Super Bowl XLV: Vince Lombardi wanted no part of the Super Bowl
WEDNESDAY, 02 FEBRUARY 2011 13:38
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/super-bowl-xlv-vince-lombardi-wanted-no-part-of-the-super-bowl
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
Vince Lombardi has staged a comeback in the past year. The Broadway show, "Lombardi", is doing well and his old team, Green Bay, is playing in the Super Bowl this Sunday, an event, ironically enough that Lombardi didn't like. The Lombardi coached Green Bay Packers played in what is now known as Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II. Officially Lombardi's two teams played in the American Football League-National Football league World Championship Game.
Lombardi thought the NFL title game was the be-all, end-all NFL event.
Lombardi's teams won the 1967 and 1968 contests but Lombardi didn't get to touch the Vince Lombardi Trophy given to the Super Bowl winner. The Super Bowl became the Super Bowl in 1969 and the championship trophy was named for Lombardi following his death in 1970.
In the decades following his Lombardi's passing, the Super Bowl became a uniquely American quasi-celebration/holiday. The Fourth of July is America's Birthday Party but the Super Bowl is American's excuse for a party. Supermarkets have Super sales for countless Super parties, but it wasn't always like this.
Back in 1967, it was just called the "World Championship Game, AFL vs. NFL." The game was held in the 94,000 seat Los Angeles Coliseum. The ticket prices were $12, $10 and $6. There were 33,000 empty seats. It was the last time a Super Bowl or the World Championship Game was not a sellout.
There were no parties, no weeklong football orgies. In fact, it wasn't until January 1973 when Super Bowl parties took on a different life. The Commissioner's Party was held on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California.
The first game was played on January 15, 1967 just 26 days after the final approval of the merger between the National Football League and the American Football League. CBS and NBC televised it using the same television feed but with different announcers. The networks charged $42,000 for a 30 second commercial. The two leagues had to put together a game in a hurry.
The two networks paid $9.5 million to televise the game.
The leagues couldn't even agree on which ball to use, so they compromised. When Green Bay was on offense, they used the Wilson "Duke" football. When Kansas City had the ball, they used the AFL sanctioned Spalding J5-V.
Today there is still that one feed, but the game is internationally televised. Cities bid for Super Bowls years in advance. Networks put up big money for regular season games so they could get the Super Bowl once every three years.
It's no longer NFL vs. AFL, NFL advertisers vs. AFL advertisers. CBS vs. NBC. In 1967, the American Football League and the Kansas City Chiefs were considered to be part of a "Mickey Mouse league" by Lombardi and the NFL. Lombardi was among those thinkers (a group which includes Wayne Gretzky. The hockey star used the same term in 1983 in a criticism of the New Jersey Devils) who felt that "Mickey Mouse" was a putdown.
Mickey Mouse launched the Disney empire and the trademark is worth billions globally. Lombardi was partially right using a Mickey Mouse reference back in the infancy of the Super Bowl. There is some irony in that the Walt Disney Company's ABC- TV division had the rights to broadcast the Super Bowl along with FOX and CBS under one of the past NFL-network television agreements.
Adding injury to insult, Lombardi and his Packers practiced in Southern California before the 1967 championship game not far from Disneyland because the NFL felt that was the best way to sell tickets to the contest The AFL was the Mickey Mouse league and not worthy of being on the same field as the NFL..
"He got a lot of pressure put on him by the other owners of the National Football League. That was a bitter relationship with the AFL and NFL," recalled Jerry Kramer, one of Lombardi's Packers offensive linemen. "I'm not sure there still aren't still some rivalries in that situation.
"Lombardi got calls from virtually everyone in the NFL saying we were representing the NFL and the pride of the NFL and we couldn't be beaten."
Lombardi even had to deal with William Paley's CBS Television Network and NFL partner.
"I was talking to Frank Gifford years ago and he mentioned that he announced that first Super Bowl," Kramer continued. "Gifford said he was fairly cool, fairly calm and relaxed and he went over to put his arm on Vince's shoulder and Lombardi was shaking like a leaf.
