That I do not agree with. You can say "current players" who already have rich pockets are more valuable, but not "players" in general. If they caused a storm and lost major players and took a possible revenue loss for a year or two, a magical thing would happen. A brand new group of players with empty pockets would arrive, and old players who had not managed their money well would rethink things.
Okay let’s create a scenario:
The NFL no longer wants the NFLPA and their litigations. So they break with them and start anew.
The problem is the NFLPA is a union, meaning every player was under contract through that union. If the NFL wants to break off from the NFLPA, they would be voiding each and every players’ contract... in the entire NFL. Now the NFL has absolute autonomy, can do anything they want to the players. Why would the players be okay with this? They wouldn’t. So they get new executives who set up a make shift league, not unlike the XFL or the USFL. Difference? They have all the NFL players.
so in 12 months time we have a Super Bowl played by the Green Bay Packers and the Cleveland Browns. The starting QBs are a guy from the arena league and a guy from the indoor football league. Players who never even saw the nfl because they weren’t particularly good in college. It’s a sloppy game, lots of turnovers.
Now to the upstart league’s championship, the Tempe Tomcats with Russell Wilson throwing to Odell Beckham and Julio Jones, vs the New Hampshire Hampsters, with Tom Brady and Aaron Donald going on a torrid pace through the whole league.
Which game do you think people would want to watch? The sponsors go with the audience, all the money would be in the new league in a matter of months. Suddenly the 3b$ NFL teams aren’t even worth 300m$.
The players are the league. It’s already happening in the NBA, they have guaranteed contracts and just say when they’re done playing for a team. What can the league do? Tell them they don’t need that player? They absolutely do, it’s their entire profit model.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t root for Jeffrey Lurie. I root for my guys