Payments to players from Players, Inc

Guest Commentator: Jeff Nixon

Dear Alumni

At the Retired Players Convention in Phoenix I asked several questions
regarding Players Inc. Here are the questions I asked and the answers
I got:

Question: How much revenue is currently generated by Players Inc, and
from what sources

Answer: $22.4 Million Total. $11 Million from Football Cards / 8
Million from Sponsorships / 4.4 Million for Player Marketing
Opportunities

Note: I assume that $22.4 is the net revenue, because their annual
retail sales of Players Inc. licensed products is over $750 million!

Question: How much of the revenue going into Players Inc. are for
Players (Retired and Active) and how much is for Operations (Staff and
other costs) Answer: 40% of funds go to operations; 40% go to Active Players.

Note: I could be wrong, but I don't believe they could tell us, at that
time, how much went to to Retired Players. For the purposes of
discussion I will assume that the remaining 20% goes to retired
players.

Question: I understand that each Active player signs an agreement with
Players Inc. that allows them to use their image, name etc. for
marketing purposes. How much money does an Active Player get when they
sign the licensing at the beginning of the season? Answer: The amount has recently gone up from about $6,500 to
approximately $7,000 or $8,000 for each player.

During the presentation, the presenter (I can't remember who it was)
showed us several charts. One of them was a pie chart showing that 375
retired players received some form of compensation from Players Inc.
and that 104 were (HOF) Hall of Famers and 271 were non-Hall of Famers.

They seemed quite proud of the fact that more non-HOF retired players
were compensated,. Unfortunately, they did not tell us what the actual
amount of compensation was for the HOF and non-HOF retired players.

Based on the figures they presented at the convention and my assumption
that the retird players received 20% of $22.4 million net revenue, then
$4,480,000 would have been paid out to retired players. How much of
that was paid to HOF's and how much to non-HOF's? I don't know, but I
would imagine that a high percentage is going to the HOF's, and rightly
so.

If the 104 HOF's received just 50% of the money they would each be
receiving an average of $21,538 annually. If the 271 non-HOF retired
players received 50% of the money, they would each be receiving an
average of $8,266 annually. Obviously, these are just averages, and
some HOF and non-HOF players would receive more or less.

In order to be considered for any compensation via Players Inc. you
first need to sign their licensing agreement. Secondly, you must be a
member in good standing (pay your dues!) Thirdly, you probably need to
be a Hall of Famer or someone "in demand" (how do they determine
that?), and lastly you probably have to be on Player Inc.'s good
behavior list. If you have made critical comments about the NFLPA or
Players Inc. you might be on the shit list for quite some time. When
exactly does hell freeze over?

It's interesting to note that Players Inc. boasts of representing 3,500
retired players. On their Website www.nflplayers.com they state, "Each
year the player marketing department negotiates and manages more than
3,500 player marketing opportunities for 1,800 active and 3,500 retired
NFL players. They say they "represent" 3,500 retired players, but based
on the information they gave us at the convention, their only paying
375 retired players. What marketing opportunities do the other 3,125
retired players get? Are they including all dues paying members of the
NFLPA Retired Players in this figure. Are they saying they have
licensing agreements with 3,500 retired players? If so, is your
licensing agreement collecting dust in the basement of Players Inc.? I
have to admit, I have not signed one, but I have asked for a copy. If
you would like a licensing agreement contact:

Josh Goodstadt
Assistant Vice President, Multimedia - Players Inc. @ 1-202-463-1276.

Now that you know what Most of the retired players are getting from
Players Inc. (The short end of the stick)...... I should also note that
in addition to the approx. $8,000 each active player gets at the
beginning of the season for signing the licensing agreement, many of
the "in-demand" players get huge sums of money for their appearances
both during and after the season. They divvy up approximately
$8,960,000.00. Not bad for hanging out at a golf tournament, Super bowl
party or some charity event.