"Gifford said that really made me nervous."
Gifford, of course, was the CBS announcer who played under Lombardi when Lombardi was the New York Giants offensive coach (in 2011 parlance, an offensive coordinator) in the 1950s and represented the NFL.
Neither CBS nor NBC bothered to keep a video of the game.
Green Bay won the matchup and Lombardi was able to exhale. But Lombardi was right in this sense. The NFL was the favored league of the sports media in those days with Tex Maule of Sports Illustrated leading the charge against the AFL. Green Bay won the first two championships and the football media dismissed the American Football League and players like Joe Namath and teams like the New York Jets, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders.
The flaw in the thinking was this. The AFL was signing players out of the same college pool as the NFL and the AFL coaches like Weeb Ewbank, Sid Gillman and Al Davis came out of the NFL. The AFL has had the same TV money available to them as the NFL thanks to David Sarnoff's anger at losing the NFL contract deal to his CBS rival William Paley. Sarnoff's NBC was the AFL's bank and the Sonny Werblin used some of Sarnoff's money to sign Namath.
The name Super Bowl came by accident and it came from Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, the man who founded the AFL because he could not get an NFL team in Dallas.
"It was one of the spur of the moment things," said Hunt. "No one ever said what are we going to call it? It was one of those things that just came out of the mouth. It was not too inspired."
Hunt was home one day watching his children play with a ball when he first uttered the words.
"They each had a Super Ball that my wife had given to them and they were always talking about them and I just used the expression Super Bowl and it was an accidental thing and it seems to have caught on."
But NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle didn't like the name nor did NFL owners. Still, the game had no name and no one had suggested anything else. In fact, there was no Super Bowl Committee. It was Rozelle's idea to call the contest, The AFL-NFL World Championship Game.
"Everybody said, that's a corny name," Hunt recalled. "But the members of the committee started using that name and one thing lead to another. After the second game, it was formally adopted."
But Hunt did talk to Rozelle, and Hunt the visionary who founded the AFL was very persuasive and Rozelle listened.
"Lamar talked to me after the first couple of games and told me his daughter had a funny ball, a toy. She'd bounce it. It was a super ball," remembered Pete Rozelle in September 1990. "He said why don't we call it the Super Bowl?
"Well to me, you know when I was in high school (in the 1940s), super was a big word. You know this was super, that was super. I thought that sounds a little corny, but then finally, I decided this was worth a shot and it course it has a totally different connotation when used on the game today. We decided to do it then, so we started calling it that and it really caught on."
Rozelle did not recall any formal discussion on the name. It just became the Super Bowl by 1969 despite the fact that he didn't really like the name.
As far as the Wham-O Super Ball? It's shelve life was considerably less than the Super Bowl. It was a toy made Zectron. Chemical Engineer Norma Stingley found that when formed at 50,000 pounds of pressure, Zectron becomes uncontrollably bouncy. Wham-O began producing a ball made of Zectron in 1967, the same year that Super Bowl I was played between the Chiefs and the Green Bay Packers. After only a few years, the "double-top secret" formula for Zectron was copied by Wham-O's competitors and the Super Ball floundered. The Super Ball was out of production by 1976.
Today the Super Bowl means millions of dollars for the airline industry, the hotel industry, the rent-a-car industry, the restaurant industry in the host city and the TV industry. The league uses the promise of awarding a game to a city if that town builds a new stadium. The Super Bowl is one of the few events that brings out of town money to a sporting event.
On January 12, 1969 the Jets- Baltimore Colts match up in Miami sold out just minutes before kickoff. The Jets victory that day might have been crushing for old line NFL owners, but even Rozelle in the NFL Publication, The Super Bowl, Celebrating a Quarter of a Century of America's Greatest Game, admitted the Jets upset that day mushroomed interest in football.
The Jets-Colts game was the turning point in the popularity of the Super Bowl. The National Football League and the most of the football media thought the old league would just be better all the time.
