The NFL in an article released today will be raising the salary cap by $7 million from $113 million to $120 million for the upcoming 2012 season. All I can say is WOW! For a corporate entity that just last off-season tried to make the players look like greedy prisoners, desiring to run the asylum, a bump of this magnitude in the cap has me scratching my head a bit.

Let’s look at the reason for last years NFL lock out to see if we can discover a pattern of how the NFL propagandize their objectives. The owners want the general public to love the players enough to attend games, buy the jersey’s, which players do not revenue share in, purchase season tickets and tune into radio and TV broadcasts, which ups their ratings. This greatly increases the value of their product and generates greater marketing revenues for the league. The owners reason for the lockout was a claim that they were loosing revenues and couldn’t operate under the current CBA. They requested that the NFL Players give back a few Billion to help alleviate their financial stress. One thing I do know about negotiating is, you never go up, so you better start high because you always go down from the starting point. As players you cannot go backwards on ground gained, because every time the CBA is up the owners will try to take  back something they’ve given.

I’m not a CPA or financial wizard by any stretch, but today’s action to raise the cap is evidence that the owners will lie, beg, borrow and/or steal, to accomplish their goals. And if that includes throwing their greatest commodity (players) under the public bus of opinion, so be it.

Simple math always springs forth truth. The NFL salary cap is a direct reflection of how well the league is doing financially, because the player salary cap is based upon a percentage of total revenues (60-65%). This number however does not include NFL properties, which is the $3 Billion plus marketing arm of the NFL. So If the NFL was hurting financially last year as they claimed, common sense would direct me to study the salary cap. This is the one definitive financial line item that would tell the truth. There is no way that the NFL could possibly have lost revenue without it being reflected in the lowering of the salary cap, and yet they just increased it by $7 million dollars!

I am all for the players getting what they can, they deserve it every bit they get. If the owners couldn’t pay what they do, believe me, they wouldn’t. The truth always like cream, rises to the top. The players and public need to wake up to the lies of pro sports leagues and their owners. How can you possibly have a major presence in all broadcasting  mediums, which perfectly positions them for advertising and marketing revenues, sell product at the rate that they do, charge the ticket prices they do, and cry that they’re losing money? One thing big corporate businesses do not do, is lose money, and believe me pro sports are more about, and run like big businesses today than ever. 

Seth Joyner

Seth Joyner