Great whine sharks: NFL owners flipping bird, script

Bud Adams' obscene salute to Buffalo fans last weekend brought all sorts of ridicule and shame -- a $250,000 fine from NFL headquarters, an obligatory apology and a David Letterman Top 10 called "Signs Your NFL Team Owner Is Nuts."

But the Titans owner can't fairly be singled out for raising his middle fingers to an audience when the 31 other owners in the league performed the same gesture in unison last year. By opting out of the collective-bargaining agreement with the players association, putting the 2010 season into potential chaos and the entire 2011 season in jeopardy, NFL owners flipped off the entire fan base.

Bud Adams and his fellow owners are, as always, eyeing a healthier bottom line. (AP)

They had every right to pull the maneuver. In 2006, the union and management signed off on a clause that allowed either side to opt out if the deal became untenable. (Barring a new agreement, the 2010 season will open without a salary cap, and 2011 may vanish in a lockout.) But unsigned players have every right to hold out, skip training camp, skip games, do whatever they can to shake more money out of a club. Yet when they do it, they endure a backlash as vicious as any hit Ray Lewis has delivered.

The fan refrain always sounds the same: "These crybabies make millions to do a job I'd love to have, and they still want more."

So where's the outrage now that owners are whining about their cut of the gross revenue and threatening to shut down the entire game in two years? Think about it. If somebody said you could own an NFL team, pocket $500,000 or more every year, plus see your original investment handily beat the stock market over a decade, wouldn't you take that deal? And, while you're at it, refuse to moan about the guys who have serial concussions and knee surgeries taking 59 percent of the gross revenue?

There is one big problem with that hypothetical. The chances that an NFL owner pockets only a half-million dollars a season are lower than the odds on Peyton Manning having to wait tables to pay his bills.

An economic analysis commissioned by the union said the average NFL franchise makes $25 million a year, which commissioner Roger Goodell dismissed as fiction. So what's the truth? Nobody in ownership seems inclined to open the books and set the record straight.

On the surface then, the owners' claims that they can't keep going at the current rate sound suspiciously like Latrell Sprewell rejecting a three-year, $27 million deal from the Minnesota Timberwolves because he had to worry about feeding his family.

The owners get to hide behind the unknown, their true operating costs, which average folks will find harder to comprehend than the price of burgers and pizzas for Spree's kids. But owners sink their own argument when, through Goodell, they make the argument that additional construction costs in recent years have become a burden.

Given the government subsidies that helped build so many of the NFL's new stadiums -- which have dramatically increased the value of the teams that play in them -- the owners should be ashamed to cite this excuse. They must live in the same bubble as Wall Street bankers who feel entitled to stratospheric bonuses underwritten, to one degree or another, by taxpayer bailouts.

The owners have one great trump card in this debate -- grossly inflated rookie salaries, huge sums handed out to 21-year-olds who haven't played a down professionally. In the end, the union may concede that point if a big chunk of the revenue shifts over to veterans' salaries. But management's complaints about the overall 59 percent payout suggest that it's not eager to share whatever money the owners save if a strict rookie cap goes into effect.

The fact that the owners opened themselves up to an uncapped year in 2010 has been read as a sign of genuine desperation. The reality is that a) many of the best players are already under contract, b) the disappearance of a cap also removes salary minimums, and c) the younger players will lose the right to free agency after four years' service.

Six years' tenure will be the standard for free agency next season, and certain teams have already used that as leverage to reach early contract extensions with players who would normally have been eligible for free agency in 2010. For those players, especially the lower draft picks who turned out to be excellent pros, an open, free market may never be a factor in their salaries.

So you're not weeping for them yet? Well, what about the franchise-player tag, and the way it allows bad teams to hold on to talented athletes who would otherwise be snapped up by good teams? Sure, the franchise tag guarantees a pretty handsome salary, but the player would probably get more money on the open market and, even better, have a chance at playing for a winner. The salary cap adequately protects teams from mass defections based strictly on finances; the franchise tag insulates bad teams from the consequences of their dysfunction. It can force a player to stay put even if he would happily bail out for less money, just to get away from a hopeless franchise.

Considering the brevity of their careers (less than four years on average) and the long-term health hazards they assume, the players should always earn the fans' sympathy over the owners, who don't risk much at all. Over the last year, with the country in a near-depression, eight NFL franchises declined slightly in worth, according to Forbes magazine. But numbers from the last decade show nearly a tripling in overall value.

The owners may have put up the money backing their teams, but they can always get out, usually at a monstrous profit, if they want. And unlike the players, they won't leave the game with broken body parts -- except maybe strained tendons in their middle fingers.

Gwen Knapp is a sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.