Dave Pear's Blog

Wow! We’ve spent some time looking over that NFLPA 2007 LM-2 Filing that they had to turn in to the U.S Dept. of Labor in May 0f 2008. It’s been interesting pulling out .details of how “our union” spends “our money.” We posted some of our first tidbits (click HERE) and then even discovered that the Director of Human Resources had pulled down close to $200,000 that year (click HERE).

But the document was so big that we struggled to find a simple way to put the whole thing up online for everyone to read. We finally decided to break the entire 900+ pages into five sections for easier storage and viewing. Here’s a short guide to what’s in each of the five sections:

• Part 1 – The first section contains general summaries of: assets, liabilities, income and expenses (insights into the high life);
• Part 2 – This is the first of three sections that disclose royalty and licensing payments to players etc.;
• Part 3 – This is the second of three sections that disclose royalty and licensing payments to players etc.;
• Part 4 – This is the third of three sections that disclose royalty and licensing payments to players etc.
• Part 5 – The final section covers general expenses such as overhead, document shredding, vendors etc. as well as royalty and licensing income.
  

And here are some basic navigation instructions to get around this online document viewer:

Everything you need is at the top of the viewing window including the back and forward buttons to advance back-and-forth from page-to-page. And of course, you can also use the Page Up and Page Down keys as well as the Home and End keys on your keyboard to navigate the document. You can enlarge the window for easier viewing by clicking on the Expand Window button located in the upper far right corner of the navigation bar (click on it again to reduce it back to the smaller size). And you can even search the document by clicking on the small search button just to the left of the Enlarge button. (Or a full Search bar is available after you expand the viewing window; you can then type your search word(s) into this window.) To navigate to a page faster, click on the Page Navigation button and you can get to a page simply by clicking on it.

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We’re still spending some time poring over that 2007 LM-2 filing from the NFLPA and, like everything else they do – there’s always surprises tucked into every corner. The LM-2 as close as we can get to audit-type numbers as we can find right now. We spent a lot of time trying to locate and download that document from the Dept. of Labor’s website (click HERE read that earlier post) and eventually, a friend in the media pointed us in the right direction. But before we finally discovered where to find it, we actually went ahead and placed an online order for a printed copy of the document to be sent out by US mail. Of course, we had no idea the thing would be well over 800 pages long at a cost of 15¢ a page! So we were somewhat relieved (it would have cost us well over $120 for one complete copy!) but also perplexed when we got this message back yesterday from the US Dept. of Labor (click image to enlarge for reading):

Several people had already warned us that the Dept. of Labor always seemed to be uncooperative when it came to the NFLPA. This kind of cryptic answer would make any conspiracy theorist jump for joy. So are they trying to tell us that the NFLPA no longer exists or doesn’t have a presence in their system or…? Or is the stuff so intentionally buried that no one should be able to find it? If anyone can enlighten us, we’d sure appreciate it.

Anyway, with Super Bowl coming up this Sunday, we thought we’d highlight a few of the more interesting expenses listed in 2007′s LM-2, some of which were Super Bowl-related. What the NFLPA spends on the Super Bowl could support a lot of retired players for a couple of years. (We’re hoping to have the entire document available online for viewing early next week.)

• LimoLink was paid $29,589 for “Super Bowl Transportation”;
• Grand Wailea Resort in Maui was paid $1,138,884 in advance (?) for 2008 NFLPA Board Meeting;
• United Airlines was paid $273,781 for plane tickets for the 2007 NFLPA Board Meeting (do you think any of them flew economy class?);
• Continental Airlines was paid $80,459 for plane tickets for the 2007 NFLPA Board Meeting;
• The Intercontinental Hotel was paid a total of $288,486.

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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.) continue reading »

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