Now that I've shared this information with you, I need to make one
thing very clear. I have no problem whatsoever with the fact that many
of the "high profile" Active and Retired players get compensated by
Players Inc. That's the way it should be. Players Inc. has done an
exceptionally fine job of increasing its revenues since its inception
in 1994. What bothers me is the way they make it sound like 3,500
retired players are benefiting from this companies representation. When
was the last time you received a check?
Obviously, there are other ways to compensate players, and its not all
in the form of cash. I don't know if Players Inc. counts airfare, hotel
stay, food etc. when they determine benefits to players. I know that
many of the retired players that are not in 'high demand" would enjoy
an invitation to an event even if they were not being paid. Maybe this
is happening, and that is where they are getting the 3,500 figure from.
When was the last time you were invited to a golf tournament or Super
Bowl party?

It would be nice if Players Inc. could find a way to get more of the
retired players invited to and compensated for events, but the reality
is, most of us that played never lit up the marquee and as we get older
the fans begin to forget our generation of players and therefore we are
no longer "in demand"........maybe we never were......but we did
contribute in some small way to the greatest show on earth....the NFL.

There are a lot of good people that work for Players Inc. and they are
doing an excellent job of marketing the NFL and its players. I just
wish there was more they could do for the majority of retired players
that are slowly disappearing from the memory of the fans.

For your information, the paid staff (approx. 35 people) and the
operating expenses of Players Inc., based on what they told us at the
convention, are approximately 9 Million dollars annually.

The Players Inc. executive staff includes:

Gene Upshaw - Chairman
Doug Allen - President
Pat Allen - Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Pam Adolph - Vice President, Apparel & Operations
Dawn Ridley - Vice President, Corporate Marketing & Business
Development
Karen Bush - Assistant Vice President, Trading Cards & Collectibles
Felice Jones - Assistant Vice President, Special Events
Josh Goodstadt - Assistant Vice President, Multimedia
Angela Manolakas - Assistant Vice President, Player Marketing
Lara Potter - Assistant Vice President, Communications
Doug Ramsay - Assistant Vice President, Internet
Joe Nahra - Staff Counsel

If I have stated anything that is off the mark, then I welcome a
rebuttal and/or accurate information from Players Inc., or anyone else
for that matter. I don't have all the information I would like to have,
therefore I can only comment on the information that has been given to
me by Players Inc.

If you have any questions regarding this information, please feel free
to contact me at jeffnixon@aol.com

Sincerely,

Jeff Nixon, Vice President

Buffalo Bills - Retired Players Chapter

The MDS Report: Appreciating Al Davis

By Michael David Smith
FootballOutsiders.com
October 7, 2006

Dave Pear was in pain when he called me this week. Pain is something
he's felt a lot of in the quarter-century since he retired from
professional football.

Pear, who played nose guard for six years in the NFL, suffered a
herniated disk in his neck in 1979. He has lived with pain ever since
that injury, which would force him to retire a year later. Pear played
hurt in Super Bowl XV. On the Raiders' official Web site, his efforts
are credited as a big reason the team won. That was the last game he
ever played.

Pear called me this week to let me know that he disagreed with the kind
words I had for Al Davis in last week's column.

"I continued to play with a herniated disk in my neck," Pear said. "Al
Davis encouraged me to play. He told me I was an all-pro and that I
could play better hurt than the other players could play healthy. With
that injury, I went from all-pro to being cut in two years, and during
that time I continually asked Davis for help, and the response was that
I wasn't injured, I was a hypochondriac.

"I went to see Al in his office and said, 'I came to you as an all-pro
two years ago and now I'm leaving to have a neck operation and I've
lost my job. I broke my neck playing for you. You can't turn your back
on me.' He told me he would call me. That was 25 years ago and I still
haven't heard from him."

I don't know what happened in closed-door conversations between Pear
and Davis. But I do know, and my conversation with Pear made me even
more acutely aware, that the NFL has a real problem with retired
players who suffered serious injuries and now feel that the league has
turned its back on them.

