Are sports’ drafts fair to the players?

[hondo in seattle]

2 hours ago, nucci said:

does everyone get to choose where they want to work? 

 

Not folks in the army, navy, marines, air force, coast guard, space force, public health services commissioned corps, and NOAA commissioned officer corps.  And these guys don't make millions

[CountDorkula]

5 minutes ago, Jauronimo said:

Sounds like its going great in Europe. 

 

https://www.si.com/soccer/2018/04/19/european-football-future-leagues-competition-epl-la-liga-bundesliga-serie-a-ligue-1

 

Premier league has no draft and a team from Manchester has won 17 titles in 28 seasons.  Every other league has a dynasty which makes the Patriot's success success look like a brief run of good luck.

Yes its still the most popular sport in the world.

 

People seem to be ignoring that the NFL would still have a salary cap.

 

If the NFL said today no Draft anymore college players are free to sign wherever.

 

Trevor Lawrence is going to sign where?

A) The team that gives him the most money

B) The place where he can start.

 

He is not going to Tampa or Miami or San Diego because of the weather. 

 

 

While I love the draft, i would love a college free agent class that was able to sign and go wherever.

 

[hondo in seattle]

9 minutes ago, CountDorkula said:

You choose to join the army though. So yes, you did. You could have done something else. (The argument being used currently in terms of the NFL draft)

 

They choose to be in the NFL so they don't get a choice where they go. 

 

Thanks for you service!

 

I did not choose Iraq specifically.  But I did choose to go where ever the army wanted to send me.

 

No regrets.  And no sympathy for football players who don't get to choose when drafted.

 

[machine gun kelly]

So when you enlist to the military, how much influence do you have where you work?  Almost none.

 

it’s a major corporation with 32 CEO’s. It’s a formula where the owners get to decide the formula.  You go where you’re picked.  You can decline and make no $.  Of course they have you’re rights for two years so you get older and earn less.  On the other hand you can go where you’re picked and decide where you want to go in a few years.  You can also use you’re degree and choose which company you and the company meet in terms of a hire.  No change in my position.  This take not any person is moronic.  All the major sports do the same thing.  
 

not getting into the politics thing as that is a rabbit hole.  For example if Lawrence wants to make $0 for two years he can most likely choose wherever he wants.

[Punching Bag]

2 hours ago, nucci said:

does everyone get to choose where they want to work? 

 

I got a job interview via subcontracting agency, interviewed at company and was given offer.   Ends up I knew people working at company.   I agreed.  Later subcontractor came back and said company wanted me to work at a different location more than 30 miles further and I told agency that is not job I agreed to; other job was so close I could go home for lunch.  Day of 1st day on new job he called me and said company was expecting me and I told him I told you that is not the job I agreed to. He asked "What I am supposed to tell them?" My response was whatever you say don't lie.  I know people at company and they will tell you what you told them.

 

 

[HardyBoy]

3 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

Not folks in the army, navy, marines, air force, coast guard, space force, public health services commissioned corps, and NOAA commissioned officer corps.  And these guys don't make millions

 

There are viable alternatives for those career paths (private contractors, etc.). The nfl used non-competative means through anti-trust law exemptions to eliminate or aquire other competitive leagues...same with all the major sports in the USA.

[hondo in seattle]

Is it "fair" that people who play games for a living earn more than teachers, fire fighters, law enforcement officers, soldiers, etc?

[nucci]

So, everything in life is supposed to be fair?

[CountDorkula]

Just now, nucci said:

So, everything in life is supposed to be fair?

"The Draft make the league more fair" aka Competitive Balance

2 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

Is it "fair" that people who play games for a living earn more than teachers, fire fighters, law enforcement officers, soldiers, etc?

Yes, yes it is.

 

That's called free market.

 

You may not like it, but it is.

[Punching Bag]

1 hour ago, CountDorkula said:

 

I also have a choice to do something else, and most of the time the choice is not there, in college these top players are treated like Pawns. They dont receive proper education or traning. they are getting Colleges crazy money and being used as an income machines.

