My, my, my, we are headed into the biggest off-season in the history of the NFL. If you tune out now, you are fucked-up stupid bitch. This is going to be vastly more important than the 2009 regular season, and more dramatic than any Super Bowl, for sure.
For those who do not know, SB44 shattered a television record which has stood for some 31 years. Because 98.1 million viewers tuned in to SB44, the absolute final episode of MASH now drops down to #2 on the all-time most watched program list. Personally, I am miffed that it took so long. Most of us knew that the Super Bowl was destined to shatter the MASH record sooner or later. I am shocked it took 31 shots to gun MASH down. In a real sense, this means the NFL is on an all-time high. The NFL owns the airwaves like nobody else does, and they can prove it.
On the cusp of this hyper-success we now have a voided collective bargaining agreement, a demand for an 8-18% pay-cut from the players, the threat of an uncapped 2010 (which will fuck free agency), and the threat of a lockout in 2011.
Whether you know him or not, PA boss DeMaurice Smith is the focal point of our attention. Some say the NFL owners opted out of the collective bargaining agreement to immediately test this new boss. Run right at him, so to speak, and see if he can make a tackle. Others say that our present distress has been driven by the mighty recession we are living in. Some say it is the fact that tickets cannot be purchased by the average citizen-fan of the NFL. One dreadful study indicated that only 2% of all dedicated fans have attended the games at some point. Most fans never go to the Stadium. The prices are just too high. Others say that the big market owners--such as Jerry Jones--don't like the revenue sharing protocol they must live with.
I used to wear #63 when I played football. That was because of Gene Upshaw, LeRoy Selmon, and Ernie (fat) Holmes. Upshaw was my favorite OG. When playing on the offensive side of the ball, I wanted to play like him. Although we had a couple of bad work-stoppages under his leadership, Upshaw presided over the labor union during an remarkable epoch of peace and wage growth. Despite heavy criticisms thrown at him by men like Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, you cannot deny that NFL salaries are drastically higher now than they were before Upshaw. In the final analysis, you must say that he did one hell of job for the players.
Over and against the Upshaw model is a growing perception that DeMaurice Smith is reckless, and perhaps, an adventurer in search of quest. It would be a very bad thing if this turns out to be true. Certainly his response to the question regarding the probability of a lock-out in 2011 indicates drama at best, and recklessness at worst. When asked to evaluate the probability of a lockout in 2011 on a scale of 1-10, DeMaurice replies "14". This was during Super Bowl week when all media forces were assembled to hear this. The Commish had to move to squelch a Super Bowl spoiler.
If we don't get a labor accord in just 19 days, there will be no salary cap and no salary floor in 2010. What does that mean? It means small-market teams like the Bengals, Rams and Jags may well dump all manner of expensive players to create financial savings immediately and cap room in years to come... assuming that there is a cap. This would mean a very miserable 2010 season of football in the smaller and un-profitable markets.
Worse still, this means that a whole host of restrictions will be placed on 4th year players (like Brandon Marshall and Jayri Evans) who would otherwise go free. This would make these gents plenty miserable, and would make the job of rebuilding so much more difficult for bottom teams like the Rams and Lions.
If DeMaurice Smith decides he wants to make his 14 prediction come true in 2011, this will be the moment when we really shit the money bed. Blow up the goldmine, why don't yah? As I mentioned before, the league is riding an all-time high right now. Nothing will fuck fan relations like a good strike or lock-out. The Super Bowl will not break any records in 2012 if there is a stoppage in 2011, I will assure you of that. Both sides have copious amounts of money to loose.
What happens if it does come down to a lock-out in 2011? Who will win? I am not sure anybody will win. Both sides will both come out with nasty bullet wounds in their chests. However, I would suspect that the players will come out worse for it.
Why do I say that? Does anybody still remember 1987? Nope, of course not. Tim Tebow and Jevan Snead were born in this year, ergo most of the current players cannot remember that far back. Even retired guys like Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin were not in the league at that time.
As one of the elders who does remember 1987, let me tell you what happened. The NFL organized scab games and went ahead with their plans to play football. A host of young men who never made it from college came out to live their fantasy of playing in the NFL. The regular players were pissed, however, they began crossing the lines immediately.