"It's just wrong," Pear said. "If I sound bitter, it's in the sense
that the NFL goes on TV and tells us what good they do with the United
Way, and they spend money trying to help other causes, and they do that
to take the focus off themselves and the way they treat their former
players."

Pear is far from alone in feeling that way. Former Buffalo Bills safety
Jeff Nixon urged his fellow ex-players to withhold NFL Players
Association Retired Players Chapter dues to protest what he called a
lack of attention to issues relating to retired players in the most
recent collective-bargaining agreement negotiations. Chuck Bednarik,
the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Famer, said of his pension two years
ago, "It stinks. It's nothing." Former Colts and Chargers safety Bruce
Laird started a blog where he posts articles about retired players who
have gone through tough times since leaving the game.

Many ex-players who are doing well financially have taken it upon
themselves to provide the assistance that the league and the union
won't. Former Green Bay Packers lineman Jerry Kramer has organized
fundraisers to, as he says on his web site, "provide direct financial
assistance to those retired players who are disadvantaged or indigent
due to the inadequate pension and disability compensation the league
provides to older players." Former Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns
quarterback Arthur Roberts, a cardiologist, provides free heart
screenings to ex-players. Mike Ditka hosts a golf tournament in Chicago
each year to raise money for indigent retired players.

At his Hall of Fame induction speech in August, former New York Giants
linebacker Harry Carson said the league needs to do more to help
retired players. "I would hope that the leaders of the NFL, the future
commissioner, and the players association do a much better job of
looking out for those individuals," Carson said. "If we made the league
what it is, you have to take better care of your own."

The league and the players association maintain that they do plenty. In
July they jointly announced a host of improvements to current and
retired players' benefits. NFL player benefits total $700 million a
year, and benefits have been improved for both current and retired
players four times since 1993. Retired players receive almost $60
million a year from the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle Retirement Plan. The
union's Players Assistance Trust, the NFL Alumni Association's Dire
Need Fund and the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Enshrinee Assistance Fund
all give more than $1 million a year in financial assistance to retired
players. Harold Henderson, NFL executive vice president of labor
relations and chairman of the NFL Management Council, called the NFL's
package "the most extensive benefits package in professional sports."

But Pear, like many other ex-players, says those benefits need to be
distributed more equitably, so that former players who paved the way
for the current generation of multimillionaires and are now living with
serious football-related injuries can reap some of the rewards from the
$6 billion a year industry that pro football has become. Players who
retired before salaries exploded with the dawning of free agency in
1993 say it annoys them that people assume that they're rich just
because they once played pro football.

Many retired players blame NFL Players Association Executive Director
Gene Upshaw for their inadequate pensions. Pear, his former teammate,
said, "Gene Upshaw has definitely sold out his players." But under
labor law, Upshaw works for the current players, not the retired
players. You can't blame the players who helped build the league for
feeling that they deserve a bigger slice of that $6 billion pie, but
you also can't blame Upshaw for making the current players his top
priority.

So if the union's priority is the current players, who can help retired
players? I believe individual teams should do more. Before he joined
the Raiders, Pear was the first member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to
make the Pro Bowl. I'd like to see the Bucs do something to honor him,
and I'd like to see every NFL team reach out to its former players, the
ones who played before MRIs and eight-figure signing bonuses. Most of
those players still love the game, but many of them wonder whether the
sacrifices they made to play football were worth it.

"I don't want to sound like it's sour grapes, because football was my
passion. It was something that I loved to do," Pear said. "But it
leaves a bitter taste in your mouth toward your former employer."

David E. Garnett
President
iAM Solutions, LLC
703.926-9134 - mobile

Fw: [Retired NFL Players] Tackling life after the game

Baltimore Sun
By Rona Marech
Sun reporter

October 14, 2006

HAGERSTOWN -- Inside the Hagerstown Rescue Mission, up the stairs, into
the dormitory, next to a bed with a thin tan coverlet, atop a dark
locker -- this is where Donnie Green keeps his memorabilia. He has
three tiny plastic helmets, one for each of the National Football
League teams he played on: the Buffalo Bills, the Philadelphia Eagles,
the Detroit Lions.