The New York Jets were the free spending rebels from the rebel league. New York quarterback Joe Namath had a large contract, wore long hair and played in white shoes. The Colts quarterbacks, Earl Morrall and Johnny Unitas both had crew cuts. Namath was known as Broadway Joe, a nickname given to him by former Colt and Jet offensive lineman Sherman Plunkett. Unitas was known as Johnny U and wore black high top shoes.
Namath had a public perception of being a playboy who enjoyed New York life to its fullest and was a braggart. Unitas had little to say.
While Ewbank was studying films of the Colts and analyzing why the Chiefs and Raiders lost, Namath was talking and was ahead of his time as a trash talk pioneer. Except Namath only said two things and was probably only echoing what his coaching staff and teammates were thinking.
Namath said there were four quarterbacks in the AFL who were better than Morrall, the Colts starter and then said, "We are going to win this game. I guarantee it."
Ewbank had to convince his Jets to keep quiet and play football and not say a thing about beating Baltimore. He was in one way seeking NFL respect but in another way laughing to Super Bowl. Weeb knew his Jets could win and the AFL was a quality league.
"They weren't giving the AFL anything," he said years later. "I thought there were two great teams in Super Bowl I and II. They were fine ball clubs. I don't think there has ever been much better material than they had at Kansas City. They had great athletes and the Raiders were a good football team.
"In both games, they let themselves get upset. In the first game, they had an interception in the third quarter and the Chiefs weren't any good in the ballgame after that after Green Bay scored. Then the Raider game, they had a dropped punt and a recovery and then they weren't in the game anymore.
"When we went into out game, we said no matter what happened, we weren't going to let it upset us. Whether it be an official call, an interception, a fumble or what. Why we weren't going to let that upset us. We were going to stick to the game plan."
But one thing Ewbank didn't count on was Namath sounding more like Muhammad Ali than the average football player.
Ewbank brought the Jets to Fort Lauderdale to work out prior to the game. The Jets stayed at the Galt Ocean Mile Hotel where Namath was given the same room that Vince Lombardi used the year before. The Jets trained at the New York Yankees Fort Lauderdale spring training complex and he was given Mickey Mantle's locker. Twists of fate?
Maybe, but Namath broke the athlete's code. He guaranteed a win. Ewbank was not amused.
"We had gone down there as 17 points underdogs which I liked," he recalled. "I told the guys don't pay any attention to what I say because I want to try to make it 21 if I can. Don't you guys do anything to stir them up. Well, I could have shot Joe when he said that."
But Namath and the Jets were confident and really believed they were better than the Colts.
"That's true and I understood Coach Ewbank," said Namath. "The next day I saw Coach Ewbank and he said my goodness these guys (the Colts) are overconfident and I have been working on that and here you are giving them fuel to get fired up for the game.
"I simply said, Coach if they need clippings to fire them up, then they are in trouble. That was that. He made me aware that he was very upset that I had said what I did and I felt badly about it after that. Fortunately we won."
The Jets did go out and won 16-7. The AFL had arrived nearly 10 years after Hunt and Bud Adams decided to go ahead with their plan.
The Jets apparently didn't think too highly of the Tiffany Trophy the organization received for winning the game. The team left it behind in Miami's Orange Bowl in a backroom and returned to New York.
"The important thing was we won," said Namath.
Namath, Ewbank and the rest of the Jets permanently etched the term Super Bowl into the American mindset. Namath, the quarterback, became a TV host, sex symbol, rebel, hero and salesman.
"I don't know how much money the Super Bowls means," Hunt admitted. "I wasn't smart enough to copyright the name. That was a fatal mistake. No, I'm kidding.
"If we thought about copyrighting it, I am sure somebody would have taken the name. It is copyrighted now. But it's all from a child's toy ball."
Even Rozelle years later would admit the "Super" name probably played a major role in the event's success.
What would have happened to the NFL without its June 1966 merger with the AFL? Tex Schramm, the longtime Dallas Cowboys President and a chief architect of the merger along with Hunt, thought pro football would have been in shambles. There would have been no Broadway Joe guarantees, no Steelers, no 49ers or Cowboys, no Lombardi to talk about.
