New York Giants Field of Dreams at the Meadowlands

March 16, 2011

NEW YORK (nygreporter.com) – The New York Giants christened their brand new stadium this past season in 2010. It was a 10-6 year and they missed the playoffs in a year when an NFL team made it into the playoffs with a 7-9 record, no I’m not kidding. Makes you wonder. The new Giants stadium (which all Giants fans will call it forever) is a massive structure and outfitted with all of the newest technology. This stadium should stand strong for many decades and it looks like all of our dreams were dashed at the news that the Jets wanted to split the costs and continue to stay in the guest bedroom for the next few decades. That is the New York Giants house and always will be.

The story gets better. New Meadowlands stadium (official name) won the bid to host the 2014 Super Bowl. This will be the experiment of a lifetime to see how a cold weather Super Bowl performs against their warmer climate counterparts. It sounds like it is a long way off but the truth is that it’s 3 short years away from being a reality. I predict that the physical ticket sales to the game will be the highest price tickets (this includes the street value) in Super Bowl history and it will hold that record for quite some time. New York and New Jersey are going to go absolutely nuts once this event rolls around. The parties at the surrounding bars and hotels will be seen from space. Talk about field of dreams, can you imagine the city if the Giants are playing in that Super Bowl? What if they were playing the Jets? The thought of a subway series at the New Meadowlands stadium is a big idea and a big deal. It would be off the charts.

I know the topic of the new stadium has been discussed many times before but I have been hearing extra chatter from the Jets fans lately and wanted to be sure to mention how the Giants let them stay there for over 30 years. Giants fans are not talkative or obnoxious. They revel in the fact that the Mara and Tisch families have kept things classy and remain committed to the sport in general. We will include a message below to the fans from the owners that was posted on Giants.com over the weekend, after the 2011 NFL lockout began. Will the Giants get to play on that brand new field once again in 2011 or will the lockout ruin this season? I remain optimistic that they will work something out soon. What do you think?

RD – nygreporter.com

Please support the Eric LeGrand charity walk this June 4, 2011! Check it out at http://www.awalktobelieve.org

Message to Giants fans from John Mara and Steve Tisch

We are as disappointed as you are in the developments of the past week and the current state of negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement. For there to be no CBA in place today is extremely disappointing, given the amount of time and hard work and the numerous conversations devoted to achieving an agreement, not just in the last two weeks but over the last two years. We are not happy about that and we certainly understand and appreciate your unhappiness and frustration. Where we are today serves no positive purpose for you, for our players and for the National Football League. Although we had hoped and expected to have an agreement by now and are disappointed that we do not, we remain as committed as ever to returning this process where it belongs, which is the negotiating table. We are convinced that what we have stated many times remains true, that there will be a new agreement and there will be a 2011 NFL season. It is just a matter of when we are able to reach an accord on the current issues. The impatience and the displeasure we know you are feeling is completely understandable. We can only assure you that the point of the entire process is to make our game as strong as it can possibly be and to enable it to continue to grow for the good of everybody – the league, the players and the fans. The last thing we wanted is for the business end of our sport to play out this way. We know people frankly don’t care how owners and players manage their business. These negotiations distract and detract from what is most important to all of us: the game.

We are doing all we can to return the focus as quickly as possible to where it belongs, the field of play.

Read more: http://www.giants.com/news/headlines/story.asp?story_id=44796#ixzz1GmD5aDD6
Giants Club Seats: For the best seats in the NEW GIANTS STADIUM, CLICK HERE


New York Giants Owner John Mara, Zero Panic During Lockout

March 13, 2011

NEW YORK – The Mara family has been around football since the beginning and the name holds a lot of weight around these parts. The NFL and media deem it newsworthy to mention that John Mara was one of the first to reach out during the CBA talks and prior to it. He tried to work out a deal and it’s all over the news? That means something. The NFL is in lockdown mode and who knows when the final deal will be worked out. Fans are scratching their heads wondering why these talks aren’t on CSPAN as well as the NFL Network 24 hours a day. If both sides want to be recognized and heard (the same as the MLB steroid hearings), then both sides should be heard by all. The fans know what is fair, let them be the judge since they are paying for everything anyway. Get your primary investors more involved.