Behind those -- he has to groan and stretch to reach it -- is a blue,
loose-leaf binder filled with photographs and articles. He turns the
pages matter of factly, betraying little. Here he is in his No. 74
Bills jersey, staring out seriously, his fists clenched. Here he is
coolly sitting on the bench, helmet pushed back. Here he is at Purdue
University, a bright-eyed first-year student with a broad smile. He is
watching a game in a fedora, his hands lifted over his head,
victorious.

He pulls out a fan letter. "It sure is a pleasure to write to one of
the greatest players who always gave 110 percent," it reads.

Green played for the NFL for seven years in the 1970s, most famously as
part of the Bills' formidable offensive line that helped O.J. Simpson
run a record-breaking 2,000 yards in a season. He and his fellow
linemen were dubbed the Electric Company because they "turned the Juice
loose."

But that was long ago, before Green's gait slowed and his brawn
softened. Before family troubles. Before drugs.

In 2003, financial and emotional woes sent Green from his home in
Annapolis to this Western Maryland shelter where men can find temporary
housing or join a longer-term, religion-based recovery program. He
arrived with little but some suitcases of old clothes. It didn't take
long for him to find God -- truly find him and not just in a
wishy-washy way, he says. Three years later, he's hopeful. He gets paid
to work as a night watchman at the Rescue Mission. He's more peaceful.

And yet he's still here, a lumbering, gentle presence carrying a Bible
and talking religion and trying, still, to figure out what to do next.

"I just take it from day to day," he said. "I'm really thankful God
gave me another chance."

Green's predicament, some former players bitterly complain, is all too
common. Men who played in the NFL prior to the 1980s were paid a
pittance compared with current players, and until 1993, they retired
without substantial pensions, health insurance or other now-standard
benefits. Many suffer from ailments stemming from old injuries and
years of play. And they're often too proud or embarrassed -- especially
after all the athletic success and reverential treatment -- to seek
help when their luck turns. Recent pension increases and changes in
care coverage for retired players are inadequate, many who were in the
business say.

They often know the saddest stories: Jackie Wallace, who played with
the Colts among other teams, was found living under a New Orleans
overpass; Mike Webster, once a Pittsburgh Steeler, was frequently
unemployed and homeless in the years before his death.

"It goes on and on. There are hundreds of players who are hurting,"
said Bruce Laird, another former Colt who recently founded The
Baltimore Football Club to assist ex-players. "We are working with the
union to try to make them understand that these are the players who
made the game, and they need help."

Joe DeLamielleure, a Hall of Famer who played right guard alongside
Green on the Bills, calls it a "disgrace." "Why does the most lucrative
business in the world have the worst pensions?" he said. "You know
where Donnie is living? ... And Donnie Green isn't a dumb man, not an
ignorant man. He's not a man who's lazy. He's a good man. For him to
have to do this is absurd in my book."

At his peak in the NFL, Green said he never made more than $65,000. At
58, his monthly pension payments are a little more than $400.

It was only seven years of pro football, to be sure, but that was what
Green had devoted his life to from the time he was a 219-pound
eighth-grader in southeastern Virginia. High school coaches were
already checking out the mountainous teenager, and he ended up playing
football and basketball at Crestwood High School in Chesapeake before
heading off to Purdue University on a football scholarship. He left
school when he was drafted by Buffalo in 1971

David E. Garnett
President
iAM Solutions, LLC
703.926-9134 - mobile

Simms' case highlights NFL doctors' dilemma

By ANTHONY CORMIER
anthony.cormier@heraldtribune.com
Article published Oct 1, 2006

It's an old National Football League standard: If you're hurt, you
play. If you're injured, you don't.

But the difference between being sore and needing surgery is subtle in today's NFL, where the line between a serious ailment and pedestrian pain is blurred by doctors working for the teams and athletes who want
to play, even at risk of their own health.