How about a tale of two Raiders? Howie Long rejoined the Raiders almost immediately. Vets like Todd Christiansen who stayed resolute were cut by Al Davis and driven out of the league. Howie remained one of Al Davis's favorites for years to come, and Al is still pissed about Howie's early retirement. I have never heard Al speak of Todd Christensen. It is as if he never existed.
It is worth noting that the Super Bowl that season was one of the epic duds for the ages. The Redskins defeated the Brocos 45-17.
The strike broke down after 4 weeks. In general, I think it is fair to say that a lot of players crossed the lines in a lot of cities, and the reason was that they could not afford to go without that 1/16th of their annual salary that comes with each game played. Players don't seem to manage their money well at all, and without that next check, they find it impossible to maintain that lavish lifestyle that they are hooked on. This is our one hope that (if worse comes to worse) it will be brief.
In the meanwhile, we also have just 73 days until the NFL Draft 2010. This is a pivotal moment out there for all 20 teams left out of the playoffs this season, but none more so than my Rams. This is one of those rare moments when there will probably be a change or two at QBs. We may acquire Mike Vick. We will also probably draft a future signal caller this year. Let's hope that is Tim Tebow. Mistakes in this area are absolutely deadly. Many a headcoach has been fired because of a bad draft decision vis-a-vis a QB. The fate of Steve Spagnuolo may hang in the balance here.
Folks, the crucial moments are now upon us. We are living in them. Now that we have all this Super Bowl non-sense out of the way, we can get down to some seriously dramatic business.
Showing posts with label Labor Accord. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labor Accord. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The Great Depression II will be good for Hollywood
In Hollywood, there has always been a huge battle between the artists and the entertainment companies. It is almost like the struggle between pitchers and batters in baseball, or offense and defense in football. This is the entire warp and woof of the game, from an insiders perspective.
Entertainment companies are run by businessmen. They want to make money. The best way to do that is to give the people what they want from a movie: Entertainment. Declinations from this stance are punishable by low profits and bad losses.
By the way, I should mention that the definition of hit has nothing to do with what the critics, the people, or the Oscars say about a film. A hit is defined as a 15% rate of internal studio return, within 12 calendar months, after all costs and payouts have been made. 15% pure cream makes a movie a hit. If you make this rate of return within 12 calendar months, you made a hit. It does not matter how the film is ultimately remembered or what people said about it. It made money. It was a hit.
Artists are manic, depressive, schizophrenic people with sexual and substance abuse problems. They are also extremely narcissistic. They think there can be nothing more important, or timely, or provocative, or artistic than stories about their personal problems. They think personal confessions are the stuff of art. Artists like money, but they like to tell their own personal stories about heroine addiction and homosexuality and life with AIDS much more.
Entertainment companies realize that grueling, punishing, depressing stories about actors and writers with heroine addiction, homosexual issues and AIDS related illnesses have zero commercial value at the box office. That's right, I said zero commercial value. When you toss in the manic, depressive, bipolar schizophrenia behavior, the screenplay really gets ugly beyond ugly.
These movies very seldom make a 15% rate of internal studio return within 12 months. Most of them loose money. 75% of the people in the United States of America have no interest buying a $10 ticket for a film about an actor who peddles his ass on the streets of West Hollywood whilst awaiting his break, only to become addicted to smack and infected with HIV. 50% of the people wouldn't watch that movie if you showed it to them for free. 25% wouldn't watch if you offered them free chicken and biscuts along with a free ticket.
Nevertheless, this doesn't prevent 20 such screenplays from being written each and every year. Go down to West Hollywood and stop at any Starbucks for a cup of coffee. You will see three guys, each with an Apple MacBook, writing just such a screenplay right now. I assure you, these three guys are each convinced that they are writing the most important literary work in the past 20 years. They know they are way beyond cool. They will all be shocked when doors get slammed in their faces. The corporate studios just can't recognize great art, or so they say.
Now how does this connect with the Great Depression II? Movies did well during the Great Depression I. It turns out that Hollywood is surging right now, but not everybody is doing equally well. It is said that Paramount may well fold in the year 2009. They are going to release just 18 new films this year. In the glory days, they tried to have 1 film ready to launch every single week. Not so now.
Everybody is keenly aware of Paramount's problems. The other four major studios are watching Paramount's dilemmas very closely. They know many of the material weaknesses in the Paramount system are evident in their own systems as well. They know they could suffer collapse unless they rid themselves of the problems Paramount is suffering from.
