Brian Urlacher: From Fan Favorite to Fan Hatred?

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drunkntailgater

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So former players are supposed to blindly love and support the team no matter what? :rolleyes:

Not blind love....but not bite the hand that fed you. I can understand if he said this stuff after the season had started and the team was on a losing streak....yes he would have all the right to say that, but the team hasn't even taken a snap yet.
 

Lefty

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The team was also REALLY bad last year, too.
 

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Really? Who in the hell thinks that? I mean, there ARE bad contracts given out in all professional sports, but who the hell would think these guys, as a whole, are overpaid?
Many, many people do. Many people take the "They're paid multi million dollars to play a kids game??!?" route. I've heard it many times, and to an extent, they are right. Why should they get paid more than people who actually help the world out?
 

TopekaRoy

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Why should they get paid more than people who actually help the world out?

Supply and demand.

Athletes are worth what they get paid because they (in theory anyway) generate a profit for their employers.

A free agent is free to sign with the highest bidder. What the free market place is willing to pay for a product, service, or employee is, by definition, "worth."

If a team owner pays his players, coaches, staff and overhead $100 million per year, and his total income, through TV contracts, ticket sales, and merchandising is $120 million per year, that's called "profit."

Remember the only source of revenue for professional sports is the fan! Every time you but a ticket, a jersey, or a pepsi, a portion of your money is going to Brian Urlacher, and Julius Peppers.

If athletes are overpaid, the only people to blame are the fans, who consume the product that the athletes put on the field.
 

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Supply and demand.

Athletes are worth what they get paid because they (in theory anyway) generate a profit for their employers.

A free agent is free to sign with the highest bidder. What the free market place is willing to pay for a product, service, or employee is, by definition, "worth."

If a team owner pays his players, coaches, staff and overhead $100 million per year, and his total income, through TV contracts, ticket sales, and merchandising is $120 million per year, that's called "profit."

Remember the only source of revenue for professional sports is the fan! Every time you but a ticket, a jersey, or a pepsi, a portion of your money is going to Brian Urlacher, and Julius Peppers.

If athletes are overpaid, the only people to blame are the fans, who consume the product that the athletes put on the field.
Don't tell me you buy into that garbage. Most sports team put no merchandise revenue into their payroll.
 

Lefty

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Many, many people do. Many people take the "They're paid multi million dollars to play a kids game??!?" route. I've heard it many times, and to an extent, they are right.

No, they're not. Professional sports stopped being "just a game" a long, long time ago. Pro sports is big business, so big, in fact, that the government grants them certain antitrust protections (this has changed slightly with the recent SCOTUS decision, but they're still huge).

Why should they get paid more than people who actually help the world out?

Because of this:

Supply and demand.

Athletes are worth what they get paid because they (in theory anyway) generate a profit for their employers.

A free agent is free to sign with the highest bidder. What the free market place is willing to pay for a product, service, or employee is, by definition, "worth."

If a team owner pays his players, coaches, staff and overhead $100 million per year, and his total income, through TV contracts, ticket sales, and merchandising is $120 million per year, that's called "profit."

Remember the only source of revenue for professional sports is the fan! Every time you but a ticket, a jersey, or a pepsi, a portion of your money is going to Brian Urlacher, and Julius Peppers.

If athletes are overpaid, the only people to blame are the fans, who consume the product that the athletes put on the field.

This take is a little off in some areas, but for the most part it is spot on. For instance, fans are not the only source of revenue, at least not primarily: advertising and TV contracts constitute a good portion of teams' revenue, and while fans' interest generally dictates how much teams get for advertising/TV rights, they aren't necessarily the primary source of dollars in this sense.

And to go a bit deeper, saying the fans "consuming" the product is what drives up ticket prices, player contracts, overall revenue, etc. is a bit simplistic. It's true in the literal sense, but what we really have to look at is what allows those fans to "demand" and "consume" the professional sports "product".

Take ticket prices, for example: sports organizations can be considered rational price setters, meaning that the price point they set for tickets (and merchandise, food at the stadium, etc.) is supposed to be the highest they can reasonably charge for goods without seeing a greater loss from lost sales than they see increases from higher prices.

