The Franchise (59 page)

Terry Dudley, director of the Union, took a moment and stepped away from the podium. He was getting ready for the stretch run of his speech. He wanted to be ready and he wanted it to be right. He took his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face, then took one more look at his audience. They seemed receptive, they seemed to be listening, but then they could still be stunned from the previous speaker telling them they might have to
pick up a gun.
Terry worried about that but it was too late. It had been said, it was in the air. The tall man stepped back to the podium and again gripped both sides of the stand. He stared at his audience.

“Informed sources tell us that the next network contract offered to professional football will be well over three billion dollars.
Three billion dollars!
Can any of you even conceive of three billion dollars?

“It will break out to approximately twenty million dollars per team per year. Now, with that kind of income, win or lose, what is the incentive to the promoter to pay high salaries to secure the best playing and coaching talent?
There is none.

“The
promoter
is into
profit-maximization
, not winning silly games. He’s a businessman, and so what he spends his time doing is not diagraming plays but figuring out how to cut expenses and hide profits to
avoid taxes.”

Terry Dudley’s eyes flicked around the room, and for the first time he saw Taylor Rusk. Taylor’s presence startled him. The big-money stars seldom came to Union meetings and were generally the ones who broke any attempts to strike by crossing the picket lines and going into camp.

The director quickly recovered from his surprise and went on with his speech.

“The promoter’s tax avoidance schemes are too complicated to go into here and apparently too complicated for the IRS, because they continue to allow all sorts of weird schemes. For instance, last year a number-one draft choice was signed by New York to a contract that was reported in the press as $1.8 million for five years. Sounds like a lot of money.

“But after signing with his agent, Charlie Stillman, who took his ten percent directly from the New York franchise immediately on the total aggregate amount, the player had second thoughts and brought the contract to the Union. By the time he got to our offices in Washington and had our lawyers look the contract over, he had already bought his mother a house and himself a Rolls-Royce.

“First, of the total $1.8 million, exactly $800,000 was a onetime cash bonus, which serves several purposes. One, it reduces the actual size of his base salary by $800,000, so when he negotiates again—if he does—he will be negotiating from a four-year base salary of not $1.8 million but $200,000 per year. Second, of the $800,000 cash bonus, only $100,000 was paid immediately. The remainder was deferred until the year 2010, to be paid in yearly installments until the year 2025. The New York franchise, on the other hand, expenses the whole $800,000 immediately while they put the remaining $700,000 in the money market to draw interest. In five years minimum they have doubled the money at no cost to them. By the year 2010 they will have had use of the player’s money for over twenty-five years
interest-free.
The agent, Charlie Stillman, advised the player to sign the contract because Stillman got his ten percent immediately and it was in
his
best interest to get the biggest numbers—even if it wasn’t in the player’s. Also, the player’s salary was carried on the Franchise books at $200,000 a year, but Charlie Stillman again convinced the player to defer half until the year 2010. It, too, would be paid out in yearly installments until the year 2020. The agent gets his ten percent immediately on the full amount. The New York franchise carries the player’s salary on its books for tax purposes as a $200,000-a-year expense.”

Terry Dudley looked again at the faces in the crowd; the wrinkled brows and low mumbling told him that for the first time several men finally understood their contracts.

“Needless to say, it was not very much fun to have to explain to the player that not only was he
not rich,
like the newspapers said, but he was actually broke. He couldn’t possibly make the payments on his mother’s house and his Rolls-Royce and meet his daily living expenses.”

Dudley held up his hand.

“Now comes the real bad news. The player has learned his lesson and he’s going to do better on his next contract—but more than likely there will be no next contract. The average career is
four years.
Right at this moment, seventy-two percent of all players in professional football have five years experience or less.”

Terry gave the players a moment to wrestle and come to terms with all the numbers and schemes he had just thrown at them. He glanced again at Taylor sitting quietly in the back with a brown paper package in his lap. Terry recalled that Bobby Hendrix had always said that Taylor Rusk would eventually make a good Union man. The director had dismissed Hendrix’s appraisal, giving more credit to Taylor’s ability to be all things to all people. It was an ability that was necessary if not generic to all major-league quarterbacks. They not only had to lead and control a team of stars-giant men in suspended adolescence, spoiled, deceived, pampered—but also, like the head coach, the quarterback was the interface between the players and the promoters. To survive for long as a pro quarterback required quick wits and a selfish ruthlessness.

Terry Dudley took a last glance at Taylor Rusk and stepped back to the microphone.

“You, as players, will negotiate one,
maybe
two or three, contracts in your whole career,” Dudley continued, “while the man you negotiate with will have negotiated hundreds, maybe thousands. Plus he will have access to the data on the salary schedules of the other League franchises. The promoters who call themselves owners meet three or four times a year to discuss the problems of their business.” Dudley held out his hands. “What are the problems of the football business?” He paused for effect.
“You. You
are the problems.

“Your salaries are the major expense and the promoter-owners complain publicly about rising salaries destroying the game. Well, here is a figure you can toss back at the next newspaper man or TV sportscaster when he asks about ‘high salaries’: In the mid 1960’s,
before the merger,
the salary was around $18,000 to $20,000 and accounted for almost fifty percent of a franchise’s total revenue. Today,
after the merger,
the average salary is around $130,000 and accounts for
only twenty-eight percent
of a franchise’s total revenue.

“It’s simple math and even the sporting press can understand it, drunk or sober. I’m not saying they’ll write it, or care about it, or even consider it, because they know that
you’ll
be gone one day and the
promoters
will still be around, handing out free plane tickets and drinks and, most important of all, giving them
access.”

Terry turned to the last page of his text. He glanced around the hall. No one seemed to be fidgeting; the speech was going well. Taylor Rusk sat quietly and erect in the last row, holding his package, looking straight ahead.