I have an idea on how to save money on the salary commitments by owners. Simply adding the jersey rights program to the players, as a salary option. Generate additional revenue by using what is in front of you. Jersey sales. There must be reasons why players haven’t started charging to use their name and number more (as long as they rep their current NFL team). For example, Rebook is simply the hired hand that provides the New York Giants with their authentic NFL team jerseys. The New York Giants sell the jerseys separately as the official final product. In some cases a player will have something worked into their contracts about jersey sales. But where is the majority of that money going? I say it is time to give the players a bigger cut of that money since it is licensed through the team. This will eliminate some of the pressure the owners feel to pay their players and some of the players could make more then their initial investment. This is a win for both sides involved.

Mr. Mara has a ton of smart people around him I’m sure. I don’t know what the Giants jersey sales numbers look like, so they will have to look into it themselves. But if there are no rules against substituting $1,000,000 on 53 player contracts for apparel sales, why not give it a try so you can free up cap space. Using these numbers, the Giants had to sell a minimum of $53,000,000 worth of player jerseys (roughly 212,000 authentic or replica jerseys) in 2010 and would have to do so every year. It seems like a big number but might be worth while in certain isolated situations. If even half of these number were to work out, that would still be $26,500,000 saved in salary commitments or $1,250,000 per every 5,000 physical jerseys sold. There would be virtually no paper work if the NFL and teams hooked up with a merchant/affiliate program such as Football Fanatics. That program handles all the paper work and even mails out the money to the individual players or they can use direct deposit if preferred.

PJR – Player Jersey Rights could be worked into the contracts at a $1 million dollar annual fee, which would be deducted from the players base salary. When the player retires, he will retain 25% of the Jersey Rights permanently, as part of each players retirement package. Players must be enrolled into the annual Jersey Rights program to qualify for jersey rights at 25% for life.

Whatever the outcome or length of the lockout, I know that John Mara will not panic or make an irrational decision. I’m confident he is working hard to get things back on track. Some of the leaked issues seem to be workable, it’s the issues the public does not know about that have me concerned. What can we do? Have a lockout party of course and wait it out. Remember what I said about things happening before the 2011 NFL draft, if the lockout goes beyond that, we might be in trouble.

RD – nygreporter.com

Please support the Eric LeGrand charity walk this June 4, 2011! Check it out at http://www.awalktobelieve.org


nygreporter Sports Special: The 2011 NFL Lockout

March 12, 2011

NEW YORK – After all the time spent on the CBA negotiations and numbers, the owners and players still couldn’t get anything done by the deadline which has now come and passed. This opens up a whole different can of worms. There are more questions then answers now and it looks like lawsuits are unavoidable. The biggest question of them all is how long will the lockout last and when can the players get back to work? Trust me, all that the fans care about is when the players will go back to work. If this drags into months instead of days (it should be only days), then the NFL risks losing a bunch of fans who were on the fence to begin with. Do not be as arrogant as Rome and watch your empire crumble under the weight of greed and power.

What can they do now? Apparently, nothing will interfere with the 2011 NFL Draft “schedule” but how do teams plan for the draft with an uncertain future surrounding so many players? The Giants for example had 21 free agents this off season. How does this effect the targeted area of need for coaches and GM’s? One thing is for certain, both sides will be losing a ton of money for each day that this lingers on. Nobody wants to give up the kind of money these guys mess around with. I sincerely believe the lockout will amount to nothing more then a speed bump. My measuring stick is the 2011 NFL Draft. I believe something will happen before the draft or on the day of the draft. If it goes beyond that, then the fans should start to get concerned. That starts to run into the conditioning and all of that. Not good.

My advice to the fans would be to sit back and relax and let both sides work it out. I would be shocked if this turned into something really ugly and dragged on for too long. We are now about six weeks away from the draft, as I mentioned, consider that the true marker to keep an eye on. Once this line gets crossed, now you’re talking about physical workouts being interrupted and could it possibly mean, the return of the scabs?

How long do you think the 2011 NFL Lockout will last? Are you on the players side or the owners side during this mess?

RD – nygreporter.com

Please support the Eric LeGrand charity walk this June 4, 2011! Check it out at http://www.awalktobelieve.org