Well, the dreaded NFL lockout is officially upon us, and while Peter King and the rest of the media would like us fans to
remain optimistic that the league and the players still have a chance at reaching an agreement, it’s still hard for us to gauge whether that chance is a regular 3rd and 10 chance or a 4th and 20 pinned at our own 15 with two receivers on DL and a gimpy quarterback chance.
One of the main open issues remaining between the league and the players’ union is something called “opening the books.” If you’ve clicked over to this post then I assume that like me, you are far more interested in football and beer than financials and your eyes start to glaze over when you hear the words “collective bargaining agreement”. So I will explain what really is going on in simple terms, and how I have come up with a brilliant solution to this mysterious issue of financial books that will make everyone happy, and save the football season and indeed the precarious balance of our world as we know it. And best of all – the solution involves beer. Lots and lots of beer.
Unfortunately, understanding my solution does require a bit of background regarding the financial and legal mumbo-jumbo related to these secret, unopened books. But because we are all more interested in football and beer than such mumbo-jumbo I will try to keep my analysis and vocabulary very short and simple. I will even stay away from fancy punctuation and use “BOO-yeah” instead of exclamation points, so that we can understand each other better.
The NFL season is on hold because owners won’t let players examine their financial records – their “books”. As private companies (except for the Packers) they don’t have to. And under their expired agreement the players had a revenue-share with the owners, so they could see the teams’ top-line revenues, but not their bottom-line profits (or losses).
Why do the players want to see these books so badly, and why do the owners NOT want them to be seen even more badly? Because, as the
Washington Post points out, the owners are claiming that their teams are losing money – lost of money - $800 million a year or something like that. So they want more money from the players and league. And the players are saying, “We bet that your books will show that you’re not really losing that kind of money, or that you’re paying yourselves from one pocket to the other to create losses, so let’s see the books.”
It should be noted that never in history have football players taken such an interest in books. But let’s get one thing straight- Peyton Manning doesn’t want to be spending Saturday huddled over a company’s financials. His “huddling over Saturday” thoughts are about spending Sunday huddled over Jeff Saturday’s butt, about to flick a perfect touchdown pass to the corner of the end zone. The players only want to see the owners’ books because they want more money. And the owners only want to keep the books private because they want more money.
All this bickering between the billionaire owners and the millionaire players over a bunch of books leaves us, the working stiffs, shafted. They’ll be OK – worst case, the owners spend a year or two on their yachts drifting around the Bahamas, and the players hone their golf games. We will have to spend Sundays reading books to our kids, or mowing the lawn, or finally cleaning out that damn garage. But even WE will find a substitute, eventually, for the gaping void in our lives. The ones who are really gonna get hammered (pun intended – BOO-yeah) are – the beer companies.
I’m going to throw some number at you but it’s OK because they’re about beer. My solution is based on the thesis that the beer companies are very, very dependent on football for their profits. As opposed to the maniacally secretive NFL teams, most of the financial information about beer is publicly available. Let’s look at some basic figures. Anheuser Busch alone spends something like $117 million per year sponsoring the NFL. By “sponsoring” I mean they just hand the NFL cash. Dollars. 117 million of them. Every year. Would you just hand someone $117 million, if you had it? Why does Bud?
The only way you would hand someone $117 million is if you KNEW you were going to get a lot more back for doing so, from them or from someone else. Who is that “someone else”? Who would give Busch money, $117 million or more of it, just because Busch gave the NFL money? Look in the mirror.
The beer companies sponsor the NFL, and spend even more money advertising, promoting and otherwise BOO-yeah-ing around football, because they know they are going to make all of it back and more, in spades, coming and going, from us drinking their stuff before, after, and around football.
And by “make it back” I do not mean revenue. Remember, if you pay someone $117 million, you had better get back MORE than $117 million after buying all the hops (whatever they are) and water and paying those pretty horses and whatever else you need to do to get us that beer. We’re talking profits.
And again, because most beer companies aren’t football teams, we know what their profit margins are. Meaning, we know that in 2009 (now referred to as 2 B.C. – Before CollegefootballbecametheonlyfootballwewatchedonTV) Anheuser Busch made around $4.6 billion in net income on around $36.8 billion in sales. That’s around 12.5% profit on every beer they sold us. Now if they are willing to hand the NFL $117 million just to have their name draped on stuff hoping that we will buy more beer – they must be making at least $150 million (and probably much more) of profit on our NFL-related beer drinking. And that would mean over $1 billion in NFL-related beer sales. Just for Budweiser. And that’s not taking into account additional spending on things like Super Bowl ads. And other beer companies. What I’m saying is, there’s in my rough estimation about $3 billion or more in beer drinking that goes on during, around, before and after NFL games that creates a flood of profit (pun intended) that is potentially going to be – um – urine-sampled away by this haggling over a bunch of books.
Now not letting someone else see your books seems unfair and fair is American. We invented fair. Fair is one of our major exports. But the only things more American than fairness are football, and beer. And the only thing more American that football and beer, is – football and beer TOGERHER (Boo-yeah).
So I say to the players, and the league, forget the books. You don’t really want to read books anyway. You want to pound each other into the Astroturf, and watch said pounding, respectively. You don’t want books, you just want more money. So you know what, we, and the beer companies, as the ones who are really losing out here - we will give you the money. Just come back and play.
Here’s how it will work. At 12% profit, the beer companies can afford to give up a little bit to have the players return; otherwise they will lose billions. We, as the drinkers of said beer, will dutifully agree to drink more beer – not for our own sakes, God forbid, but just to do our part as patriotic Americans to preserve our country’s holiest sport.
A representative of the fans (I’m willing to do it), the major beer companies, and the players will sign a three-way CBA (Collective Beer-drinking Agreement), which will provide, among other things:
- You know what? OK, we’ll have that third beer (I will work out the specific language with the lawyers)
- The beer companies will give 10 percent of the sales of every beer from the second one on (including 5 out of 6 in a six-pack) directly to the players
If all goes well this will generate at least $300 million, perhaps much more, in additional annual revenue for the players. There will still be profit left for the beer companies even on those second, third and seventh beers and they will have avoided being the true financial casualties of the lockout. With the new revenue stream (pun not intended) the players will breathe a sigh of relief as they can get back to spending weekends smashing helmets and reading defenses instead of sharpening pencils and reading Essentials of Financial Analysis. And the owners can keep their secret books secret and locked away in some NFL monastery.
This simple yet ingenious (if I may say so myself) plan will also have derivative benefits as well and will even raise the players’ level of play. As new financial partners in the fans’ beer drinking, players will surely extend themselves on the field, knowing that greater excitement will get fans drinking more, which will drive more beer-related cash to them. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see a new creativity wave in the stale post-touchdown ceremonies, with new dances that involve pantomimed, celebratory beer guzzling to get the crowd going (and thirsty).
It’s a truly American solution. A win-win. Everybody will be happy – very happy.
What happens if my solution isn’t adopted? Panic in the streets. OK, some clean garages. But general gloom in the country. America as we know it under a cloud of darkness, at least on Sundays.
So if you know what’s good for yourself- and your fellow countrymen – support this humble proposal. Forward it to everyone you know who cares about life, beer, football, and America. Let’s do it for our children.
Otherwise, we have little hope. I mean, I guess if it gets really grim, President Obama could invite both sides to the White House to try to solve the problem.
The way he likes to - over a beer.
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