"I think football was on its way to self destruction with the two leagues," said Schramm. "Both sides were spending themselves into bankruptcy and there were only four or five clubs that could remain really competitive.
"Teams were drafting players not on the basis on whether or not they could play but whether they could be signed. Whenever that happens then your sport is in trouble and that's the way we were headed then."
At that time there were 15 NFL teams and nine AFL clubs. Instead of two
entities in a financial battle, the merger brought an end to the 1960s
version of soaring player cuts and solidified an industry that was gaining more and more popularity annually.
"The merger started the most successful growth period in the National
Football League. Because of the rivalry that had been built up with the American Football League, we were able to create the Super Bowl," Schramm explained. "The Super Bowl kind of put the icing on the cake and the interest in the National Football League kept rolling until it was the most popular spectator sport in the United States."
The ghost of Lombardi will be on display during Sunday's big game between Green Bay and Pittsburgh. The Lombardi Trophy will be shown off around 10:15 Eastern Time on Sunday night. Lombardi will be back for a day but in a sense, he has never left. There is the turnpike stop near the Meadowlands, the play on Broadway, the old adages and of course, the Lombardi Trophy. All of which is a bit odd considering that Vince Lombardi really didn't want to be at the Super Bowl.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Vince Lombardi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vince Lombardi. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Vince Lombardi's players don't have a seat at the NFL lockout talks
Tuesday, 23 November 2010 07:32
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/vince-lombardis-players-dont-have-a-seat-at-the-nfl-lockout-talks
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Eight times a week, the life and legacy of Vince Lombardi is on display on the Great White Way in New York. Vince Lombardi is part of the National Football League's Mount Rushmore for his accomplishments as coach of the Green Bay Packers. Lombardi took over a bad team that was financially boosted in the mid 1950s by dances and fundraisers throughout Wisconsin (aided by the "arch-enemy Chicago Bears coach and owner George Halas) and turned the franchise into champions within three years of taking the job in February 1959.
Lombardi is now being canonized on Broadway in a way no other football coach ever has. But that Lombardi probably would have problems dealing with the football industry of 2010.
Lombardi's teams would win five National Football League titles and two American Football League-National Football League championships (neither the Super Bowl nor the Lombardi Trophy existed in 1967 and 1968 in name). Lombardi came of age at precisely the same time the National Football League exploded on the national scene. The NFL would ultimately become the most successful professional sports organization in the United States but Lombardi's players never did share the financial gains that NFL owners would see with every new TV contract that National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle and Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell would negotiate.
One of Lombardi's players who played on five NFL and two AFL-NFL championship games (and a Super Bowl championship team after leaving Green Bay) is now making $176.85 in his monthly pension. A player who competed against one of Lombardi's teams in the early days of the AFL-NFL Championship Game is getting $201.36 a month for 11 years of service. Another of Lombardi's guys, Jerry Kramer, is organizing a fundraiser to help his in need peers from the 1960s. One of the opposing players from the Packers hated rival, the Chicago Bears, Mike Ditka is trying to shame the league to help out his down-and-out peers from the 1960s.
The discarded and left-behind players from Lombardi's NFL of 1954 (when he began as a New York Giants assistant) until his death in 1970 should have an honored seat at the table divvying up the financial pie, but they don't.
There are more than 250 former players including 50 Hall of Famers who receive less than $200 a month in pension payments.
The National Football League and the National Football League Players Association are facing a March 3, 2011 deadline to get a new collective bargaining deal done. The prevailing thinking is that once the present collective bargaining agreement expires, the NFL owners will lock out the players on the 32 teams and a prolonged labor impasse will start.
The players who built the league and association starting in the late 1950s through those who played in 1992 have terrible pensions and need health benefits. Association Executive Directors Ed Garvey and the late Gene Upshaw seemed more concerned about getting players the most money they could for a contract and left out important details like good post career benefits like pension and health care.
A good many former or "discarded" players cannot get health insurance because they have pre-existing conditions. They don't have much recourse. NFL owners have no legal obligation to give them more money or provide health benefits. The league and the players association have been talking about taking care of the former players health benefits but the associations' turned down a deal that might have covered about 2,500 of 3,200 players because the association's reps didn't feel that TransAmerica would insure 700 of the discarded players because of pre-existing conditions.
