8th Circuit Court Grants Stay, Lockout Continues

[NC_Skins]

Originally Posted by Dirtbag59

They offered to open the books to a third party audit and the NFLPA refused. They wanted to look them over themselves, most likely to look for leverage.

NFL's Statement On NFLPA Decertification - Battle Red Blog

That doesn't say they offered to open their books to a third party. The "audited' information that they offering is going to hide any personal expenses they may be masking as their business expenses. This isn't the real information needed to ascertain whether the owners are lying about their claim of loss of profits. THIS is what the owners don't want players seeing because it'll kill their very plea that they are losing money when in fact they are blowing it for personal gain. (See the LA Dodgers for a prime example) Now, most owners aren't going to go all out like the McCourts but I will bet you my life that owners do use their business stuff for personal use and write it off as a "business expense". In fact, every owner I know in America does this. Goes back to my idea that you can't expect the players to take cuts all because you run your business horribly.

Originally Posted by SBXVII

What point of the players leaving 6 hrs prior to the deadline to file their decertification and not staying, not requesting and extension, and not even offering a counter offer makes the owners the bad guys who wanted to opt out of the CBA? I'm sorry but to put it in your words..." I don't care that the players opted out of the CBA."

I don't know of any courts that stay open till midnight, so they had to decertify by 5pm that day or the case wouldn't have stayed in Minnesota. Surely you do realize this right? They would have had an extension of the CBA before that 5pm deadline in order stop the NFLPA from decertifying. However, it had been said that there was no use of going forward at this point because both sides were no budging. They had no other choice but to decertify.



One thing to remember in the owners argument that player costs are the reason they are losing profits. Player salaries for the most part are not guaranteed. (unlike MLB and NBA) The salary cap of a team is no indication of how much they are actually paying their players that year. I still don't believe their bullcrap. I've never seen a business in my life bring in more revenue each year and lose profits. Not without somebody either embezzling money or doing a piss poor job running it.

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

That doesn't say they offered to open their books to a third party. The "audited' information that they offering is going to hide any personal expenses they may be masking as their business expenses. This isn't the real information needed to ascertain whether the owners are lying about their claim of loss of profits. THIS is what the owners don't want players seeing because it'll kill their very plea that they are losing money when in fact they are blowing it for personal gain. (See the LA Dodgers for a prime example) Now, most owners aren't going to go all out like the McCourts but I will bet you my life that owners do use their business stuff for personal use and write it off as a "business expense". In fact, every owner I know in America does this. Goes back to my idea that you can't expect the players to take cuts all because you run your business horribly.

It would have most likely been audited by a public firm, companies which ever since the fall of Arthur Anderson and Enron are under intense scrutiny (which is an understatement) to audit statements correctly. They already know 99% of the tricks companies use to either inflate earnings for stock purposes or report losses for tax purposes.

What's amazing, and what shows the absolute distrust the players have for the owners, is that the NFL offered the players to have an independent auditor -- to be determined by both sides -- study the audited financial statements. The independent auditor would have studied the statements, then reported to the union the year-by-year profit-and-loss statements for each team. Theoretically, that would have shown whether teams were becoming less profitable in the past two or three years, a core argument of the ownership.

Read more: Full access to financial statements at core of NFL labor issues - Peter King - SI.com

In short if the owners try to pull a fast one it would most likely be discovered by the auditors and corrected. Remember these aren't the accountants employed by the teams or the NFL. This would be done by an outside firm that would be putting it's reputation on the line in the interest of providing accurate financial reports.

And also remember this is a very public case thats being watched closely by the government, no accounting firm in their right mind is going to help the owners, or the players for that matter, cook the books.

Bottom line I would fully expect the third party audits to be accurate. What I wouldn't trust is the players getting their hands on these reports and not trying to toy around with the numbers to help their case. As has been said before the players are obsessed with obtaining leverage, as are the owners but the players seem to be under more pressure, and pressure is one of the key motivators when it comes to potential fraud.

[NC_Skins]

Originally Posted by Dirtbag59

In short if the owners try to pull a fast one it would most likely be discovered by the auditors and corrected. Remember these aren't the accountants employed by the teams or the NFL. This would be done by an outside firm that would be putting it's reputation on the line in the interest of providing accurate financial reports.

You still aren't getting it. You obviously don't understand what a "audited" version of their books is, but they are basically offering a watered down version of their numbers that will not show any improper financial entries.

Something like this.

Revenue : $900 million
Player Cost: $285 million
Business Costs: $600 million
----------------------------------------------
Profit: 15 million

From this, you can't tell diddly squat about those "business expenses". You know that trip he took his private jet overseas with for a vacation? Yup, wrote it off as a "business trip" since he had a business meeting for 1 hour out of the 2 weeks he was there.

It's stuff like that are being hidden in "audited" numbers that the players want to see, and they have that right to see it if they are being asked to cut 1 billion from their payroll.


edit: D. Smith (and other players) have said they have gotten more information about the teams financial data from the Wall Street Journal reports than they have from the teams themselves. Again, I say open your books (unedited and unaudited) to a 3rd party and let them decide.