No Wonder a Lot of Fans Think All Retired Players are Rich
CNBC’s Darren Rovell just posted a list of the Top 10 Retired Football Players payments based on public numbers available from the U.S. Dept. of Labor. (Read the article by clicking HERE)
It’s pieces like this that keep fans misinformed about how poorly the older retired players have been treated and paid. Most of the retired players are sick and tired of fans and bloggers and their comments that declare their lack of sympathy for the plight of the disabled retired players who are crying all the way to the bank. NOT!!! Maybe they should have also listed the Bottom 10. Or more dramatic news would be pointing out the thousands who received absolutely nothing in 2007 and wouldn’t even make it on the list at all. (Keep in mind that we’re not knocking what the top players have received in any way – they earned it. But there’s always been plenty to go around and including the rest of the players is the real issue here.)
So we finally managed to get our very own copy of the NFLPA’s Form 2007 LM-2, filed in March 2008. The LM-2 is an annual financial disclosure document that the Dept. of Labor requires labor organizations to turn in annually. It’s supposed to be publicly available like all the other annual filings by hundreds of unions across the country. (Finding it was another story – it was so buried, it was next-to-impossible to find and download, unlike the majority of other LM-2′s. We had a little help from friends.) And this is where Darren Rovell from CNBC pulled his Top 10 list from. While this document doesn’t come close to what a full audit might uncover, its 800+ pages provide an interesting glimpse into where the NFLPA spends – and doesn’t spend – its money. We’ll be spending some time over the next week going through this gem and posting some of our own findings here. (This thing is massive at 8 Mb in size as a PDF so we’re trying to figure out the best way to make this more easily available for EVERYONE to read.)
In searching the LM-2, players like Bernie Parrish, Herb Adderley, Walt Roberts, Dave Pear, Jeff Nixon and Tony Davis obviously don’t even show up on the list as recipients of licensing and royalty payments (nothing new – that’s why the GLA lawsuit had to be filed in the first place). However, another more conspicuous Davis did pop up when we did a search for the name DAVIS: Miki Yaras-Davis, your friendly, neighborhood NFLPA Director of Benefits. Ms. Yaras-Davis pulled down a cool $267,152 ($240,057 BEFORE expenses, to be fair…) in 2007 (and she was scheduled to receive a raise in 2008). And Holy Cow! She makes more than Staff Accountant, Michael Zides ($56,896) and the Staff Legal Counsel, Arthur McAfee (he only made a paltry $200,988). Nice work if you can get it. (Click on the clip from the LM-2 to enlarge it for easier reading.)
On the earlier note about the players who are receiving payments, we don’t think it would be all that hard to find the money to share with the rest of the retired players. In just glancing over the LM-2 to find staggering salaries for people like Yaras-Davis, there are lots of other incredible expenses like $404,817 posted under “Political Activities & Lobbying” and well over $1 million to Groom Law Group, among expenses disclosed. It shouldn’t take a financial genius to cut millions in expenses off the bottom line in a matter of minutes. We see a lot – and we mean a LOT – of “Administrative Assistants” listed among the employees. Guess everyone gets an Administrative Assistant at the NFLPA… With the economy in the tank right now, there are even more reasons to cut expenses drastically – like everyone else has to do in the real world.
And it would be just as interesting to get our hands on some of the NFL’s numbers too, just to see how their money is spent. We like facts and we love posting them online to back up everything we say. It’s been brought to our attention on many occasions that the blogs and websites have been disparaged by people from both the NFL and the NFLPA as being unreliable and inaccurate (and that’s the mild stuff). But the truth of the matter is that so far, none of them have come forward with their own hard, cold facts and documentation to back up what they say. We’ll be happy to post it. Besides, this stuff is so unbelievable, you can’t possibly make it up!
The sad thing about it is that every time we wonder what to post on a slow news day, they never fail to hand us something new on a silver platter.
Tony Davis
January 15th, 2009 at 5:34 PM #
This is very good information. I also want to very strongly stress that the Stars of our game – the Joe Montanas and the Archie Mannings – are justified in receiving these monies for their representation of our game.
We, as advocates, want our Retired Players Community to be compensated for all they do. We also know that the Union and Gene Upshaw managed to take $600 million of the $750 million for the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle Plan (for one year) and create a multitude of plans to benefit our current Active brothers. At last count, there were around 1800 Active Players. That left $150 million for the Retired Players of which there are over 4000! I think we need to rework this formula.
Tony Davis
Gary Burley
January 16th, 2009 at 6:10 AM #
If you subscribe to the belief that everything comes out in the wash, then what I have to say may be of interest to you. With all of the information that’s somehow just starting to filter out that outlines the mistreatment of former NFL Players, you just have to wonder why all this hasn’t surfaced before.
I’m proud to be a part of the coming-together of former players to support what’s right. For all the guys that went the extra mile for the guys who – for whatever reason – could not defend themselves, I say thank you, pioneers and supporters of the cause. I look forward to the day when our combined efforts lead us to where we all need to be.
Gary Burley
Cincinnati Bengals, Atlanta Falcons
1975 – 1984
Ange Coniglio
January 16th, 2009 at 6:40 AM #
The average starting year of the ten top-paid retirees is 1980. Joe Namath is the only man on the list who began his career in the 1960′s. The AFL’s Namath was the first player to receive (at the time) a mega-contract. Namath and Manning, I believe, are the only two who could be reasonably called “forerunners” of modern Professional Football.
Where is the list of high benefits for the Professional Football players of the SIXTIES?
Ange Coniglio
Steve Wilson
January 16th, 2009 at 7:02 AM #
What do they do to receive this money from the NFLPA?
Steve Wilson
Bob Stein
January 16th, 2009 at 9:34 AM #
Dave -
This is a good example of why the retiree representative groups need PR expertise and service. Walter Payton is on the list and not even alive! Note how dramatically it drops off from the highest paid in only 10 total. We know where the list would go and what it would show if we had 25 or 250. We need someone to get that info, put it together and disseminate it to the media as the NFL and NFLPA are able to do.
Maybe the distribution of the recently upheld Federal Court verdict is a good time to organize a fund to pay for collective PR services for all the retiree organizations as they work closer together.
I am wondering what Brent Boyd, Bernie Parrish, Mercury Morris, and other current leaders of our efforts think?
Thanks,
Bob Stein
LA Rams