NFL Lockout: Socialism Doesn’t Solve The Greed Problem

In January, the funny but irreverent Bill Maher argued that the NFL is an example of the success of socialism, because “they literally share the wealth, through salary caps and revenue sharing – TV is their biggest source of revenue, and they put all of it in a big commie pot and split it 32 ways.” He called it an example of the Democratic philosophy that everyone deserves an equal opportunity, and said this is why the tiny town of Green Bay has just as good of a chance as a metropolis to produce a Super Bowl winner, unlike, say, baseball with its Yankee dominance.

Of course there’s a technical difference between a voluntary sharing agreement and a forced sharing induced by the government, and others have spilled plenty of digital ink pointing that out. (They also point out that the sharing of TV revenue among teams is but one example of sharing in a swirling pit of capitalism that includes many other revenues and the ways the revenue is divided up within the teams. Even Bill Maher probably doesn’t believe the NFL would be as much fun if Peyton Manning got paid the same as his waterboy. Etc etc.)

And yet in all of these knee-jerk reactions that that’s not real socialism, the conservative critics missed Maher’s broader point – the sharing that does exist, as voluntary as it is, really does help prevent any one team from becoming dominant over the others. It does seem kind of nice, doesn’t it? And liberals like Maher really like that. It’s something to stick in the faces of conservatives who crow that socialism always ends up horribly.

Or is it?

A few months later, the NFL is stuck in a lockout. Practices aren’t starting. Undrafted free agents are worried they might lose out on a chance at millions of dollars. The details can get complex, but it has something to do with the owners wanting more money and the players not being too keen about that.

Now, as the ever-helpful Wikipedia explains, “The NFL salary cap is calculated by the current CBA to be 59.5% of the total projected league revenue for the upcoming year. This number, divided by the number of teams, determines an individual team’s maximum salary cap.” The funny but less irreverent Kevin Horrigan, a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, explains some of the details of the current conflict:

The league and the 32 member states of the National Socialist Football League take in about $9 billion a year, of which — under terms of the now-expired collective-bargaining agreement — a little less than 60 percent goes for labor costs.

NSFL owners are trying to bring that down to about 50 percent, which would earn them (and we use the term “earn” loosely) nearly $1 billion more each year.

So as far as I understand – and someone correct me if I’m wrong – the owners want to lower the salary cap so they can keep more of that revenue that they’re sharing.

Uh-oh! You mean these guys that seemed so nice sharing everything are actually still really greedy? Don’t tell Bill Maher! Apparently, even in this little voluntary partitioned example, the core inescapable problem of socialism still rears its head: Once you guarantee yourself access to other people’s money, it’s really tempting to try to gain access to even more.

This is not to say that even all voluntary socialism is doomed, either. There’s always the example of the first century Christian church sharing all their possessions. (Of course, they didn’t have quite the same greed problem as the NFL owners.) But let’s not pretend that the NFL sharing scheme is necessarily better than the every-team-for-itself manner of baseball. If there’s no sharing scheme, at least it can’t break down and threaten to cancel a whole season.

The Pittsburgh Pirates were Maher’s example of a team that loses in baseball’s non-socialist scheme. But if football is cancelled, even the Pirates will make more money than all of the football teams, who will be equally sharing a TV revenue of $0.

4 thoughts on “NFL Lockout: Socialism Doesn’t Solve The Greed Problem”

  1. I agree that Maher is stretching things a bit by suggesting the NFL’s revenue sharing system is an example of successful socialism. The fact that it’s voluntary attests to the fact that the NFL is a business trying to ensure a plan that supports a profitable product that allows the game to grow in the most fair and logical manner possible. That is why this dispute has taken place.

