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TIL: The United Steelworkers represent USFL players

PromoTheRobot

By PromoTheRobot
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LeGOATski Hall of Famer

LeGOATski

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6 minutes ago, KDIGGZ said:

Yes that's what was lacking in the USFL, higher salaries! They can't put a good product on the field but luckily they are going to bankrupt their investors even faster this time

Each iteration of these leagues gets a little better and more stable than the last. It's almost like we're watching the growth of football in the 1940s all over again.

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KDIGGZ Hall of Famer

KDIGGZ

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3 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

Each iteration of these leagues gets a little better and more stable than the last. It's almost like we're watching the growth of football in the 1940s all over again.

Don't agree. I've started multiple businesses and employees who start out with "I want to make a lot of money and have good benefits" is not how you build a business. I've started out working for free many times. The goal should be to build something lasting and sustainable, not make a guaranteed income when you have no product. Give the players some equity ownership in the league and they either sink or swim based on their performance and their engagement.

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LeGOATski Hall of Famer

LeGOATski

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7 minutes ago, KDIGGZ said:

Don't agree. I've started multiple businesses and employees who start out with "I want to make a lot of money and have good benefits" is not how you build a business. I've started out working for free many times. The goal should be to build something lasting and sustainable, not make a guaranteed income when you have no product. Give the players some equity ownership in the league and they either sink or swim based on their performance and their engagement.

Don't agree with what? It's a fact that each iteration gets a little better and more stable. When they started, they couldn't make it through a season and were primarily streaming online. Now they're going into their 2nd season and have multiyear deals on major networks.

 

Football in the early 1900s had no product, either. It was a bunch of regional club leagues and they still played their players.

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KDIGGZ Hall of Famer

KDIGGZ

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2 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

Don't agree with what? It's a fact that each iteration gets a little better and more stable. When they started, they couldn't make it through a season and were primarily streaming online. Now they're going into their 2nd season and have multiyear deals on major networks.

 

Football in the early 1900s had no product, either. It was a bunch of regional club leagues and they still played their players.

You pay employees with income generated. The WNBA for example has never made a profit. It's charity, not business. If they are paying players 5k per week then they are operating at a huge loss and are just hoping it works. They might as well play the lottery because that's not how a business is run.

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LeGOATski Hall of Famer

LeGOATski

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1 minute ago, KDIGGZ said:

You pay employees with income generated. The WNBA for example has never made a profit. It's charity, not business. If they are paying players 5k per week then they are operating at a huge loss and are just hoping it works. They might as well play the lottery because that's not how a business is run.

Not sure what your point is here. The fact is that they still paid their players and the NFL eventually became what you see today. This actually happened in reality. And we're watching it happen again.

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KDIGGZ Hall of Famer

KDIGGZ

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1 minute ago, LeGOATski said:

Not sure what your point is here. The fact is that they still paid their players and the NFL eventually became what you see today. This actually happened in reality. And we're watching it happen again.

It's not a sustainable model for success. Would you rather make 5k per week for 2 months and then the league folds? Or maybe nothing at first but as the league grows you make more and more and you have a long term employment/equity ownership opportunity?

 

These leagues fold because they operate at a loss and the product is terrible. If they pay the players more it will just fail faster. Minor league baseball is funded by Major league baseball. They don't have a product either and the players make way less than 5k per week. This is all nonsense imo

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LeGOATski Hall of Famer

LeGOATski

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4 minutes ago, KDIGGZ said:

It's not a sustainable model for success. Would you rather make 5k per week for 2 months and then the league folds? Or maybe nothing at first but as the league grows you make more and more and you have a long term employment/equity ownership opportunity?

 

These leagues fold because they operate at a loss and the product is terrible. If they pay the players more it will just fail faster. Minor league baseball is funded by Major league baseball. They don't have a product either and the players make way less than 5k per week. This is all nonsense imo

Cool, but the fact is that they keep coming back. It's happening in real life as we speak. They're going into their 2nd season. Did you know that in real life last year they paid their players and didn't fold? It really happened. And it's the same thing that happened 100 years ago.

 

I guarantee that if you proposed your plan to prospective players of making nothing at first, no one would play for you.

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KDIGGZ Hall of Famer

KDIGGZ

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14 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

Cool, but the fact is that they keep coming back. It's happening in real life as we speak. They're going into their 2nd season. Did you know that in real life last year they paid their players and didn't fold? It really happened. And it's the same thing that happened 100 years ago.