 

 

There are football players who have gotten valid degrees - it is based on how much efforts players want to put in it.  You think Ryan Fitzpatrick's business degree from Harvard is not valid?  There is a player Laurent Duvernay-Tardif who graduated from medical school in college (good way to pay for it) and was fourth medical school graduate to play in the NFL.

[HOUSE]

I bet if we think real hard, there has to be even better ways to screw up pro football

Lets draft University of Buffalo players only

 

 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by HOUSE

[Don Otreply]

1 hour ago, CountDorkula said:

How much money you make doesn't matter.

Stop focusing on that.

 

How about MLB players who make  60K on minor league contract. Is it fair to them since they make "Regular people money"

Yes it is fair, in that those individuals chose to be there, Knowing full well how that employment opportunity works.  they had options and they chose the baseball option, it really is that simple, do what you can to not make easy things harder than they actually are... 

18 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

Not folks in the army, navy, marines, air force, coast guard, space force, public health services commissioned corps, and NOAA commissioned officer corps.  And these guys don't make millions

They all freely chose those occupations.

[hondo in seattle]

28 minutes ago, HardyBoy said:

 

There are viable alternatives for those career paths (private contractors, etc.). The nfl used non-competative means through anti-trust law exemptions to eliminate or aquire other competitive leagues...same with all the major sports in the USA.

 

I was an armor officer.  My expertise was to tactically employ M1 tanks to destroy enemy tanks.   Like many in uniform, my skill set was very specific to the military.   

 

When I left the service, there were no "viable alternatives" for me.   Even mercs didn't want me because they don't use tanks.  I had to learn a brand new trade.

 

I'm an empathetic guy but I can't find a lot of sympathy in my heart for ballers who may have to play a game in a city they don't love.

Edited April 26, 2021 by hondo in seattle

[Royale with Cheese]

The general raise for a regular salaried employee is roughly 2% per year.

 

Josh Allen is looking at like a 3000% increase.
 

Sports is also the only industry that has that.

[Punching Bag]

5 minutes ago, HOUSE said:

I bet if we think real hard, there has to be even better ways to screw up pro football

 

 

 

 

They already did that. Had member of media being GM for a team.

[hondo in seattle]

26 minutes ago, CountDorkula said:

"The Draft make the league more fair" aka Competitive Balance

Yes, yes it is.

 

That's called free market.

 

You may not like it, but it is.

 

The free market economy is the best economic system humans have developed thus far.   But it's flawed and some day we'll devise something better.

 

As it is, IMHO, certain occupations (e.g. pro athletes, reality tv stars) are overvalued while other occupations (e.g. educators) are undervalued.

 

I don't use the word "fair" much in normal conversation.  There's no cosmic principle of fairness in life.   Kind of like a massage: I appreciate it when my wife gives me one but I don't expect it and don't whine when I don't get it.

Edited April 26, 2021 by hondo in seattle

[HardyBoy]

14 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

I was an armor officer.  My expertise was to tactically employ M1 tanks to destroy enemy tanks and kill enemy soldiers.   Like many in uniform, my skill set was very specific to the military.   

 

When I left the service, there were no "viable alternatives" for me.   Even mercs didn't want me because they don't use tanks.  I had to learn a brand new trade.

 

I'm an empathetic guy but I can't find a lot of sympathy in my heart for ballers who may have to play a game in a city the don't love.

 

Safe to say the majority of your skills were gained through on the job training? That's not the case for nfl players. The skills that makes them able to join the league are developed prior to joining the league.

 

Also, I do believe there is a difference between gov't jobs and jobs in the private sector.

 

And yes, the military and the nfl both do a bad job preparing their employees for post career life.

[Big Turk]

13 hours ago, Tipster19 said:

I watched an a video on ProFootballTalk and Mike Florio brought up a very good point. Sports are the only employment that comes to mind where the employee doesn’t get to choose where he gets employed. I never thought or looked at it that way but that’s a very good point. I wonder if sports’ drafts someday get eliminated. 