And generally, it seems that teams in Chicago do a pretty good job at this: the Cubs and Bears, IIRC, have raised ticket prices annually for the last few years, but have seen little-to-no drop in attendance to their respective events. This might not be the result in every case of teams raising prices, but in general the practice has shown to be sound (we only need to notice that the practice continues to see that it is working, that is unless a majority of sports franchises that are apart of multi-billion dollar industries are laughably stupid at setting price points and performing cost-benefit analysis).

Furthermore, studies have shown, at least in baseball, that while high salaries don't tend to raise ticket prices, high ticket prices do tend to increase salaries across the board.

So, we have seen teams raise ticket prices, attendance remain at least stagnant with the hikes in prices, and increased salaries as a result. So who is to "blame"?

Answering "the fans" will grant you partial credit, but to get at the root of the issue we need to look deeper: who is putting this money to spend on sports in the pockets of fans?

A good place to start would be the federal government of the 80's and 90's, which oversaw economic booms and tax cuts like few time periods before, allowing more and more high-income fans to take home even more cash.

This might change with the economic uncertainty we face now, but there is no doubt the government's influence on the economy of this country in the last few decades played a part in constructing the system we see today.
 

TopekaRoy

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Great post Lefty.

However...

For instance, fans are not the only source of revenue, at least not primarily: advertising and TV contracts constitute a good portion of teams' revenue

Advertisers pay for their commercials with money they get from selling their products to consumers so that money comes from fans (and non fans who buy their product). The networks get their money by selling ads to advertisers who get the money to advertise from fans.

And to go a bit deeper, saying the fans "consuming" the product is what drives up ticket prices, player contracts, overall revenue, etc. is a bit simplistic.

I never said these things "drive up" ticket prices, player contracts, and overall revenue. I said that they were the only sources of the players income.
It's true in the literal sense
I was being literal, dealing with facts ...

Take ticket prices, for example: sports organizations can be considered rational price setters, meaning that the price point they set for tickets (and merchandise, food at the stadium, etc.) is supposed to be the highest they can reasonably charge for goods without seeing a greater loss from lost sales than they see increases from higher prices.

i.e. supply and demand.

Furthermore, studies have shown, at least in baseball, that while high salaries don't tend to raise ticket prices, high ticket prices do tend to increase salaries across the board.

I agree 100% here. And those higher ticket prices are paid for by the fans. Supply and demand.

So, we have seen teams raise ticket prices, attendance remain at least stagnant with the hikes in prices, and increased salaries as a result. So who is to "blame"?

The fans!

Answering "the fans" will grant you partial credit, but to get at the root of the issue we need to look deeper: who is putting this money to spend on sports in the pockets of fans?

Um ... their employers? Well, I do get partial credit anyway. :)

A good place to start would be the federal government of the 80's and 90's, which oversaw economic booms and tax cuts like few time periods before, allowing more and more high-income fans to take home even more cash.

This might change with the economic uncertainty we face now, but there is no doubt the government's influence on the economy of this country in the last few decades played a part in constructing the system we see today.

I don't want this to become a political discussion, but if the "federal government" is responsible for people making more money, then go government.

Edit added: Lefty, I think you and I pretty much agree. The point I was trying to make is that players are going to get the most money that someone is willing to pay them. That's capitalism. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I think we agree that it's wrong to say that athletes are overpaid, when they are only getting paid what somebody (who wants desperately to make a profit) is willing to pay them.

Now, there is a big difference between "worth" and "value." (Orlando Pace comes to mind.) But that is a different discussion for another day!
 
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Lefty

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Great post Lefty.

However...

Advertisers pay for their commercials with money they get from selling their products to consumers so that money comes from fans (and non fans who buy their product). The networks get their money by selling ads to advertisers who get the money to advertise from fans.

I never said these things "drive up" ticket prices, player contracts, and overall revenue. I said that they were the only sources of the players income. I was being literal, dealing with facts ...

i.e. supply and demand.

I agree 100% here. And those higher ticket prices are paid for by the fans. Supply and demand.

The fans!

Um ... their employers? Well, I do get partial credit anyway. :)

I don't want this to become a political discussion, but if the "federal government" is responsible for people making more money, then go government.

I find it hard to believe that this many simpletons are actually capable of congregating on a regular basis. :rolleyes:

"Supply and demand" only goes so far, to truly understand what is going on, you need to delve deeper into what is driving up "demand", and how the "supply" is being priced in accordance. Revel in your simplicity all you want, I was just trying to provide some higher-level insight into what you were talking about, but apparently it flew right over your head.
 