 

I guarantee that if you proposed your plan to prospective players of making nothing at first, no one would play for you.

 

2 minutes ago, Bill from NYC said:

Taking into consideration that the injury rate is 100%, I am inclined to agree with the above.

And that's why people don't start businesses. That's the employee mindset. I just want to make X amount of dollars and then go home. It's actually possible to make XXXXXXX dollars but people don't take a chance on themselves. That's fine, not everyone can have that mindset or there wouldn't be employees to hire.

 

But no minor league system has ever been profitable that I'm aware of. You are proposing just doing the same thing over and over that's already been done, but this time it will be different because....? And let's now pay the players MORE money because....? It just doesn't make any financial sense.

 

Why would any of us care about this league? There needs to be a reason to tune in. Because there's nothing else on TV in the spring is what they are leaning on but that's not enough. There needs to be some marketability and community/fan engagement. Who are these players and why do I care? Give us a reason to watch and THEN you have a product and THEN you can pay the players more.

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LeGOATski Hall of Famer

LeGOATski

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11 minutes ago, KDIGGZ said:

 

And that's why people don't start businesses. That's the employee mindset. I just want to make X amount of dollars and then go home. It's actually possible to make XXXXXXX dollars but people don't take a chance on themselves. That's fine, not everyone can have that mindset or there wouldn't be employees to hire.

 

But no minor league system has ever been profitable that I'm aware of. You are proposing just doing the same thing over and over that's already been done, but this time it will be different because....? And let's now pay the players MORE money because....? It just doesn't make any financial sense.

 

Why would any of us care about this league? There needs to be a reason to tune in. Because there's nothing else on TV in the spring is what they are leaning on but that's not enough. There needs to be some marketability and community/fan engagement. Who are these players and why do I care? Give us a reason to watch and THEN you have a product and THEN you can pay the players more.

People are already watching it. That's why there's a thread about it on this forum and they have TV deals with the major networks. It's like you're trying to argue against reality and struggling with the fact that there's more than one way to skin a cat.

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ProcessTruster Veteran

ProcessTruster

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14 hours ago, Trock said:

Get ready to pony up union dues with less pay. 

yeah this will ensure the latest failure of the league.   

 

pay should be tied to gate revenue and tv ratings, just as it is in the NFL.   If no one is watching, no one gets paid.  pretty simple concept.  performance is measured by eyeballs

17 hours ago, BullBuchanan said:

Good deal. Glad to see them get quality representation.

Sigh. 

 

Unions are a (perhaps the) primary reason Erie County now has half the number of people it had 50 years ago.  

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EasternOHBillsFan Veteran

EasternOHBillsFan

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2 minutes ago, T master said:

 

Here in the US of A or in China like everything else in the US ?? LOL 

 

My father got us out of the rust belt when I was little right before the bottom fell out in 1978... I remember how bad it smelled. Now China smells really bad LOL

Edited by EasternOHBillsFan
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PromoTheRobot Hall of Famer

PromoTheRobot

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2 hours ago, ProcessTruster said:

 

Sigh. 

 

Unions are a (perhaps the) primary reason Erie County now has half the number of people it had 50 years ago.  

 

It's also the reason we work 40 hour weeks, get vacations. health care and other benefits. The horror.

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BullBuchanan Veteran

BullBuchanan

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3 hours ago, ProcessTruster said:

Unions are a (perhaps the) primary reason Erie County now has half the number of people it had 50 years ago.  

100% false. The ability to have representation is an objective good for workers. By default owners will always have outsized leverage over employees, and that leverage will almost always cause employees to settle for sub-standard compensation (as the USFL players had previously). That doesn't mean that every implementation of a union is good, it is made up of fallible people after all, but that's true of anything.

Ask the NFL players if they want to get rid of their union. I'm guessing you wouldn't find a lot of support for that given how effective they've been at creating one of the more equitable employer->employee bargaining agreements in our country.

The reason many people leave Erie county (including myself) is the lack of high paying jobs which are rarely, if ever, supported by unions like those in tech, finance, consulting, etc.