Because some of the ex-players cannot get insurance, the one-time players are getting government assistance in dealing with football injuries through social security or Medicare even though some of them are under the age of 65.
According to former players, the proposal came from the National Football League not the National Football League Players Association. The "discarded" players don't trust the National Football League Players Association.
The NFL owners collectively bargained the pension plan and post-career medical benefit plan which isn't very much with the players association. The players association has failed the former players. The players association and the NFL Alumni Association have been battling one another and there seem to be a number of splinter groups that have formed trying to get discarded players some extra pension money and health benefits. Some of the splinter groups have forced the league and players association to come up with some benefits for the discarded players.
Meanwhile another precinct has weighed in on the current collective bargaining talks:
The AFL-CIO.
Somehow the National Football League Players Association and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) are embracing one another even though the AFL-CIO rejected NFLPA overtures to join the labor organization in the 1960s. However, the NFLPA's Executive Director DeMaurice Smith sits on the executive council of the AFL-CIO. In September, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he would talk with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Smith and work out a solution. The NFL said no because Smith is serving on Trumka's board.
But in the high stakes poker game between the owners and players, the AFL-CIO is getting involved whether the NFL likes it or not. The NFL-NFLPA collective bargaining negotiations figure to become the most politicized sports labor negotiations on record and there are reasons for that.
The NFL got two assists from Congress and the Oval Office, one in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy signed the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961, which allowed the NFL to bundle the 14 league franchises and sell them as one to a TV network. The second was when President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation allowing the National Football League-American Football League merger to take place. Both bills transformed the NFL from a step above semi-pro level to an enormous money-maker.
Two laws signed by President Ronald Reagan, the 1984 Cable TV laws and the 1986 Tax Act gave pro sports owners even more benefits which allowed them to make even more revenues. A wave of new and renovated stadiums replaced old NFL facilities because of the 1986 legislation, which capped a municipality's ability to take revenues out of a facility at eight percent. There are some variants to that law based on the lease agreements signed by an NFL owner and a municipality. There is also this. Louisiana gave New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson about $186 million between 2002 and 2010 as a thank you for not moving his team elsewhere.
The NFL-NFLPA talks are politically charged.
Manny Herrmann, the Online Mobilization Coordinator for the AFL-CIO sent out an e-mail to members last week even though the NFLPA is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO:
"Incredible news! Yesterday (November 18), the AFL-CIO joined a huge coalition to deliver more than 100,000 petition signatures to Capitol Hill, urging Congress to maintain an extension of emergency unemployment insurance benefits for long-term job hunters. We'll keep you updated on this critical fight.
"If you care about jobs, here's something else you should be worried about: the National Football League is in contract negotiations with its players and is getting ready to do a player ‘lockout.'
"If that happens, players won't be able to play, fans won't have a football season and local economies that rely on football will be devastated -- it'll mean more people out of work.
"Why is the NFL getting ready to lock out its own players and devastate its fans? One word: Greed.
"It is estimated that a lockout would impact 150,000 jobs -- and cause more than $140 million in lost revenue in each and every NFL city -- some $4.5 billion across America.
"If there's a lockout, stadium employees will be jobless. Sports bars, police officers, restaurants, hotels and various support staff who work supporting the game also will be affected.
"The NFL and team owners don't care what a lockout costs communities and fans -- they only care about their own profits. The NFL's set to make billions of dollars, even without a football season. But if they do that, players and fans lose.
"It is estimated that a lockout would impact 150,000 jobs -- and cause more than $140 million in lost revenue in each and every NFL city -- some $4.5 billion across America.
"If there's a lockout, stadium employees will be jobless. Sports bars, police officers, restaurants, hotels and various support staff who work supporting the game also will be affected.
"The NFL and team owners don't care what a lockout costs communities and fans -- they only care about their own profits. The NFL's set to make billions of dollars, even without a football season. But if they do that, players and fans lose.
