Mudville Nine Revealed

GANG OF NINE REVEALED

NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw recently said that nine NFL franchises are resisting the expansion of revenue sharing by the league's 32 teams. Upshaw also told Mark Maske of The Washington Post that the nine teams are planning to file suit if they are forced to share revenues that currently are not distributed evenly among all teams.

A league source has identified for us the members of this modern-day Mudville nine: the Redskins, Eagles, Cowboys, Giants, Jets, Panthers, Broncos, Patriots, and Texans.

We'd previously heard that the NFL and the union tentatively have agreed to expand the components of so-called "Defined Gross Revenue" (which is the basis for the team-by-team salary cap) to include money not currently shared by the various franchises. The proponents of enhanced revenue argue that, if any currently unshared revenue streams are to be included in the determination of DGR, the corresponding revenue should be shared equally -- and that, if the revenue is not to be shared, it should be excluded from the DGR calculation.

The source also confirmed that the Mudville nine plan to sue if they are forced to accept expanded revenue sharing by the other 23 organizations. Frankly, we still don't understand how it would ever come to that, since nine votes are sufficient to block any changes to the way the NFL does business, given that 24 "yes" votes would be required to, for example, impose expanded revenue sharing.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello tells us that, under the current system, teams share all national broadcast revenues, all sponsorship revenues, all licensing revenues, and the visiting team's share of ticket revenues. The following revenues aren't shared: the home team's share of the box-office revenue, local radio revenue, local TV revenue, local sponsorship revenue, and stadium-generated revenues from signage, concessions, parking, luxury suites, etc.

PFT

 

Could somebody translate this into layman speak?

 

If I understood it right it means those teams make more money and the other teams want them to share it with them. If those were all large market teams I could see it, but a number of them are small market teams, and to force them to give up money they've made is bullshit.

 

Yes:

The Richardsons are selfish asshats. Or, at least that could be the perception here.

 

I disagree. I think if the Richardsons are making money off of Radio Deals then the 49ers which refuse to field a solid team since under new ownership and teams like them shouldn't get a damn penny of it.

 

I'll go with the Richardson asshat theory.

 

This thread is going to end up with nine pages. And it won't be about football, or the business of football.

 

Carolina's certainly the smallest market team on that list

 

Houston isn't exactly massive either.

 

Houston is the 4th largest city in the country.