Dave Pear's Blog

The Super Bowl show is now in full swing and today, George Martin and the NFL Alumni Board showed up for a full-court press conference to show unity behind their beloved leader. FOX Sports was in attendance and A.J. Perez covered it (comic book version at the bottom of the post) :
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NFL alumni board defends director

by A.J. Perez
Feb. 2, 2012
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Members of the NFL Alumni Association board of directors voiced their support for executive director George Martin at a news conference Thursday, a week after a FOXSports.com report revealed possible mismanagement of the financially strapped organization.
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“People can write whatever they want to write,” said Harry Carson, a former teammate of Martin’s on the New York Giants who pushed vigorously for Martin’s appointment in 2009. “You see all the individuals sitting here. We are backing this man 150 percent. We are his teammates and we are doing everything that we can to help our team, the retired players community, be successful.”
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FOXSports.com reported that the NFL Alumni Association — which began to advocate for retired players in conjunction with Martin’s hiring — has slid deeper into financial disarray and has been propped up by NFL loans totaling more than $4 million over the past two years. Martin also funneled contracts to family members, according to the report, and the charity he founded received free Super Bowl tickets.
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Five board members spoke on Martin’s behalf when asked about the report during the news conference. Afterward, one of the board members, former Baltimore Colts running back Tom Nowatzke, told FOXSports.com that the NFLAA ethics board addressed one of the conflict-of-interest claims made in the article: Martin’s use of his wife and daughter-in-law’s catering firm.
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FOX Sports‘ A.J. Perez and Alex Marvez kick off Super Bowl week with a scathing exposé on the inner workings of the NFL Alumni and its Executive Director, George Martin.
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One question we keep wondering about: Just exactly how many retired football player members does the NFL Alumni actually have? The one thing even the NFLPA manages to be transparent about is its membership roster and they even provide an online list for all to see. But George Martin and his management team continue to cite numbers in the thousands, claiming that their membership is the largest collective group of retired players. But this article cites around $80,000 collected from May through September 2011. At $100 per member, simple arithmetic tells you that’s 800 members. But when you factor in the $5,000 fees from the remaining chapters who may have sent in their dues during that same period, one has to wonder how much of that $80,000 actually comes from individual memberships? We’ve heard from all too many sources that the membership has dropped to below 500 actual dues-paying retired players, with the remaining members classified as “Associate Members” that include fans and other non-retirees. Heck, if the NFL has given the Alumni $4 million in interest-free loans since George Martin took over, maybe it might have been cheaper to just pay each of the estimated 15,000+ retired players (just one estimate) $100 apiece to be members of the Alumni?
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Both the NFLPA and George Martin’s NFL Alumni have been trying to take credit for everything being offered to retired players from the new CBA. In the meanwhile, they’ve also done their best to ignore what retired players have actually been demanding long before this current CBA while never really putting their cards on the table about what it is that they’ve actually decided for retirees – without their direct input. The Union simply refused to be in the same room while discussions were being held directly with Commissioner Goodell and now they continue to play a let’s-wait-and-see attitude by blaming the League for holding up the final agreement. And they continue to take credit for the wonderful things they’ve done for retirees all while they weren’t a Union (during de-certification!).
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Meanwhile, back at the Alumni ranch, George Martin’s $250,000+ annual salary and bonuses are apparently not enough so he also had to do some endorsement work. George has been driving around in a brand-new $65,000+ Cadillac Platinum Edition Escalade ESV for the last week or so since the Alumni Golf Tournament tweeting all about his praises for his loaner wheels much to the delight of Government Motors. (Read the official NFL Alumni Press Release by clicking HERE.) FOX Sports’ Alex Marvez had a few more words to say about that ride:
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Posted with the express consent of Evan Weiner:

THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
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Why are NFL owners really locking out the players?

Tuesday, 26 April 2011
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
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The National Football League has been pretending that all is well in the land of the 32 franchises and the league’s more than 1,600 employees. Teams are conducting cheerleader tryouts. The league released the 2011 pre-season schedule, then came the regular season schedule announcement and the exciting month of NFL football reaches a climax with three days worth of what is essentially a major restraint of trade, the college draft. That exercise, which starts on Thursday, is made legal thanks to the 2006 National Football League-National Football League Players Association collective bargaining agreement which gives the NFL the right to offer college players a chance to join the players ranks through that mechanism even though the college players have no say in the 2006 agreement.
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So all is wonderful in the land of the NFL except for one minor detail: NFL owners have locked out the employees who perform on the field — the players and no new negotiations on the collective bargaining agreement are scheduled until May 16 after a flurry of court decisions will be made on the legality of the lockout and whether the owners can use TV monies from 2011 rights from FOX, NBC, CBS, Disney’s ESPN and DirecTV for football operations even if there is no product.
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The lockout was lifted by a Minnesota judge on Monday afternoon; the NFL will appeal the ruling which means both sides are back to the bargaining table with no rules for business for 2011. It could be that 2010 rules apply which is not necessarily good for either side. Players will have to wait six years, not four for free agency and the owners have no salary cap to control players costs.
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The NFL doesn’t seem to care about their active players and they despise the retired players! All they offer is lip service to serious, life-changing head injuries. Unless a player is carried off the field on national TV, it’s almost impossible for a retired player to access his earned disability benefits. And his Union is nowhere to be seen when it comes to representing him. The NFL disability system has been illegal and it violates ERISA Law as well as their own plan document!

AAA

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