I'm starting to loathe the NFL.
I've been a fan for about 30 years now and have played fantasy football for over 10 years. With each passing year, increasing ticket prices aggravate me, waiting lists for nose bleed seats aggravate me, ticket scalpers aggravate me, the NFL Network taking TV games away from regular broadcasts aggravates me, moving MNF to ESPN aggravated me, players who are constantly in trouble yet still manage to make millions of dollars a year aggravates me, the NFL wanting too much money per subscriber to put their station in a regular cable package aggravates me, and now the talk of having a Superbowl in London may be the straw that breaks this camels back.
The more teams pay players, the more ticket prices will go up. Why would a team pay a rookie millions of dollars when they haven't proven themselves in this league? A rookie payscale is being considered. That doesn't make me feel any less aggravated. If we don't pay ticket prices, it won't help.
I LOVE the game of football. And even though the Skins have really sucked ass since Dan Snyder bought the team, I'm still a fan. Dan has single handedly ruined the Redskins with his over paying for "stellar" players thinking he can buy a Superbowl. Dan, if you're reading this, THAT WON'T WORK!!! You act as though you've never been on a team before. Just because you hire the best players in the league doesn't mean they'll click and work together. These guys are mostly primadonna's that are only out for themselves. Think about it for a second. If I were going to make $1 million per year whether I'm sitting on the bench or not, where do you think most would choose to be? Dan's main concern is how much he makes off of the team. And as an investor, I can certainly understand that point. However, he's done nothing but cripple their long term results. If you lay a good foundation and build upon that foundation, you'll get results.....EVERYTIME! With no foundation, the team gets beat by the Bengals in one of their worst years as a team recently. WE GOT BEAT BY THE BENGALS!!! WHAT!?!?! When the schedule was released this year, I really hoped we'd play the Lions 16 games straight.....or a new surprise all girls team would've been introduced and we could've played them 16 times. We would've possibly had a chance at the playoffs. Who am I kidding?
Now, with the talks of playing a Superbowl over in London, I'm really torqued. The common man can't enjoy the common mans sport anymore Mr. Goodell. You're slowly but surely taking the game away from us.....your largest demographic I'm sure. But, since you're a smart business man, you know this and you're preparing for the day the common man no longer watches football....but chooses another sport instead. So you're marketing your ass off with "global games" to tap in to the pockets overseas. Smart, but I refuse to pay ticket prices over here.....so I certainly won't be attending any games outside of the US. The next move will be considering making the Superbowl a Pay-Per-View event.
Here's my take if I owned a team and there wasn't a players union involved to make sure everyone was treated "fairly". Each player would get a base salary depending on their position. Then any other money above and beyond that would be based on performance....PERIOD. If a QB throws a TD, he gets $10K as well as the WR that caught the ball. If the QB throws an INT, he gets nothing extra for that play. I truly believe that there are players in the NFL that play with 100% of their heart regardless of their paycheck.....but when money is on the line, not one player will want to be on the bench because they stubbed their toe.
I'm almost to the point that I may not watch any games this year. And for the first time in over 10 years, not play fantasy football. Will I miss it? I'll miss the games of the past and what the NFL was before it was so commercialized.
Greed and the NFL are really showing their true colors.