One of the most powerful people in sports, DeMaurice Smith, joined SFC board member Dave Zirin in studio on his Sirius XM Radio show for a conversation about what’s in store for NFL fans come 2011. It was not an optimistic response delivered by the NFL Players Association Executive Director when Zirin asked if the owners are willing to make concessions in order to negotiate a new CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement).

A telling moment occurred when Dave Zirin’s co-host, NBA center Etan Thomas, asked Smith how he is handling the misinformation campaign which suggests that the players will strike rather than the reality that NFL owners are on the verge of deciding to lock out players from participating in the games they want to play.

Note: The owners stand to make $4 billion from their TV contract even without actual games on the field. This kind of hijinx is awfully reminiscent of the BCS payouts for bit players milking the cash cow, but I digress.

The truth is that the players are willing to negotiate while the owners only care about the fans to the extent that they want to keep secure the revenue streams already established from ticket sales, parking, merchandise, and concessions. It’s nice to know that a man of DeMaurice Smith’s stature recognizes that the fans are important.

Enough of the analysis of the conversation. Listen to it here.

Hey Jim, Give us the NFL Network

by Scott Weiss

To tell the story of the NFL Network not being broadcast on Cablevision, you need to know a little about James Dolan.  Mr. Dolan took a controlling stake in Cablevision in 1999, and subsequently, took control of Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks, New York Rangers and the MSG Network.  What a disaster his reign has been.  The Rangers missed the playoffs from 1997 to 2004 (includes two years prior to him taking over) and the once proud Knicks have missed the playoffs for the past six seasons.  New York fans have been treated to the Isaiah Thomas debacle and more “fire Sather” chants than I choose to remember.  The magical year of 1994 when the Rangers won their first Stanley Cup in 54 years, and the Knicks came within one win of their first NBA Championship since 1973, is a distant memory.  You would think that this is enough pain for fans in the New York/New Jersey area, but unfortunately it is not.

The NFL began to broadcast games for the first time on the NFL Network in 2006.  This was great news for pro football fans, but not those whose cable carrier was Cablevision.  Big Jim and the powers that be at the NFL could not come up with an agreement to share the fan’s millions.  It looked like cooler heads would prevail when Cablevision and the NFL Network reached an agreement to televise the Rutgers vs. Kansas State Bowl Game in December 2006, which was being televised exclusively on the NFL Network.  Once this short term agreement was made, it could not be much longer before the longer term agreement was made to televise the NFL games.  That was December 2006. It’s May 2010, and sports fans still can’t watch their NFL games.

In May 2009, the NFL Network reached a 10 year agreement to televise games with Comcast, the largest cable TV carrier.  Speculation was that other holdout cable carriers including Cablevision would soon follow suit.  It is now one year later, and James Dolan and Cablevision still have not been able to come to an agreement to televise the NFL Network.  November 11, 2010 will be the start of the fifth season that Cablevision customers will not be able to view games on the NFL Network if an agreement is not reached.

This nonsense will continue as long as sports fans do not have a united voice to challenge this incredible abuse of power.  Sports Fans Coalition is the hope that we have been waiting for to finally put sports fans first.

Scott Weiss is the Local Chapter Chair for SFC-New York/New Jersey.  He has been involved in the sports fans advocacy movement since 2000.  He is a life long fan of the Mets, Jets, Knicks, and Rangers.

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Displaced Saints Faithful Get A Victory…Or Do They?

By Ross McDaniel

New Orleans Saints’ season ticket holders displaced by renovations to the Superdome began receiving relocation offers Monday, according to a report from The Times-Picayune.

“The Missing 1200,” as former residents of Section 641 have come to be known, were contacted by Saints’ front office officials and extended multiple offers via personal phone calls, with some packages starting as high as $1700 a seat. However, none were close to the $330 a seat The Missing 1200 paid last season.

Most fans expected a price increase for the upcoming season. After all, the NFL is big business, and with a better product comes a bigger price tag.

But they expected a fair price.

Jeff Maumus, one of the displaced season ticket holders, received a call Monday morning and was offered corner upper deck seats for $550 a seat — a 67% price increase of what he paid last season for worse seats.

“I got a call today with a relocation offer, and I said, ‘How long do I have?’ and they said I had to decide by the end of the day,” Maumus added.

Ross Louis, a professor at Xavier University and one of the displaced 1200 fans, sent an email to all of The Missing 1200 outlining the known offers and said ticket holders generally had 24 hours to decide.

For Maumus and most of the displaced fans, the decision to renew at a higher price was a no-brainer. What choice did he really have, though? Like the rest of Who Dat Nation, Maumus just wants to be in the building again and see that Super Bowl banner raised before New Orleans’ 2010 home opener.

The timing of the offers came as a surprise to The Missing 1200, who were told by Saints’ front office officials that relocation offers would begin toward the middle to the end of May. Everyone contacted Monday was caught off guard. Which, of course, strengthened the upper hand the Saints’ front office already had over their fans.

Think Boiler Room meets Sophie’s Choice.

While on the surface some might see the Saints’ offers as accommodating, the Sports Fans Coalition sees it as what it is: A chance to increase profits for inferior seats while appearing as the “good guy.”

Sure, the displaced fans could make a stand and refuse the Saints’ offers, but then it’s down to the bottom of the season ticket waiting list that’s already 60,000 names long.

At the end of the day the squeeze was on and The Missing 1200 never had a choice.

Ross McDaniel is an SFC contributor, and serves as Managing Editor/Operator of Spumor.com.