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And no, this isn't a "political discussion" actually read the fucking part where I talk about the government, you moron. Jesus Christ.
 

TopekaRoy

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Don't tell me you buy into that garbage. Most sports team put no merchandise revenue into their payroll.

LOL! I do buy into that garbage. I'm the one that posted that garbage!

I'm not sure what you mean by "Most sports team put no merchandise revenue into their payroll." This doesn't make any sense. If you are saying players don't get a direct commission from sales of their jerseys, that may be correct. But you can't tell me none of the teams make any money from merchandising. Teams can only pay their players from the money they take in, and if they don't take in money from licensing agreements with manufactures than who gets that money.

Hmmm?
 

TopekaRoy

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Lefty,

I'm not surprised that you called me a moron! You do that with everyone who disagrees with you, But for the most part I was agreeing with you!

As I said before, your previous post was a great post. My only point was that players are not overpaid because they get paid what owners are willing to pay them. And that they get their money from the sales of tickets, merchandise and advertising revenue.

I can't disagree with anything you said, but, apparently, You disagree with a lot of things that I said.

Where specifically is anything that I said wrong, and why is it wrong?
 

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By the way, in your previous post you said, about my post, "for the most part it is spot on" so where was I so wrong?
 

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You were wrong when you went through my post (which agreed with yours, just went a little more in-depth) line by line with silly, sarcastic comments as though I was disagreeing with what you said (the "I was being literal" kind of shit). Was it not clear that I was just adding on to your post? But no, that wasn't enough, you decided it was necessary to go through what I said and reduce everything that I said to your easy-on-the-6th-graders simplicity. That's why you're a moron.
 

TopekaRoy

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You were wrong when you went through my post (which agreed with yours, just went a little more in-depth) line by line with silly, sarcastic comments as though I was disagreeing with what you said (the "I was being literal" kind of shit). Was it not clear that I was just adding on to your post? But no, that wasn't enough, you decided it was necessary to go through what I said and reduce everything that I said to your easy-on-the-6th-graders simplicity. That's why you're a moron.

Oh, Okay. I thought when you were calling me a moron and a simpleton you actually disagreed with something I said. Nothing I said was sarcastic. I was just trying to reinforce the "supply and demand", and "athletes are not overpaid" arguments. Apparently I didn't do a very good job of that.

And I'm sorry I tried to defend my position "line by line" when you disagreed with me.

I appreciate your agreeing (for the most part) with my posts and I'm sorry if I came across as a dick.
 
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LOL! I do buy into that garbage. I'm the one that posted that garbage!

I'm not sure what you mean by "Most sports team put no merchandise revenue into their payroll." This doesn't make any sense. If you are saying players don't get a direct commission from sales of their jerseys, that may be correct. But you can't tell me none of the teams make any money from merchandising. Teams can only pay their players from the money they take in, and if they don't take in money from licensing agreements with manufactures than who gets that money.

Hmmm?
It's simple, the teams put barely any, if any at all, money from merchandise into their payrolls. Most of it goes to the franchise for other things, such as stadium renovations, or even pocket change for the ownership.
 

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No, they're not. Professional sports stopped being "just a game" a long, long time ago. Pro sports is big business, so big, in fact, that the government grants them certain antitrust protections (this has changed slightly with the recent SCOTUS decision, but they're still huge).



Because of this:



This take is a little off in some areas, but for the most part it is spot on. For instance, fans are not the only source of revenue, at least not primarily: advertising and TV contracts constitute a good portion of teams' revenue, and while fans' interest generally dictates how much teams get for advertising/TV rights, they aren't necessarily the primary source of dollars in this sense.

And to go a bit deeper, saying the fans "consuming" the product is what drives up ticket prices, player contracts, overall revenue, etc. is a bit simplistic. It's true in the literal sense, but what we really have to look at is what allows those fans to "demand" and "consume" the professional sports "product".

Take ticket prices, for example: sports organizations can be considered rational price setters, meaning that the price point they set for tickets (and merchandise, food at the stadium, etc.) is supposed to be the highest they can reasonably charge for goods without seeing a greater loss from lost sales than they see increases from higher prices.