"The NFL's greed is seemingly boundless -- they are demanding a number of outrageous wage and benefit concessions without justification. Here's just one example: the NFL wants to take ALL health care benefits from players and their families.
"An average football player will work for only three and a half seasons -- that's their entire career. But the health impacts from playing can include a lifetime of pain or discomfort -- and even brain trauma that leads to depression and suicide.
"How can the NFL make money without a football season? By rigging the system. They've already set aside $900 million that should've gone to players' benefits to cover their costs for locking players out -- and they've signed TV contracts that'll pay out billions of dollars even if no football is played in 2012.
"To save football next year, and to save jobs, we've got to take the NFL on and tell them locking out players and fans based on greed is unacceptable. If players and fans band together, we can shame them into doing the right thing.
"Please stand in solidarity with the players. Sign our petition to BLOCK the lockout. Make your voice heard to save the sport that you love."
The AFL-CIO numbers seem to be way off base in terms of real economic impact if there is a lockout. There doesn't seem to be 150,000 people in jobs that would be out in the cold because a football game isn't played 10 times in 21 weeks or 147 days (without playoffs) with the possibility of two home games at the most in the playoffs (in 21 days) in the city even if the host Super Bowl city and the Pro Bowl host city are added over a seven month period.
The economic impact is dramatically overstated. The players would suffer major losses and some team and league personnel would be laid off. But the AFL-CIO is right about one thing, the over-the-air, cable and satellite TV partners will fund the lockout which means that Rupert Murdoch's FOX, General Electric's NBC, Disney's ESPN, Sumner Redstone's CBS (and by association their news divisions) are lining up to support management along with DirecTV which might make some interesting conversation on the cable TV "news" sets.
Herrman's blast won't make the NFL owners want to rush to the bargaining table with Trumka. One former player isn't even sure why the AFL-CIO is involved. Dave Pear, who has been critical of the NFL and NFLPA and is one of the "discarded" players, wants to know, "how does the NFLPA get away claiming that we are part of the AFL-CIO? Where is the shop steward when there is a grievance? Somebody needs to write a letter to the AFL-CIO and ask some pointed questions."
Now the AFL-CIO wants a seat at the table. Before this is done, local elected officials, federal mediators, the National Labor Relations Board, the courts, Congress and even the Oval Office will weigh in but an agreement has to be reached by the two parties and the two parties have constituencies that will be heard, big market versus small market owners on management side and a whole host of parties on the players side.
This fight may get very nasty, very soon. It is a scenario that Coach Vince Lombardi, who didn't really want to play an American Football League (or Mickey Mouse) team in a championship game in 1967, could never envision as his Packers ran to daylight nearly five decades ago.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 23 November 2010 07:32 )
Tuesday, 23 November 2010 07:32
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/vince-lombardis-players-dont-have-a-seat-at-the-nfl-lockout-talks
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Eight times a week, the life and legacy of Vince Lombardi is on display on the Great White Way in New York. Vince Lombardi is part of the National Football League's Mount Rushmore for his accomplishments as coach of the Green Bay Packers. Lombardi took over a bad team that was financially boosted in the mid 1950s by dances and fundraisers throughout Wisconsin (aided by the "arch-enemy Chicago Bears coach and owner George Halas) and turned the franchise into champions within three years of taking the job in February 1959.
Lombardi is now being canonized on Broadway in a way no other football coach ever has. But that Lombardi probably would have problems dealing with the football industry of 2010.
Lombardi's teams would win five National Football League titles and two American Football League-National Football League championships (neither the Super Bowl nor the Lombardi Trophy existed in 1967 and 1968 in name). Lombardi came of age at precisely the same time the National Football League exploded on the national scene. The NFL would ultimately become the most successful professional sports organization in the United States but Lombardi's players never did share the financial gains that NFL owners would see with every new TV contract that National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle and Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell would negotiate.
