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On espn.com, John Clayton pegs the player’s salaries as 60% of the NFL’s total expenses.  He also reiterates a now widely-circulated number of $25 million of profit for each team in 2008.  He also refers to a report issued by Chicago Partners on the state of NFL finances that I’m currently unable to find.

A smaller workforce with more lucrative contracts for shorter duration is the model that is working for the NFL right now. Players sacrifice long term job security for short term windfalls, and seem to do so very willingly. This is the opposite of the auto workers labor model, where a consistent paycheck in the prize. However, the NFL is able to generate nearly 50% more revenue per unionized employee than, for instance, Ford is. At the same time, the NFL is able to run a business that’s self-sustaining and not in need of bailouts from the US government.

Does the auto industry have something to learn from the NFL model? If it employed smaller, more highly paid and more highly skilled workforces, would it be in the condition it is in now? What if divisions of carmakers were split into self-organizing teams, playing by a set of specific rules, competing for the prize of getting their vehicle to market? What if market strategy were dictated from below by technology and specialists competing against each other, as opposed to having market strategy dictated from above and sold to the consumers? Would we end up building better more efficient cars that address customer needs as opposed to addressing the need to build something that the auto industry is already good at? Providing a long-term stable job is a laudable goal, but not if that company is not able to react to changing market conditions and customer concerns nimbly.

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