know the Sawx (insert your own imitation of an obnoxious Boston accent here) had a wicked bad season and are not in the playoffs, but that doesn’t mean the Nation won’t do something to annoy me from now until the World Series is over.  And stop crying about Randy Moss.

4) The butchering of the National Anthem.  Can Obama please pass legislation that makes it a crime, punishable by death, to allow anyone in any way affiliated with American Idol from performing the Star-Spangled Banner?  No one will ever, ever do a better job than Whitney Houston.  Play the tape and then play ball.

3) Hearing Jay Z’s “Empire State of Mind” every time a game being played at Yankee Stadium comes back from commercial break.  Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the song, it’s just that with every commercial to game segway I hear the song turning into the 00’s “Who let the dogs out?”

2) 8:37 pm EST first pitches.  Thanks MLB for selling your broadcasting rights out to networks that only care about one thing: sponsorship dollars.  The hell with the 6^th grader in Cincinnati who is about to “watch” his/her Reds in the playoffs for the first time, we need our corporate sponsor logos & commercials on during prime time.

1) Baseball in general, not just the playoffs, is so damn boring without steroids.

Keith Detjen
Pierce Arrow Blogger

Marionettes

“An enterprise’s purpose begins on the outside with the customer…it is the customer who determines what a business is, what it produces, and whether it will prosper.”  Peter Drucker

In today’s world, where customers are standing up and taking control, understanding your customers and the value you provide to them is more critical than ever.  No one understood this concept more so than Peter Drucker.  Considered by many as the man who invented modern management, Drucker believed that a company’s primary responsibility is to serve its customers. Profit is not the primary goal, but rather an essential condition for the company’s continued existence.  As a young journalist in the 1930’s, Drucker credited Time-Life’s success to founder Henry Luce’s understanding of the customer rather than his journalistic ingenious. In Drucker’s first management book, Concept Of The Corporation, he attributed General Motors’ success to Chief Executive Alfred Sloan’s unrivaled understanding of the customer.  In his last Wall Street Journal editorial piece in 2004, “The Role of the CEO,” Drucker again said that everything begins with understanding the customer.  It is an obvious, fundamental business principle: the customer is in the driver’s seat.  Then why do so many professional sports organizations not recognize this?

In a capitalist economy, consumers hold all of the power.  Corporate success is completely dependant on consumers purchasing their products/services.  If we like what they are selling and the way they are selling it, we buy.  If we don’t like what they are selling or the way they are selling it, we don’t have to.  This seems to hold true for every industry’s customer base except sports.  In sports, particularly the professional sports industry, the fans are the marionettes and the team owners are the puppeteers.  From high above in their corporate luxury suites, they pull on the strings and control us. A Jumbotron screen flashes a noise meter so we cheer.  Cotton Eye Joe blares over the PA speakers during the 7^th inning stretch so we dance.  A Personal Seat license is required for us to keep the season tickets that have been in our family for decades so we pay.  And then pay again. From the aforementioned PSL’s, to stadium naming rights, to $12 beers, professional sports are pricing out the blue collar fan, and we are allowing it to happen.

Professional sports franchises do not make their millions from the Ward Clever fans.  Sure, good old Ward will spend big bucks so that Wally and the Beav have front row seats down the third base line, but odds are he’ll jump ship as soon as the team hits a losing streak.  Teams make their money from the Ralph Cramden fans.  No, Ralph won’t spend his hard earned money on courtside tickets, but he can give the team something more that can’t be quantified like a ticket price.  Ralph Cramden will be loyal beyond reproach.  The reason he is so loyal is because the team is part of his identity.  He grew up with the team, and because of this it makes him feel good and forms part of his identity.  He might not buy high priced tickets, but once he is inside the stadium with his bleacher ticket, he will spend his discretionary income on other things like team merchandise.  And for every one Ward Clever there are hundreds, if not thousands of Ralph Cramdens because when he goes to the game he doesn’t go alone.  He brings legions of Ed Norton’s with him.

Like Peter Finch’s character, Howard Beale, in the movie Network, the time as come for sports fans to take a stand.  Get up out of our overpriced stadium seats.  Go over to the box office window, and the concession stand, and the merchandise store, and yell: “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Professor Keith Detjen
Pierce Arrow Blogger

“Sports issues from the fan’s perspective”

Like a lot of you I have been a sports fan my entire life.  Unlike a lot of you my baseball team of choice is the Yankees.  Whether it is Red Sox Nation, Yankees Universe, or some other fanatic group that people join to show their support and allegiance for a particular team, sports have been, continue to, and always will be a central part of American culture.  A recent ESPN Sports Poll of more than 12,000 respondents ages 12+ found that 86% of Americans consider themselves sports fans.  60% of all NFL television viewing is done by people who plan to get together with others to watch.  “Sport provides a source of both group and personal identity,” says Jeff James, a Florida State University professor whose research focuses on fan loyalty.  “It satisfies basic needs for belonging.”

Sports in America are huge.  No big revelation there.  Then why are the numbers starting to change in the other direction?  Research is finding that interest in sports has been on a steady decline since 2008.  A summer 2008 study conducted by ESPN and ICR found that 40% of American adults are enjoying sports less.  Why the declining interest?  The easy answer is, “it’s the economy stupid.”  But, maybe it’s something else.  Maybe the economy is not totally at fault.  Maybe, just maybe, sports need to share some of, if not most of the blame.

The intent of this blog is to look at pressing sports issues from the fan’s perspective.  It is my belief, as well as many others, that the sport industry is focusing too much on the business side (the almighty dollar), and not enough on the sport side.  Team executives forget why they first became sports fans in the first place.  It wasn’t about Personal Seat Licenses, or stadium naming rights, or corporate luxury suites.  It’s about the sound of the crack of the bat on an autumn evening.  It’s about passing around the thermos of hot chocolate at a football game on a brisk winter afternoon.  That’s what I hope to accomplish with this blog.  Giving the fan, the 12^th man, a voice.

Keith Detjen
Pierce Arrow Blogger