 

No because then the rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer.  There would be a handful of super teams and everyone else would just kind of be there,

[CountDorkula]

6 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

No because then the rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer.  There would be a handful of super teams and everyone else would just kind of be there,

This is 1000000% False.

 

The NFL still has a salary cap.

 

You cant just go out and buy the best player every year.

 

If there were no Draft and Trevor Lawerence was free to sign tomorrow, what three teams does he decide between?

 

Not to mention that team is giving up a huge payday to get him. 

 

This would eliminate teams tanking and being bad on purpose as well.

Edited April 26, 2021 by CountDorkula

[Big Turk]

1 minute ago, CountDorkula said:

This is 1000000% False.

 

The NFL still has a salary cap.

 

You cant just go out and buy the best player every year.

 

If there were no Draft and Trevor Lawerence was free to sign tomorrow, what three teams does he decide between?

 

Not to mention that team is giving up a huge payday to get him. 

 

It would be glorified Free Agency and the league doesn't want that.  They want parity.

[May Day 10]

If you still had a cap, it would be a bit unfair to the veteran players who earned their way through service term, as every dollar that gets added to the typical ELCs would come out of their potential pay.  You would probably see quite a bit more early retirement and shorter career spans. 

Because of this, players in the NFLPA and their leadership would probably have abolishing the draft as an extremely low priority in their CBA negotiation wish-list.  They actually bargained the ELC structure down for incoming players in more recent years.  It was bad before, i cant imagine if incoming players had all the leverage a UFA enjoys, if not more because you are bidding on potential and speculation.

Edited April 26, 2021 by May Day 10

[CountDorkula]

Just now, Big Turk said:

 

It would be glorified Free Agency and the league doesn't want that.  They want parity.

How would this eliminate Parity?

 

The best players are going to spots (AKA QB's) where they have a chance to start right away.

 

They arn't going to sign a huge deal to be a backup somewhere for a team with an already good QB. 

[hondo in seattle]

6 minutes ago, HardyBoy said:

 

Safe to say the majority of your skills were gained through on the job training? That's not the case for nfl players. The skills that makes them able to join the league are developed prior to joining the league.

 

Also, I do believe there is a difference between gov't jobs and jobs in the private sector.

 

And yes, the military and the nfl both do a bad job preparing their employees for post career life.

 

True, the army taught me many skills that have no value in the civilian world while NFL players !earn most of their skills prior to the NFL.

 

Still, why do players learn those skills?  I'll hazard a guess: because they dream of playing in the NFL.  And that means going into the draft.  

 

If they didn't accept the obligations that come with the biggest employer (the NFL), they should have prepared themselves for a different career.

[BuffaloBill]

Talk about a first world problem....

[QLBillsFan]

1 hour ago, HardyBoy said:

 

So having freedom to choose where to work is now a liberal crusade? Ok, whatever you say, but I'd recommend maybe going back and learning some stuff about capitalism.

I’m quite versed on capitalism. Sports leagues certainly have the power over employees for a period of time. If an athlete chooses to take up a different vocation that have that right. In fact years ago some top college players did just that . As the revenue and income increased the players went where they could earn more and that was in the NFL. Sure it’s not fair in a sense but the players don’t seem to mind the $. At year 4 or 5 they are open to go wherever they want. So I’d argue they benefit from this arrangement. I’d also argue if other non athletes had a similar financial situation right out of college they would be happy to go to Green Bay or Buffalo. 
 

I should not have thrown liberal out so liberally 😂, so I do stand corrected on that 👍.

[Tipster19]

4 hours ago, nucci said:

You don't know anyone who has ever taken a job they don't really want because they have no other options and have to accept it?

I do but in the end it was still their choice.

[Captain Caveman]

Lots of other people have said it, but it's a choice the players have if they want to play pro sports.  I don't see it as any different than the fact that if you want to be a working actor, you probably have to move to LA (or maybe NY.)

There are lotos of other fields in this country where you may have to relocate based on your job if you want to keep your job (thinking in energy production, and I'm sure there are many others.)