Interesting article below from the good people at Sports Business Journal which presents a consistent albeit troubling picture of how the sports industrial complex imitates life in that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; Or for our purposes here at SFC, the owners and leagues gets all the breaks while the fans are set to lose a good chunk of change if history has taught us anything.

In order to truly benefit from reading between the lines in this article, please note that the last time MLB assumed ownership of a franchise, the good tax-paying sports fans of Washington, DC coughed up enough dough ($693 million) to build the newish Nationals Park before an ownership group headed by strip-mall builers the Lerner family took over (complaints about the state of this park notwithstanding).

And for some more recent references on league ownership of a franchise, please read up on the Phoenix Coyotes which are currently under NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s control. In this particular case, even laws won’t get in the way of Bud Selig making the decision “in the best interest of the game”. And if you read what current Rangers owner stands to make on the $5-600 million deal, its clear that the results of this move are beneficial to all parties EXCEPT the fans.

MLB plans to move on Rangers
By DANIEL KAPLAN
Staff writer, Sports Business Journal

Published May 03, 2010 : Page 01

MLB as soon as this week plans to dramatically alter the course of the standoff between creditors and the owner of the Texas Rangers, multiple sources said last week, a development that could include the league seizing the franchise.

Were the league to seize the team under its “best interests of baseball” rule, MLB could sell the club to the group led by Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan without, the league believes, the creditors blocking the deal, these sources said. But were MLB to choose that course — and late last week, the situation was still fluid — financial sources predicted a furious legal response from the creditors that could involve an involuntary bankruptcy petition on behalf of the baseball team.

The coming developments, whether franchise seizure or another course of action MLB could be considering, may bring to a climax a bitter 3 1/2-month process that started with the January agreement between Greenberg and Hicks Sports Group (HSG), which owns the team. Many of the sources said they believe MLB’s only option is franchise seizure if it wants to break the logjam, while others stressed that no firm decision had been made.

HSG put the team up for sale after defaulting on $525 million of debt in March 2009, so the creditors have the right to block the sale — which they have done out of dissatisfaction with the proceeds that would flow to them from the proposed Greenberg purchase.

Despite arduous negotiations between HSG and the creditors, with MLB acting as an intermediary, there is a stalemate. Representatives of MLB and HSG did meet last week, sources said, but no talks occurred with the creditors.

MLB and representatives for both Greenberg and Hicks declined to comment. The chief creditors, led by Monarch Alternative Capital, also declined to comment.

After the HSG default, at least $100 million of the debt was purchased at a discount by Monarch, whose business is buying the bonds and loans of distressed companies and then forcing out every penny it can. In recent months, Monarch, led by fund manager Andrew Herenstein, has conducted one-on-one talks with MLB President Bob DuPuy, underscoring its central role.

There are 40 creditors that hold the debt, with Monarch holding the largest share.

Under MLB’s rules, the commissioner of baseball is given latitude to take action in the so-called best interest of the game. The rule was used for MLB’s acquisition of the Montreal Expos, and its use was threatened in 2004 by Commissioner Bud Selig when he warned the players’ union that he would unilaterally implement a new drug-testing system. The two sides ultimately agreed on a new system.

“MLB is basically saying they are trying to exert influence and saying we are going to control the outcome, no matter what that is,” said sports investment banker Rob Tilliss of the expected move by baseball to break the creditor stalemate.

MLB is motivated in part to have the sale completed because it has been supporting payroll at the team since the default. But baseball may also be moving to act now because of worries the creditors could file an involuntary bankruptcy petition. At that point, baseball would not be able to exert the influence it could now, said Irwin Kishner, chairman of the corporate department at New York law firm Herrick Feinstein.

“In bankruptcy court, the judge wants to maximize the assets on behalf of the creditors,” he said.

The creditors in this case believe that MLB and HSG selected the lowest of three bids. MLB is thought to favor Greenberg, sources said, because it wants his partner, hall of famer Ryan, as the face of the franchise. The creditors believe HSG chose Greenberg because he was willing to structure a deal that inflated the value of land adjacent to the team’s ballpark that is included in the sale but against which the creditors do not have liens.

At least one of the other bidders — former agent Dennis Gilbert, special assistant to Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf — might be prepared to bid again if the Greenberg deal does not go through, sources said.

It’s always possible that were MLB to seize the team, it could sell the club to Gilbert. But one source close to the Pittsburgh-based Greenberg said the sports lawyer is so confident MLB will push through his deal that he is in the process of buying a home in the Dallas area.

Houston businessman Jim Crane also submitted a bid for the team when it was put up for sale last year.

Franchise seizure is a rare occurrence in pro sports, though leagues have owned teams. The NHL owns the Phoenix Coyotes, which it bought out of bankruptcy court last year. MLB owned the Expos before selling them as the Washington Nationals.

In this case, if MLB settled on seizure, it would revoke HSG’s membership in MLB, theoretically invalidating the creditors’ rights because their contracts are with HSG. MLB could then sell the team and distribute the proceeds to the creditors and Hicks.

The creditors, however, would almost surely challenge MLB’s legal right to do so, setting up another test case of the rights of sports leagues, similar to the NHL’s successful battle in the Phoenix bankruptcy court. In that case, the NHL blocked the sale of the team because the buyer wanted to move the franchise to Canada without the league’s consent.

Sports lenders also have warned that franchise seizure could cause convulsions in the sports finance market, something MLB has been told numerous times in the creditor talks, sources said.