“It has taken us a full decade,” the director of the Players Union continued, “to get this far. We haven’t set the world on fire, but we
are
a union, a
labor
union, and we have built a foundation for the eighties, at great cost both in money and in men’s careers. Great athletes were traded or cut outright for Union activity, and there will be more reprisals and more players will be sacrificed. The promoters will tell you that the
Union
is the reason that you’re being cut ... that the Union is causing you all the trouble. But we now have a pension, a true grievance procedure, collective bargaining and several important court rulings in our favor. Now comes the real battle, because we are asking for true free agent status and an end to the compensation rule, which totally eliminates movement except when the promoter wants to sell or trade one of you, so he gets the profits on the sale of your bodies as assets. We want salaries and benefits that approximate what players were getting before the merger.

“If we fail to achieve these goals for the eighties, we will be broken as a union. Professional football will degenerate into a studio sport like professional wrestling, a spectacle that requires only average skill while the expert television announcers make large sums of money convincing the audience they are seeing pro football at its best. We must stress solidarity before the League gets its pay-television plan on line. If we don’t, they’ll be too powerful and will have broken this union.” Terry paused, then finished his speech in a soft voice, ignoring the droplets of sweat that ran down his face.

“Know your enemy because they know you. Don’t let them use your honesty and integrity against you. Remember that twenty-three percent of the players from last season will be gone next season. You could be one of them. Rookies are cheaper for the promoters. So be prepared to strike. We are fighting a conspiracy of rich, powerful men who are beginning to control
all
sports, not just football.

“They own pieces of basketball teams, soccer teams and tennis circuits. They own baseball teams and cable stations and communications satellites. The promoters grow more powerful by the day. We must fight back, strike back. Hit them where it hurts—in the pocketbook. Strike, stay unified. Solidarity of commitment.” Dudley paused again. He looked slowly around the room at the simple, silly, brave, confused and frightened young men.

“Now comes the hard part,” Terry Dudley said. “Strike or die.”

The tall director of the Football Players Union turned from the microphone and walked slowly to his seat. For a moment no one made a sound; then at the back of the room a big black defensive end from Baltimore stood and began slowly clapping his giant hands together. The sound echoed through the room. Soon a white cornerback from Minnesota stood and joined in. Slowly, unsurely, throughout the room players, black and white, began standing and clapping their hands. It was a slow, rhythmic sound, like the tramping of feet.
Strike.... Strike.... Strike.... Strike.... Strike....
Soon everyone in the room was on his feet, smashing his palms together in a slow, determined rhythm. It was loud and solemn and went on and on.
Thump. Thump.

Taylor stood and listened, holding his package.

It gave him chills.

“Come on in, Taylor.” Terry Dudley opened the door to his hotel room. “I’m glad you could come, but I must admit I’m a little surprised.”

“I am, too, Terry.” Taylor stepped inside, the package of documents under his arm. “I always paid my dues and I never crossed a picket line. But isn’t it a little early to be yelling ‘Strike’?”

Terry closed the door and followed Taylor into the room. It was a standard Hyatt hotel room and could have been in Atlanta, Dallas or Rangoon.

“It’s never too early to organize.” Dudley had shucked his coat and tie and rolled his shirt sleeves up. Rings of sweat stained his white shirt at each armpit.

“Don’t you think you ought to discuss the issues first? The contract has another full year to run.” Taylor looked out the window at the Houston skyline. The brown-yellow petrochemical smog was held in place by an atmospheric inversion. “These guys will follow you but you should tell them where they’re going.”

“I explained my idea about residuals.” Dudley sat on his bed. “Actors get them through the Screen Actors Guild. We’ll pay through the Union a certain percentage of the gross revenue to each player. I can’t get too specific or I don’t have negotiating room.”

“You better explain it now, because if you get residuals, you’ll have fifteen hundred screaming niggers saying the Union isn’t giving them their fair share,” Taylor replied, still looking out at the yellow sky. Houston was growing at a phenomenal rate and falling apart almost as fast. “Because that’s how it is with players, you know that. Why would you want the problems? The strain could split the Union.” Taylor faced the director.

“You can be damn sure the owners hope it will,” Dudley said. “But it’s the only way to help the players help themselves. You heard those statistics, the percentages.”

“Statistics are management weapons,” Taylor argued. “The players can’t win a fight they don’t even comprehend.”

“That’s why I keep it simple,” Dudley said. “Anyway, you’re right that the contract isn’t up until next year. They’ll know the issues in plenty of time for small-arms training and to start our Take a Teamster to Lunch program!”

“A year may not be long enough.” Taylor tossed his package of documents on the bed next to Dudley. “If you scare easily, don’t read those.”

“I always went for cheap thrills.” Dudley opened the package. “I guess that’s how I got into labor law. Although I certainly expected professional athletics to be a little higher class.”

“You haven’t heard the bad news yet.” Taylor turned back to the window and the opaque Houston sky. “You know, there isn’t anything wrong with this town that a couple of real good hurricanes couldn’t fix.”

The Union director searched through the documents, scanning, watching Taylor out of the corner of his eye. He went through the package quickly. Finished, he said, “Is that all?”

“Is that all? Isn’t it enough?” Taylor turned back from the window. “That’s my contribution to the next Collective Bargaining Agreement. Use them any way you want, but be careful. Bobby Hendrix died because somebody
thought
he had those documents. I have another set of copies in a safe-deposit box and a letter with the key in case I don’t live through next season.”

“Thanks, Taylor, but I’m not sure what we can do with these.” Terry shook his head. “Who’s gonna believe this?”

“Nobody with any sense. Maybe it
is
time to pick up the gun. Say,” Taylor changed direction, “any retired players show up? They could help—”