Killing a sport through greed?

Garp · 25-09-2012, 20:13

It's interesting watching NFL implode a little right now in the US. American Football is still all a little slow a sport for my liking, but it's really quite a ridiculously complex and intellectual sport too.

The NFL referees are 119 part-time employees who make up to $8,000 a week, and officiate a maximum of 16 games a season (so $128k tops), of a game with an absurdly thick and intricate rule set, especially compared to Football. Alongside just handling the intricacies of the rules, they're also expected to monitor the health of players on the pitch, especially as the NFL and NFL Players Association get increasingly concerned about the long term effects of concussion. All that padding means that players in NFL tend to hit a lot harder than in almost any other sport (the side effect of an 'invulnerability' feeling it provides)

The NFL referee union has decided to ask for more money for the next 5-7 year contract, a relatively small increase in pay in fact on the scale of things. The NFL is refusing, only agreeing to the pay increase if the referees will agree to losing almost every other concession they've managed to get over the years. Neither side was able to come to an agreement before the season started. The increase works out to less than $100k per team in the NFL. In fact for much less than 1% of the annual NFL profits they'd be able to hire all 119 referees full time, and give them $200k salaries, more than they're asking for!

So the season has been running about 3 weeks now with no experienced Officials. Instead they've brought up what are described as 3rd tier (string) officials, people who are somewhere between High School and College level referees. It's like inviting a regional league Football Referee and putting them in charge of a UEFA cup match.
To make matters worse NFL uses slightly different rules from High School and College american football (not quite as big a difference as between, say, Rugby League & Union, but still important).

They're doing a valiant job of it, but they're so ridiculously out of their depth it's unbelievable. The number of bad calls, missed calls and stupidity is unbelievable. Even after watching video replays they're still making bad, or even impossible calls. Last night during the Seahawks/Packers game they managed to call a Interception by the Offensive team (only a defensive team can possibly get an Interception, even at College or High School levels.)

It's leading to lower ticket sales, impacting the NFL revenue, pissed off fans, etc. et, and most amusingly it's extremely screwing up the bookies in Vegas, to the tune of hundreds of millions a game. In Vegas you can bet on the outcome of a video consultation of a call, and that they're deciding absurdly incorrectly really screws up the bookmaker odds (most of them are calling a halt on that practice for now)

All this for the sake of less than $100k per team, per year. If anyone doubted the value of professional referees I doubt they do now

Ravens fans let rip (and apparently Patriots fans joined in too) on Sunday, after their coach got flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct for arguing with an official, when all he was trying to do was get an officials attention so he could call a timeout:

25-09-2012, 20:13	#1
Garp Preparing more tumbleweed Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Hawaii Posts: 6,038	Killing a sport through greed? It's interesting watching NFL implode a little right now in the US. American Football is still all a little slow a sport for my liking, but it's really quite a ridiculously complex and intellectual sport too. The NFL referees are 119 part-time employees who make up to $8,000 a week, and officiate a maximum of 16 games a season (so $128k tops), of a game with an absurdly thick and intricate rule set, especially compared to Football. Alongside just handling the intricacies of the rules, they're also expected to monitor the health of players on the pitch, especially as the NFL and NFL Players Association get increasingly concerned about the long term effects of concussion. All that padding means that players in NFL tend to hit a lot harder than in almost any other sport (the side effect of an 'invulnerability' feeling it provides) The NFL referee union has decided to ask for more money for the next 5-7 year contract, a relatively small increase in pay in fact on the scale of things. The NFL is refusing, only agreeing to the pay increase if the referees will agree to losing almost every other concession they've managed to get over the years. Neither side was able to come to an agreement before the season started. The increase works out to less than $100k per team in the NFL. In fact for much less than 1% of the annual NFL profits they'd be able to hire all 119 referees full time, and give them $200k salaries, more than they're asking for! So the season has been running about 3 weeks now with no experienced Officials. Instead they've brought up what are described as 3rd tier (string) officials, people who are somewhere between High School and College level referees. It's like inviting a regional league Football Referee and putting them in charge of a UEFA cup match. To make matters worse NFL uses slightly different rules from High School and College american football (not quite as big a difference as between, say, Rugby League & Union, but still important). They're doing a valiant job of it, but they're so ridiculously out of their depth it's unbelievable. The number of bad calls, missed calls and stupidity is unbelievable. Even after watching video replays they're still making bad, or even impossible calls. Last night during the Seahawks/Packers game they managed to call a Interception by the Offensive team (only a defensive team can possibly get an Interception, even at College or High School levels.) It's leading to lower ticket sales, impacting the NFL revenue, pissed off fans, etc. et, and most amusingly it's extremely screwing up the bookies in Vegas, to the tune of hundreds of millions a game. In Vegas you can bet on the outcome of a video consultation of a call, and that they're deciding absurdly incorrectly really screws up the bookmaker odds (most of them are calling a halt on that practice for now) All this for the sake of less than $100k per team, per year. If anyone doubted the value of professional referees I doubt they do now Ravens fans let rip (and apparently Patriots fans joined in too) on Sunday, after their coach got flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct for arguing with an official, when all he was trying to do was get an officials attention so he could call a timeout: __________________ Mal: Define "interesting"? Wash: "Oh, God, oh, God, we're all gonna die"? Last edited by Garp; 25-09-2012 at 20:25.