[BornAgainBillsFan]

2 hours ago, CountDorkula said:

How would this eliminate Parity?

 

The best players are going to spots (AKA QB's) where they have a chance to start right away.

 

They arn't going to sign a huge deal to be a backup somewhere for a team with an already good QB. 

 

You've got an interesting take, CD. And I agree that a salary cap alone could potentially promote parity. But it would have to include fully guaranteed contracts. Otherwise, every current player would become more and more paranoid that they could be cut at any moment for a younger, cheaper "recruit". And that's how it would work. Teams would be going behind their players' backs to try to find cheaper alternatives. If you ask me, the anxiety that that would cause the players is far worse than forcing them to play somewhere for 4 years.

 

One more thing. Let's not forget that the NFL is made up of 32 raving egomaniac billionaire owners. None of them are going to be able to stomach being outbid by the others. So one of the functions of the draft is to protect the owners from themselves, i.e. to help prevent any internal friction from getting out of control.

 

[TheFunPolice]

So no more trades then either?

 

This is a collectively bargained aspect of sports. The PLAYERS signed off on the deal, because they know a healthy league with 32 financially viable teams is best for the largest number of guys. It also is something the players agree to in order to get the owners to share a larger % of revenues. 

 

Draft goes away=% of revenues players get goes down significantly. 

 

Plus, there's only so many spots on the Bills and Chiefs rosters. 

 

Florio will always see the cloud in the silver lining. Last year he didn't want the draft to happen, training camp to happen, the season to happen, and he latches onto endlessly covers any negative story about the NFL. 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by TheFunPolice

[May Day 10]

If you want to make everything perfect and fair from a players' standpoint... sure.  Scrap the CBA and make every player an independent contractor.  Every decent player will have a guaranteed contract and everybody will be a UFA whenever their contract is up.  No draft, no trades, no salary cap, no franchise tags, etc.   We will probably see a huge stratification of the league and teams like the Bills will not be able to compete on any sort of consistent basis (if they ever could).

 

 

While not perfect, the system now overall is fair and it promotes league growth.  The players get a % of the revenue and it is facilitated between a cap roof and cap floor.  

Edited April 26, 2021 by May Day 10

[Mr. WEO]

58 minutes ago, BornAgainBillsFan said:

 

You've got an interesting take, CD. And I agree that a salary cap alone could potentially promote parity. But it would have to include fully guaranteed contracts. Otherwise, every current player would become more and more paranoid that they could be cut at any moment for a younger, cheaper "recruit". And that's how it would work. Teams would be going behind their players' backs to try to find cheaper alternatives. If you ask me, the anxiety that that would cause the players is far worse than forcing them to play somewhere for 4 years.

 

One more thing. Let's not forget that the NFL is made up of 32 raving egomaniac billionaire owners. None of them are going to be able to stomach being outbid by the others. So one of the functions of the draft is to protect the owners from themselves, i.e. to help prevent any internal friction from getting out of control.

 

 

Happens in MLB and NBA.  They don't mind as much maybe.

[Chandler#81]

18 hours ago, Tipster19 said:

I watched an a video on ProFootballTalk and Mike Florio brought up a very good point. Sports are the only employment that comes to mind where the employee doesn’t get to choose where he gets employed. I never thought or looked at it that way but that’s a very good point. I wonder if sports’ drafts someday get eliminated. 

and you wonder why people shred you all the time..🤦‍♂️

[Motorin']

18 hours ago, mikemac2001 said:

I mean this is basic rules for sports stuff 
 

they are not forced to play they are eligible to be drafted then can sit a year and re enter 

 

In North America. In European sports the pro teams recruit players from a very early age to their youth academies, and they start getting paid as early as 13 years old. 

 

Players can chose to move to other teams, but their current team negotiates a transfer fee. 

 

For instance, when Stefan Diggs wanted out of Minnesota, he would have had much more control over where he went. As long as Minnesota and the team agree on the fee transfer and the new team and Diggs agree on the contract. 