One of Lombardi's players who played on five NFL and two AFL-NFL championship games (and a Super Bowl championship team after leaving Green Bay) is now making $176.85 in his monthly pension. A player who competed against one of Lombardi's teams in the early days of the AFL-NFL Championship Game is getting $201.36 a month for 11 years of service. Another of Lombardi's guys, Jerry Kramer, is organizing a fundraiser to help his in need peers from the 1960s. One of the opposing players from the Packers hated rival, the Chicago Bears, Mike Ditka is trying to shame the league to help out his down-and-out peers from the 1960s.
The discarded and left-behind players from Lombardi's NFL of 1954 (when he began as a New York Giants assistant) until his death in 1970 should have an honored seat at the table divvying up the financial pie, but they don't.
There are more than 250 former players including 50 Hall of Famers who receive less than $200 a month in pension payments.
The National Football League and the National Football League Players Association are facing a March 3, 2011 deadline to get a new collective bargaining deal done. The prevailing thinking is that once the present collective bargaining agreement expires, the NFL owners will lock out the players on the 32 teams and a prolonged labor impasse will start.
The players who built the league and association starting in the late 1950s through those who played in 1992 have terrible pensions and need health benefits. Association Executive Directors Ed Garvey and the late Gene Upshaw seemed more concerned about getting players the most money they could for a contract and left out important details like good post career benefits like pension and health care.
A good many former or "discarded" players cannot get health insurance because they have pre-existing conditions. They don't have much recourse. NFL owners have no legal obligation to give them more money or provide health benefits. The league and the players association have been talking about taking care of the former players health benefits but the associations' turned down a deal that might have covered about 2,500 of 3,200 players because the association's reps didn't feel that TransAmerica would insure 700 of the discarded players because of pre-existing conditions.
Because some of the ex-players cannot get insurance, the one-time players are getting government assistance in dealing with football injuries through social security or Medicare even though some of them are under the age of 65.
According to former players, the proposal came from the National Football League not the National Football League Players Association. The "discarded" players don't trust the National Football League Players Association.
The NFL owners collectively bargained the pension plan and post-career medical benefit plan which isn't very much with the players association. The players association has failed the former players. The players association and the NFL Alumni Association have been battling one another and there seem to be a number of splinter groups that have formed trying to get discarded players some extra pension money and health benefits. Some of the splinter groups have forced the league and players association to come up with some benefits for the discarded players.
Meanwhile another precinct has weighed in on the current collective bargaining talks:
The AFL-CIO.
Somehow the National Football League Players Association and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) are embracing one another even though the AFL-CIO rejected NFLPA overtures to join the labor organization in the 1960s. However, the NFLPA's Executive Director DeMaurice Smith sits on the executive council of the AFL-CIO. In September, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he would talk with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Smith and work out a solution. The NFL said no because Smith is serving on Trumka's board.
But in the high stakes poker game between the owners and players, the AFL-CIO is getting involved whether the NFL likes it or not. The NFL-NFLPA collective bargaining negotiations figure to become the most politicized sports labor negotiations on record and there are reasons for that.
The NFL got two assists from Congress and the Oval Office, one in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy signed the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961, which allowed the NFL to bundle the 14 league franchises and sell them as one to a TV network. The second was when President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation allowing the National Football League-American Football League merger to take place. Both bills transformed the NFL from a step above semi-pro level to an enormous money-maker.
Two laws signed by President Ronald Reagan, the 1984 Cable TV laws and the 1986 Tax Act gave pro sports owners even more benefits which allowed them to make even more revenues. A wave of new and renovated stadiums replaced old NFL facilities because of the 1986 legislation, which capped a municipality's ability to take revenues out of a facility at eight percent. There are some variants to that law based on the lease agreements signed by an NFL owner and a municipality. There is also this. Louisiana gave New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson about $186 million between 2002 and 2010 as a thank you for not moving his team elsewhere.
The NFL-NFLPA talks are politically charged.
Manny Herrmann, the Online Mobilization Coordinator for the AFL-CIO sent out an e-mail to members last week even though the NFLPA is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO:
"Incredible news! Yesterday (November 18), the AFL-CIO joined a huge coalition to deliver more than 100,000 petition signatures to Capitol Hill, urging Congress to maintain an extension of emergency unemployment insurance benefits for long-term job hunters. We'll keep you updated on this critical fight.