    It’s my understanding that the owners want to knock labor costs down to 50% in order to ensure profitability for themselves. If the owners aren’t making money, then the money won’t be there for the players. Look at what’s happening in the NBA right now – there are an estimated 22 of 30 teams losing money in that league right now, and the players in that league make the highest average salary of all major sports, which is around $5 million. They want that bumped up to $7 million, with an expansion of the salary cap. However, if you keep bumping up the salary cap at an unreasonable level, it will only force owners to raise ticket prices, among other things, which in turn could ostensibly lead to a lower likelihood of profitability, especially if the team is bad. So, unlike the NFL lockout, the NBA lockout looks like its going to be very long, possibly canceling next year’s season.

    A big sticking point with the NFL labor dispute is the amount of games they want to play as well. This cannot be avoided. Currently there is a 16 game season in place, with a four game preseason. The owners want to expand the season to 18 games, while decreasing the amount of preseason games to 2. So, the owners want a bigger piece of the pie, while increasing the workload of the players. Obviously, that’s not going over very well the players. I don’t see the owners being greedy in this situation, per se, but I think it’s very unreasonable to ask the players to play more games in return for less money, while the aggregate profits of the league continue to grow. If you remove the provision of adding games to the season, I think the owners’ arguments for a modified revenue sharing plan look a lot more reasonable.

    1. Thank your for your excellent comment. You make a good point that a renegotiation could have to do with maintaining profitability rather than simply a greedy grab at more of the shared pie. I don’t know enough about the organization’s details to know what kind of profitability they have right now or what risks there are to that profitability. At the least, though, the 18-game provision certainly makes the owners look worse.

      Perhaps part of the problem is that the numbers are large enough and/or uncertain enough that even if the owners, based on their interests, argue that they need a new plan to sustain profitability, the players, based on their own interests, could argue that they are fine like it is. If there was no sharing plan at all, this wouldn’t be an issue. (But without a sharing plan, would the league have developed such aggregate profits at all?) It’s certainly complicated.

  2. I agree that Maher is stretching things a bit by suggesting the NFL’s revenue sharing system is an example of successful socialism. The fact that it’s voluntary attests to the fact that the NFL is a business trying to ensure a plan that supports a profitable product that allows the game to grow in the most fair and logical manner possible. That is why this dispute has taken place.

    It’s my understanding that the owners want to knock labor costs down to 50% in order to ensure profitability for themselves. If the owners aren’t making money, then the money won’t be there for the players. Look at what’s happening in the NBA right now – there are an estimated 22 of 30 teams losing money in that league right now, and the players in that league make the highest average salary of all major sports, which is around $5 million. They want that bumped up to $7 million, with an expansion of the salary cap. However, if you keep bumping up the salary cap at an unreasonable level, it will only force owners to raise ticket prices, among other things, which in turn could ostensibly lead to a lower likelihood of profitability, especially if the team is bad. So, unlike the NFL lockout, the NBA lockout looks like its going to be very long, possibly canceling next year’s season.

    A big sticking point with the NFL labor dispute is the amount of games they want to play as well. This cannot be avoided. Currently there is a 16 game season in place, with a four game preseason. The owners want to expand the season to 18 games, while decreasing the amount of preseason games to 2. So, the owners want a bigger piece of the pie, while increasing the workload of the players. Obviously, that’s not going over very well the players. I don’t see the owners being greedy in this situation, per se, but I think it’s very unreasonable to ask the players to play more games in return for less money, while the aggregate profits of the league continue to grow. If you remove the provision of adding games to the season, I think the owners’ arguments for a modified revenue sharing plan look a lot more reasonable.

    1. Thank your for your excellent comment. You make a good point that a renegotiation could have to do with maintaining profitability rather than simply a greedy grab at more of the shared pie. I don’t know enough about the organization’s details to know what kind of profitability they have right now or what risks there are to that profitability. At the least, though, the 18-game provision certainly makes the owners look worse.

      Perhaps part of the problem is that the numbers are large enough and/or uncertain enough that even if the owners, based on their interests, argue that they need a new plan to sustain profitability, the players, based on their own interests, could argue that they are fine like it is. If there was no sharing plan at all, this wouldn’t be an issue. (But without a sharing plan, would the league have developed such aggregate profits at all?) It’s certainly complicated.

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