Last week brought a pair of dangerous incidents -- Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Chris Simms playing with a ruptured spleen, and Dallas Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens returning to practice one day after
overdosing on pills -- that sounded an alarm in the medical community about the conflict between the teams, their physicians and the players in pro sports.

The cases were a reminder, some say, of the long-standing struggle to balance ethics, money and player safety in the NFL.

Critics say the league is tiptoeing through a minefield, where the drive to get star players back in the game can cloud medical decisions
with serious, sometimes fatal, consequences.

"There is a huge problem in the National Football League," said Dr. Robert Huizenga, a former team physician for the Oakland Raiders. "And it doesn't seem like anyone wants to address it."

The debate is as old as the game itself and as complex as the West Coast offense. On one side are the players, and on the other are coaches and front-office personnel.

In the middle are team physicians, doctors and trainers whose
allegiance to the health of players can be tested by the owners who pay their salaries.

"The real question is: 'Who does the doctor work for?' Does he work on
behalf of the athlete or is he working for the team?" asked Dr. Stephen Rice of the Jersey Shore (N.J.) Medical Center, who is a College of Sports Medicine fellow and former physician at the University of Washington.

Critics say team physicians sometimes fall prey to their bosses' demands, scrambling for "miracle cures" that mask serious injuries and
put players back on the field when they shouldn't be.

"I don't think there's any question that, when you get a strong coach in your face saying, 'This guy needs to be ready,' you do what it takes to get them back on the field," said Ralph Cindrich, a former player and now one of the league's premier agents.

"There are a lot of instances where they push a guy back before he's ready."

In the business of football, roster spots and million-dollar contracts are won by the players who grit through twisted joints and shredded tendons -- even if they're risking a serious injury that could lead to devastating consequences in the long term.

In a landmark study at the University of North Carolina, researchers found that nearly 60 percent of retired NFL players had suffered at least one concussion during their careers. The survey also concluded
that retired NFL players have a 37 percent higher risk of Alzheimer's disease than other men of the same age.

Former team physicians and longtime sports medicine professionals say he doctors are put in a tenuous position each week, where snap decisions carry serious ramifications in the billion-dollar world of the NFL.

Each team employs a staff of trainers to deal with pedestrian ailments such as sore muscles and sprained joints. They also have a squad of doctors to diagnose and treat injuries.

NFL teams generally will not allow media access to trainers and physicians, and Bucs doctor Joe Diaco could not comment for this story.

"It's a business, a two-sided business that is driven by the fact that, if you can't perform, you can't play," said Dr. Jon Schriner, who operates six sports medicine centers in Michigan and has worked with collegiate and Olympic athletes.

The sidelines and the training rooms where athletes rehab can be lonely places, where the sense of invulnerability that drove an athlete to the NFL can lead to isolation from coaches and teammates.

In a world of machismo, toughness can be a player's defining attribute.

Take Brett Favre, the Green Bay Packers quarterback whose legacy was determined more by his ironman streak of 224 straight starts than his
Super Bowl win or 402 touchdown passes.

There is no label feared more than "injury-prone" or, worse yet, "soft." So while there is pressure from coaches to send players back prematurely, the players often put the same pressure on themselves.

Said Bucs receiver Michael Clayton: "A lot of guys play this game with
a passion (that) we'll play until we die, until we can't anymore."

Careers can be made, or lost, on a reputation of playing with pain. The first three weeks of this season have seen players suffer through organ damage (Simms), concussions (Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner) and possible broken bones (Seattle running back Shaun Alexander).

In each instance the players refused to leave the field.

"The athlete thinks he is invulnerable, that nothing bad can happen," Rice said. "They almost need to believe that, in order to face the risks that they do."

For Tampa Bay Bucs veteran Dave Moore, a raging rib cage pain in NFL week one wasn't enough to keep him out. The long snapper couldn't breathe, and he spit up blood as he sat in the locker room.

