Addendum to G.B, public ownership
A friend in Milwaukee was kind enough to send me the by-laws of the Green Bay Packers. I knew he would which is why I didn't search for any of it earlier. Ok, it seems the situation was created back when money was a problem to keep the team going. So public shares were sold, anyone could buy a share and the original share holders elected a Board of Directors. Those individuals who arranged for all this also put up the first slate of 'elected' Board of Directors. From this point on the process of electing the Board of Directors seems exactly like it is done in any other corporation. If any of you own stock you know you get a ballot and the corporation lists those eligible to be voted on and the company recommends which ones you vote for. Usually if there are 4 vacancies there are 4 candidates. I used to send these 'ballots' back but haven't done so for years. Once a Board exists it 'arranges' future Board candidates forever. The extensive stock holders are catered to by the Board and the rest of the stockholders may as well not exist for any practical purposes.
Board members are usually influential person's of one sort or another; often these wealthy influential individuals serve on many corporate boards as the pay is substantial. I suspect most of them just show up for meetings and rubber stamp whatever material is before them. They are really well paid rubberstampers---another of the perks for being wealthy. A stock holder rarely is aware of any important differences of opinion regarding the operation of the corporation unless some major stock holder tries to gain majority interest in the company.
At any rate a normal private 'public' company can only manage to sell stock if the stockholders gain some advantage from buying stock----either via dividends or an increasing value of the stock. The rest of the public gets nothing from all this.
Now here is the clunker----just how disingenuous the NFL is about this whole thing: the NFL calls it a publicly owned franchise. But in this case, neither the shareholders or the public gain anything monetarily from the operation. In this sense it is even less public than a private publicly owned company. LIke in other corporations, the Board itself controls who gets on the Board and if any individual stockholder, outside those holding a considerable percentage of the stock, think they in any way influence anything about the corporation, they are delusional. The NFL, and it constantly gets away with this kind of rip-off, has a publicly owned franchise which doesn't even have to share profits with any shareholders. They, as they always do, prey on the enthusiasm of fans for their team to stiff them, not just these shareholders, but the rest of the public, the cities, and most of the players. If there was ever a clear example of unrestricted corporate greed, professional sport teams owned by wealthy owners is the ultimate example. In larger cities, the owners don't have to peddle useless stocks, they make more money than imaginable, and there is no limit in sight. Just the advertising alone makes them wealthy. The players union and the owners can give themselves as much money as they want; the argument between them is only about just how they divvy it up. Professional football has a fairly honest salary cap, but if the players and owners decide they want to make 20% more money they just increase the costs of tickets and advertising and raise the salary cap 20%.
With all this money in hand, the owners could, if they were forced to, make a fair salary scale for all the players, share profit with the cities they play in, and build their own stadiums with money from the profits instead of blackmailing cities about moving. None of this happens because they don't have to. It is a monopoly, there is no competition, and they are essentially an unregulated monopoly with no limits. Fans love to talk about 'team' chemistry and don't want people on the team who are disruptive. The major team chemistry 'poison pills' on professional football teams are the owners. It wouldn't take rocket science to create performance level contracts which were reasonably accurate. Maybe those with the best stats at their position would be in the excellent category, then have a good category, then have a poor category or whatever other separation would work. Then each player is simply paid this year whatever the level of their stats for the previous year. What could be fairer than to be paid for your current level of performance? Isn't that what all employees want? But no, the NFL has to make it a legal shell game with crucial aspects of the contracts only binding to the player. The top salary for the top players should not be unlimited. Once you get salary levels which pay top players handsomely for their performance, these levels should rise only with inflation just like those on social security. The pay of top athletes has probably risen faster and higher than those of corporate CEO's., and that takes a whole heap of outrageousness. If there was some fairness and consistency with salaries, the need for players to demand trades would lessen and fans could be a bit more assured the team each year might remotely resemble the team last year.
Be all this as it may, the Packer model is successful precisely because it is not controlled by a single wealthy owner. But, for the most part, it's operational mode is determined by the cabal of other owners. They set the rules. It is the owner's plantation to run as they wish. Whatever the nature of ownership, and I personally think I prefer the cities to own the franchises (with the people or at least the fans able to vote (like every three or five years) on whether a General Manager stays. Whatever the nature of the ownership the following need to be put in place:
A bargaining unit that consists of the cities (if they owned the teams), the players, and the fans.
A fair and consistent salary system with contracts binding to both sides. There is no need for all the endless shenanigans currently employed, as both management and players try to trap the other.
A Commissioner that is not the appointee of owners. The Commissioner should be selected by the bargaining unit of cities, players, and fans.
The government, as it does (and should do more) with other corporations, should put in place reasonable regulations and limits, especially since the NFL is a monopoly.
Because the NFL is a monopoly---once lucrative, but reasonable salaries are in place, they move only with the cost of living. Greed should never be given an unlimited green light.
Ticket prices should never be set so high that ordinary fans cannot afford to go to a game. Most tickets to every game should be available by lottery to all those who sign up for a chance to get a ticket. Obviously these tickets would have to come in sets so the winner can bring family or friends. Some probably should be reserved for teenagers to come with a friend or parent.
Nothing above is claimed to be without flaw. But the general thrust of my remarks are meant to be accurate considering the big picture. Implementation of changes are best made by the detail orientated crowd. The big picture, right now, is wrong and needs to be changed big time so we can all focus on the game of football, not all the soap opera quality stuff that permeates the current media coverage.