"If you care about jobs, here's something else you should be worried about: the National Football League is in contract negotiations with its players and is getting ready to do a player ‘lockout.'
"If that happens, players won't be able to play, fans won't have a football season and local economies that rely on football will be devastated -- it'll mean more people out of work.
"Why is the NFL getting ready to lock out its own players and devastate its fans? One word: Greed.
"It is estimated that a lockout would impact 150,000 jobs -- and cause more than $140 million in lost revenue in each and every NFL city -- some $4.5 billion across America.
"If there's a lockout, stadium employees will be jobless. Sports bars, police officers, restaurants, hotels and various support staff who work supporting the game also will be affected.
"The NFL and team owners don't care what a lockout costs communities and fans -- they only care about their own profits. The NFL's set to make billions of dollars, even without a football season. But if they do that, players and fans lose.
"It is estimated that a lockout would impact 150,000 jobs -- and cause more than $140 million in lost revenue in each and every NFL city -- some $4.5 billion across America.
"If there's a lockout, stadium employees will be jobless. Sports bars, police officers, restaurants, hotels and various support staff who work supporting the game also will be affected.
"The NFL and team owners don't care what a lockout costs communities and fans -- they only care about their own profits. The NFL's set to make billions of dollars, even without a football season. But if they do that, players and fans lose.
"The NFL's greed is seemingly boundless -- they are demanding a number of outrageous wage and benefit concessions without justification. Here's just one example: the NFL wants to take ALL health care benefits from players and their families.
"An average football player will work for only three and a half seasons -- that's their entire career. But the health impacts from playing can include a lifetime of pain or discomfort -- and even brain trauma that leads to depression and suicide.
"How can the NFL make money without a football season? By rigging the system. They've already set aside $900 million that should've gone to players' benefits to cover their costs for locking players out -- and they've signed TV contracts that'll pay out billions of dollars even if no football is played in 2012.
"To save football next year, and to save jobs, we've got to take the NFL on and tell them locking out players and fans based on greed is unacceptable. If players and fans band together, we can shame them into doing the right thing.
"Please stand in solidarity with the players. Sign our petition to BLOCK the lockout. Make your voice heard to save the sport that you love."
The AFL-CIO numbers seem to be way off base in terms of real economic impact if there is a lockout. There doesn't seem to be 150,000 people in jobs that would be out in the cold because a football game isn't played 10 times in 21 weeks or 147 days (without playoffs) with the possibility of two home games at the most in the playoffs (in 21 days) in the city even if the host Super Bowl city and the Pro Bowl host city are added over a seven month period.
The economic impact is dramatically overstated. The players would suffer major losses and some team and league personnel would be laid off. But the AFL-CIO is right about one thing, the over-the-air, cable and satellite TV partners will fund the lockout which means that Rupert Murdoch's FOX, General Electric's NBC, Disney's ESPN, Sumner Redstone's CBS (and by association their news divisions) are lining up to support management along with DirecTV which might make some interesting conversation on the cable TV "news" sets.
Herrman's blast won't make the NFL owners want to rush to the bargaining table with Trumka. One former player isn't even sure why the AFL-CIO is involved. Dave Pear, who has been critical of the NFL and NFLPA and is one of the "discarded" players, wants to know, "how does the NFLPA get away claiming that we are part of the AFL-CIO? Where is the shop steward when there is a grievance? Somebody needs to write a letter to the AFL-CIO and ask some pointed questions."
Now the AFL-CIO wants a seat at the table. Before this is done, local elected officials, federal mediators, the National Labor Relations Board, the courts, Congress and even the Oval Office will weigh in but an agreement has to be reached by the two parties and the two parties have constituencies that will be heard, big market versus small market owners on management side and a whole host of parties on the players side.
This fight may get very nasty, very soon. It is a scenario that Coach Vince Lombardi, who didn't really want to play an American Football League (or Mickey Mouse) team in a championship game in 1967, could never envision as his Packers ran to daylight nearly five decades ago.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 23 November 2010 07:32 )
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