Help me out here... (we can keep this brief...)

Correct me if I am wrong but....

There are 31 teams in the NFL that are privately owned, they don't have to show their books if they don't want too.

Only the Packers are required because they are owned by the public.


If you had your own business, would you want to show your books to any employee who asked ????
I keep seeing this argument about showing your books to an employee, but the players are not just employees, they are also the product.

dtradin said
Pretty close, but here's another part. Last year the money to split was $8bn. This year, it's $9bn and the offer presented some time back was actually for players to get more money in cap this year than last year so it's not like they're losing anything except percentage points. They're actually continuing to increase, but at a decreasing rate.

In other words, instead of players' salaries raising 10-15% per year, they'd be more like 5.

I see why there's an argument and a need for a deal, but I just don't see how the players are suffering any sort of injustice for the owners to decide to keep paying them more money.
OK, let's work through a little exercise here. Your boss pays you on a commission basis. You get 57% of the profits. He gets the rest. Now your boss negotiates a deal that decreases the profits he makes, ergo reducing your commission, and postponing those profits until a later date when you will not be getting paid a commission, would you be upset?

Further, your boss decides that your 57% commission is too much and wants to reduce the amount you are getting paid even further. He doesn't want to show you why the 57% is too much, but your boss is telling you he is losing money, despite buying a new yacht, and you are going to have to take a pay-cut. The only proof he is willing to give you that he is losing money is his own word and you are supposed to take him at it. You know, because he is such a fine honorable business man and all, despite intentionally structuring your last big business deal so you got screwed on the front side and he got rich on the back side.