 

In Diggs case, the Bills would have had to pay Minn probably 40-50 million for his rights.

 

Instead of letting free agents leave, teams sell their rights. Probably could have gotten 15 million for Shaq Lawson and maybe 20 mil for Jordan Phillips. 

 

Teams are constantly trying to woo players under contract away from other teams, and the market for player transfer can be steep. 

 

So there's no drafts. Each team has their own youth farm teams, and buy and sell players rights. 

 

 

[TheFunPolice]

If you and your employer come to a mutually bargained agreement, which results in you earning generational type wealth in a handful of years, rather than using your college degree and earning a tiny fraction of what you would earn playing ball, then yes, the deal was "fair" to you. 

 

Players declare for the NFL draft, meaning THEY CHOOSE to enter the system. 

Edited April 26, 2021 by TheFunPolice

[billsfan89]

No and yes, the leagues set up these rules to have a competitive balance and get the best product which makes the league and the players the most money. So the players having to abide by the draft entry rules is within the terms of service a league can call upon. But the league has decided to slant the rules to benefit the veteran players and the teams initially.

 

 But the longer term gain of the competitive balance of the league is also what draws up the interests of the league. If the NFL had a European soccer style system I am not sure you would have as much interest in the league overall.

[Boxcar]

10 hours ago, Doc said:

Is it fair that they make millions to play and game for half a year?  No.  Therefore if they think that not being able to choose where they play is unfair, too bad.

Yes, it is fair. They possess skills and talent that is deemed worth what they are paid, just like any other career. NFL owners are not bleeding money because they have to pay their players. These guys can do things that a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of people are able to do.

 

Just because it's a lot of money, and more than you or I will ever see in a lifetime, doesn't make it "unfair".

10 hours ago, BornAgainBillsFan said:

This thread is one of the dumbest in recent memory. But I guess that's what we do as we count the hours until Thursday night.

 

The draft has been around for decades, and the players have been fine with it for decades, because they know that without it their cash cow dies a quick death. The draft provides hope for the bottom dwelling franchises, allowing their fans to at least feel that they might contend in a few years, by building a team of talent at the top of the board. Without the draft, players would gravitate to only warm weather cities, with owners who have bottomless checkbooks, and the league would become defunct within 5 years.

Explain soccer in Europe, then.

[Boxcar]

9 hours ago, hondo in seattle said:

Is it "fair" that people who play games for a living earn more than teachers, fire fighters, law enforcement officers, soldiers, etc?

Man, this is an argument 13 year olds make. I specifically remember debating this at school when I was young.

 

Answer is: the NFL makes a lot of money. Who is responsible for making that money? The players provide the product. Where would you have the bulk of that money go if not to the players?

[JaCrispy]

4 hours ago, TheFunPolice said:

If you and your employer come to a mutually bargained agreement, which results in you earning generational type wealth in a handful of years, rather than using your college degree and earning a tiny fraction of what you would earn playing ball, then yes, the deal was "fair" to you. 

 

Players declare for the NFL draft, meaning THEY CHOOSE to enter the system. 

It’s pointless, FunPolice...we are debating Gen Z...no matter how rational and logical your points are, they will not get through...God help the future of this country...🤣🤣🤣

[Boxcar]

9 hours ago, CountDorkula said:

How would this eliminate Parity?

 

The best players are going to spots (AKA QB's) where they have a chance to start right away.

 

They arn't going to sign a huge deal to be a backup somewhere for a team with an already good QB. 

People are convinced that:

A) parity is a good thing (because no one looks back fondly on dynasties)

B) the cap and draft are the only reason parity exists (untrue with the cap, dunno about the draft).

[Doc]

10 minutes ago, Boxcar said:

Yes, it is fair. They possess skills and talent that is deemed worth what they are paid, just like any other career. NFL owners are not bleeding money because they have to pay their players. These guys can do things that a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of people are able to do.

 

Just because it's a lot of money, and more than you or I will ever see in a lifetime, doesn't make it "unfair".

 

You realize the hypocrisy of this statement, coupled with the ones right above it, right?