Replies

Always keep sight of the fact that the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL are monopolies masquerading as free markets. The inevitable result is an overpriced product that all but guarantees a management and a labor force that is unconcerned about the concerns of the consumer. These problems will continue to resurface every couple of years until Congress requires the leagues to halt their anti-competitive practices, or regulates them like any other monopoly - with the interests of the consumer being placed first.

NFL management allows the players and their agents their exorbitant salaries and free agency as a necessary pay off to allow them to continue unregulated. If the team owners fought too hard to reign in player salaries, they would have to reveal the truth - that the NFL is a corporation with 30 individual share holders (i.e. the individual team owners) rather than a free market of 30 independent businesses. They’d rather keep up the illusion that they’re a free market of 30 independent businesses rather then acknowledge the truth that they are de facto, a single entity that has a monopoly on the market for professional football. It’s cheaper to pay off the players, players union and agents rather than admit they are one company.

If they admitted the truth, that they are one company - the NFL - rather than 30 separate companies, they could keep player salaries within more reasonable limits, demand greater player accountability, and reign in free agency - all powers that any other company has the right to exercise over their labor force. But to do so, they would have to admit that they are a monopoly rather than a market of 30 independent owners. This would invite the reasonable conclusion that it should be regulated like the power companies or any other monopoly. It’s cheaper to pay off the players.

. They’d rather keep up the illusion that they’re a free market of 30 independent businesses

What a magnificent straw man you have assembled here. Anyone with two adjacent neurons knows it is one company since the merger with the AFL. And then you mount a straw horse and ride off in all directions. Back to the barn, dude.