And generally, it seems that teams in Chicago do a pretty good job at this: the Cubs and Bears, IIRC, have raised ticket prices annually for the last few years, but have seen little-to-no drop in attendance to their respective events. This might not be the result in every case of teams raising prices, but in general the practice has shown to be sound (we only need to notice that the practice continues to see that it is working, that is unless a majority of sports franchises that are apart of multi-billion dollar industries are laughably stupid at setting price points and performing cost-benefit analysis).

Furthermore, studies have shown, at least in baseball, that while high salaries don't tend to raise ticket prices, high ticket prices do tend to increase salaries across the board.

So, we have seen teams raise ticket prices, attendance remain at least stagnant with the hikes in prices, and increased salaries as a result. So who is to "blame"?

Answering "the fans" will grant you partial credit, but to get at the root of the issue we need to look deeper: who is putting this money to spend on sports in the pockets of fans?

A good place to start would be the federal government of the 80's and 90's, which oversaw economic booms and tax cuts like few time periods before, allowing more and more high-income fans to take home even more cash.

This might change with the economic uncertainty we face now, but there is no doubt the government's influence on the economy of this country in the last few decades played a part in constructing the system we see today.
I'm not one of the people who believe they are overpaid exactly, but I just see where those people who think so are coming from. I can see why someone doesn't see how someone who hits a baseball, fields, runs bases and such is worth 30+ mil.
 
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TopekaRoy

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It's simple, the teams put barely any, if any at all, money from merchandise into their payrolls. Most of it goes to the franchise for other things, such as stadium renovations, or even pocket change for the ownership.

You're still not making any sense. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar. It doesn't matter if that dollar comes from ticket sales, television rights, or merchandising. It's all income. The owners collect the money, pay the players salaries, pay their other expenses, and keep what's left over as profit. Each dollar a franchise gets from jersey sales is one more dollar they have to pay for the costs of running their business. And, by far, the largest cost of running their business is payroll.

To put it another way, owners make money from merchandising, and they pay the players salaries from the money they make.

People aren't buying Urlacher jerseys because they are Virginia McCaskey fans. They buy them because they are Brian Urlacher fans. and some of that money goes from Virginia's pocket into Brian's pocket, and Lance's, and Jay's and Julius's, and Devin's ...
 

TopekaRoy

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Got teeth? Keith doesn't.

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You're still not making any sense. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar. It doesn't matter if that dollar comes from ticket sales, television rights, or merchandising. It's all income. The owners collect the money, pay the players salaries, pay their other expenses, and keep what's left over as profit. Each dollar a franchise gets from jersey sales is one more dollar they have to pay for the costs of running their business. And, by far, the largest cost of running their business is payroll.

To put it another way, owners make money from merchandising, and they pay the players salaries from the money they make.

People aren't buying Urlacher jerseys because they are Virginia McCaskey fans. They buy them because they are Brian Urlacher fans. and some of that money goes from Virginia's pocket into Brian's pocket, and Lance's, and Jay's and Julius's, and Devin's ...
Do you have any other sources that say payroll comes from merchandise revenue? I took a sports management class and was told otherwise.
You were when you said this:


So, are you you saying that Lefty and I have convinced you to change your mind?

I hope so. Because we're right.
Did you completely miss me saying "to an extent"?
 

Lefty

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Oh, Okay. I thought when you were calling me a moron and a simpleton you actually disagreed with something I said. Nothing I said was sarcastic. I was just trying to reinforce the "supply and demand", and "athletes are not overpaid" arguments. Apparently I didn't do a very good job of that.

And I'm sorry I tried to defend my position "line by line" when you disagreed with me.

I appreciate your agreeing (for the most part) with my posts and I'm sorry if I came across as a dick.

I wasn't "attacking" your position, I was just going through the points you made and adding a little more substance to them, that's all. Really, outside of the "fans are the only source of revenue"--which wasn't "wrong", just a bit too simplistic for my tastes--your post was spot on.

Supply and demand works as blunt instrument to explain your position, I was merely going a bit deeper, that's all.

Do you have any other sources that say payroll comes from merchandise revenue? I took a sports management class and was told otherwise.

Well, to say that "merchandise revenue doesn't go towards payroll" is true, I guess, in that very few teams (if any) sink all of their profits back into payroll. In that sense, portions of ticket sales, ad sales and TV contracts don't go to payroll, either.

Saying matter-of-factly that merchandise sales don't go to payroll whatsoever is a bit naive and, really, missing the point.
 
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