Gary Myers
Tuesday, March 1st 2011, 4:00 AM
It's okay if you find it impossible to pick a side to root for in this ridiculous NFL showdown of billionaire owners vs. millionaire players.
The average NFL franchise was valued by Forbes last year at $1.02 billion and that was down 2% from the previous year. How can you feel bad for owners who charge $20,000 for PSLs and now are asking the players to give back $1 billion?
And can we really sympathize with players who have benefited tremendously financially - those who become solid starters for a few years are set up for life - as the league exploded into a $9 billion a year industry?
The rookie minimum was at a healthy $325,000 last season. How many college grads - or those who leave school early without a degree - can say they walked right into a $325,000 job? The salary cap in its first year in 1994 was $34.6 million and in 2009 was $127 million. There is plenty of money for everybody, but greed, on both sides, can cloud reality.