He planned to return to the field as soon as Diaco gave him the go-ahead.

An assistant coach asked Moore if he was OK, and Moore said yes. But he wasn't -- Moore had a broken rib and punctured lung. What he thought
was a bruise was a more serious injury that has kept Moore out since the season opener.

"If I didn't actually spit up blood to realize something inside was going on, I would have gone right back in the game," he said.

But what happens when the injury goes undiagnosed?

In Simms' case, trainers and physicians said a ruptured spleen can be difficult to detect, as the symptoms -- dizziness, abdominal pain and blurry vision -- are similar to cases of dehydration or simple x exhaustion.

The Bucs' trainers and physicians would not comment, but coach Jon Gruden is confident that they made the right decision on Simms, based on the information they had at the time.

But recognizing the difference between pain and injury extends beyond the NFL, Gruden said, to weekend warriors who try to understand the difference between a sore knee and a torn ligament.

"It's every phase of sport," Gruden said. "It's amateur sports, it's professional sports, it's being a human being. Sometimes a man or a woman has to push themselves through it. A normal human being knows what their limitations are."

But a player's needs are sometimes weighed against the team goals, and critics say doctors are caught between competing interests.

Several years ago, many players raised serious questions about the care they were getting. According to an NFL Players Association survey,
players were asked if their physicians were "good" or better. On four teams, 60 percent of the players found their medical staff lacking.

The Cincinnati Bengals' doctors were held in the lowest regard, as only one in five of the players called them "good" or better.

That's where the union stepped in to fight for changes to the
collective bargaining agreement that would offset potential medical conflicts. Players can now pick their own surgeons and receive second opinions from doctors of their choice.

It's all on the team's dime, according to NFLPA official Carl Francis,
and was put in a formal agreement to shield players from making a decision based on a doctor who is paid by the team.

"We made it a priority for the player to be able to protect his rights," Francis said.

But with so much pressure to find "miracle cures," team physicians also are faced with an additional threat: malpractice lawsuits. Just like their civilian counterparts, team doctors are seeing a huge rise in
malpractice insurance and recent litigation by former NFL players that equate to multimillion-dollar settlements.

For example, the family of Korey Stringer, a Minnesota Vikings lineman who died of heatstroke during training camp in 2001, is suing the
team's doctors for $100 million -- enough to cripple a team doctor's long-standing private practice.

"The lawyers are always telling us to get out," said Huizenga, the former Raiders' physician. "They say, 'You've got to be an idiot to do this. It's just not worth it.'"

Now an associate professor of medicine at UCLA, Huizenga spent seven years on the sidelines with the Raiders and became disillusioned by
what he calls a tug-of-war between clubs and doctors. Huizenga's book, "You're Okay, It's Just a Bruise," was an inside account of the way pro football sometimes ignores injuries and turned a blind eye to the 1980s steroid spike.

He believes the ethics that guide civilian doctors get lost in the four-month shuffle of the NFL regular season, where big games come with a big price. The title of his book, he said, was taken from a line used
by a Raiders doctor to diagnose just about every player who came into the trainer's room.

"Your star quarterback has a concussion before the game, but maybe the
team doesn't tell him," Huizenga said. "Or maybe a player has a severely injured knee before the Super Bowl. Give him an injection of cortisone and send him in the game.

"These are serious ethical issues facing team doctors, but it's a system that we've railed against for years and nothing seems to have changed."

______

Korey Stringer An offensive line- man for the Minnes- ota Vikings, Stringer died of heatstroke in the 2001 training camp. His wife, Kelci, is suing the
team for $100 million.

O.J. McDuffie

The former Miami Dolphins receiver is suing team doctors because of a 1999 toe injury that ended his career. The case remains in circuit court.

Dick Butkus

The Chicago Bears legend won a $600,000 settlement in the 1970s from
the team doctor over repeated cortisone shots to his knees. ______

Herald-Tribune writer Tom Balog contributed to this report.

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