Edited by BullBuchanan
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BullBuchanan Veteran

BullBuchanan

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6 hours ago, KDIGGZ said:

 

And that's why people don't start businesses. That's the employee mindset. I just want to make X amount of dollars and then go home. It's actually possible to make XXXXXXX dollars but people don't take a chance on themselves. That's fine, not everyone can have that mindset or there wouldn't be employees to hire.

 

But no minor league system has ever been profitable that I'm aware of. You are proposing just doing the same thing over and over that's already been done, but this time it will be different because....? And let's now pay the players MORE money because....? It just doesn't make any financial sense.

 

Why would any of us care about this league? There needs to be a reason to tune in. Because there's nothing else on TV in the spring is what they are leaning on but that's not enough. There needs to be some marketability and community/fan engagement. Who are these players and why do I care? Give us a reason to watch and THEN you have a product and THEN you can pay the players more.


The same reason anyone cares about any other non top-tier team like the Buffalo Bisons or the Rochester Americans - accessibility and because they like the sport. People here in Texas intensely follow High School football. Grown ass adults with no children attending the school. It's pretty weird if you ask me, but they do it.

A better question is why wouldn't someone watch it? It's undeniably going to be comprised of better talent than college ball, so they have at least one advantage there. Another advantage is that they are setting up shop in cities with very severe income disparities and offering cheap tickets that will allow working class families to take their families out for an even of entertainment that would be impossible to do so with NFL prices. We went to a lot of Bisons and Bandits games when i was a kid and it was very economical. I probably only went to a handful of Bills games though.

Edited by BullBuchanan
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BullBuchanan

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42 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

It's also the reason we work 40 hour weeks, get vacations. health care and other benefits. The horror.


Their absence is also why we had tragedies like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

For those who forgot their history or never learned it in the first place: https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/triangle-shirtwaist-fire

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KDIGGZ Hall of Famer

KDIGGZ

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22 minutes ago, BullBuchanan said:


The same reason anyone cares about any other non top-tier team like the Buffalo Bisons or the Rochester Americans - accessibility and because they like the sport. People here in Texas intensely follow High School football. Grown ass adults with no children attending the school. It's pretty weird if you ask me, but they do it.

A better question is why wouldn't someone watch it? It's undeniably going to be comprised of better talent than college ball, so they have at least one advantage there. Another advantage is that they are setting up shop in cities with very severe income disparities and offering cheap tickets that will allow working class families to take their families out for an even of entertainment that would be impossible to do so with NFL prices. We went to a lot of Bisons and Bandits games when i was a kid and it was very economical. I probably only went to a handful of Bills games though.

They don't. You just named 2 leagues that don't make a profit. They are fully funded by the professional team and they operate at a loss. USFL has zero affiliation with the NFL and will quickly go under

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BullBuchanan

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1 minute ago, KDIGGZ said:

They don't. You just named 2 leagues that don't make a profit. They are fully funded by the professional team and they operate at a loss. USFL has zero affiliation with the NFL and will quickly go under

They certainly face an uphill battle, but it's always a good thing to try to disrupt monopolies. They are owned as part of a joint venture with Fox Sports (now owned by Disney), so they have extremely deep pockets if they want to disrupt the status quo. We could be looking at another LIV Golf situation that come sin and completely upends the sport. Probably not, but there's a realistic chance.

7 hours ago, KDIGGZ said:

It's not a sustainable model for success. Would you rather make 5k per week for 2 months and then the league folds? Or maybe nothing at first but as the league grows you make more and more and you have a long term employment/equity ownership opportunity?

 

These leagues fold because they operate at a loss and the product is terrible. If they pay the players more it will just fail faster. Minor league baseball is funded by Major league baseball. They don't have a product either and the players make way less than 5k per week. This is all nonsense imo

I'd rather make $5k per week for 2 months. So would all the players who have bills to pay, which is why they and their union pushed for the changes they did. Working for nothing gambling on a payday at the end as your recommendation seems the opposite of a "sustainable model for success". It's only sustainable for the employers who don't have to pay compensation.

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BullBuchanan Veteran

BullBuchanan

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4 minutes ago, Buffalo ill said:

As a member of the steelworkers union, our contracts get worse every negotiation.  The union feels like rather toothless in my experience.

I didn't say it was perfect and actually mentioned that unions are very fallible due to the humans that make them up. My point about "quality representation" was that they got a real union to back them, not a fly by night organization looking to exploit them.

Edited by BullBuchanan
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