What are these problems? You might call it the Labor-Accord of the 1960s. I'm not talking about Unions or pay or benefits. I am talking about the balance of Art vs. Entertainment. You see, ever since the 1960s, there has been a clear understanding that goes a little something like this.
Artists have to work on a certain number of blockbuster A-pics each year for their respective studios. These are movies designed from jump street to make money. Hopefully they all make money. Some profits from these successful blockbusters are used to finance a limited number of art movies which the artists basically control. This is where you get strange movies like the ones made by Fox Searchlight, or Disney's Miramax. These movies contain a lot of drug addiction, insanity and homosexuality. Everybody understands that very few of these art films ever turn a profit. If you don't work on the blockbusters, you don't get to do an art film. If your blockbuster doesn't make money, you don't get to do a movie about your psychological train-wreck. You don't get any pudding until you finish your meat.
The only problem with this theory is that the blockbusters cost a ton of money, and they don't necessarily hit. When they fail, blockbusters loose a ton of money. Eddie Murphy's notorious Pluto Nash lost something like $90 million for Paramount. {This is an example of a worst case scenario.} The key point is that there are no sure-fire blockbusters. Some people in Hollywood say you need two good blockbusters just to cover the cost of one blockbuster failure. When you throw in the failures of the art films, you really start to encounter financial problems.
There were artists in Hollywood during the Great Depression I. They suffered the same insanity, drug addictions and homosexual issues current Hollywood artists do. There were also studio businessmen in Hollywood during the era of the Great Depression I. There was no Labor-Accord like the kind we have today. It was understood that money was too dear, failure too damaging, and studio-collapse too close to waste lots of capital on art films. The result was that very few art flicks got made during the Great Depression I. Thank God for that.
Rather, Hollywood constructed the Grindhouse system. A couple of film crews were formed at each major studio, and they were supposed to grind out 1 film every 2 weeks. Everybody had the same amount of time to write. Everybody had the same budget to shoot the pic. Some turned out. Some didn't. Any major actor under contract might shoot 10 or 15 movies per year. John Wayne did this during WWII. The objective was entertainment, always. The objective was to give the people a good show for their money, always. You were an entertainer, working for an entertainment company in those days, period. If you wanted to be an artist, you could get on a plane for Paris or Rome.
Most of the movies considered all-time classics were shot under this Grindhouse system. Casablanca was shot in this fashion. Casablanca is one of those films thought to be in top 5 all-time list.
Might this system return today? Might history repeat itself in Hollywood as the Great Depression II sets in?
Not exactly, but something like it is going to emerge. The model the Majors are studying very closely is Lion's Gate Entertainment. Lion's Gate has become little-big studio. It is the largest and most profitable of the minor studios in Hollywood, Pixar included. Right from its very inception, the guys driving the Lion's Gate project had a clear-cut objective of becoming a major studio. They didn't want to replace 1 of the big 5 studios, rather they wanted to become the 6th major studio. How do you do this?
Unless the studio execs can see a clear-cut path to profits, Lion's Gate will not finance a film. This means they make a lot of comic book films, action blockbusters, and horror movies. The objective is to give the people a good show for their money. The objective is to give the people what they want: Entertainment. If you work for Lion's Gate, you are a professional entertainer working for an entertainment company.
Lion's Gate is detested by the Hollywood art community. The members of SAG do not speak well of Lion's Gate. They are considered the ultimate corporate commercial studio in Hollywood. This means they don't finance art films. You don't see a lot of movies about heroine addiction, insanity and homosexuality coming from Lion's Gate. Despite their hard-hearted rejection of the art film, Lion's Gate is winning this game. They keep turning in one great winning season after another. SAG members often shake their heads in dismay that a studio can so brazenly disregard art and yet do so well financially.
If Paramount should fail, Lion's Gate will likely be the chief benefactor of this collapse. Lion's Gate will probably buy "I Love Lucy" and "Star Trek". Lion's gate will probably gain the Lion's share of the investor capital that Paramount once controlled. When the Hedge Funds return to the table, Lion's Gate will probably become the 5th major studio.
Moreover, the collapse of Paramount would send shock waves of fear through Warner Brothers, Universal and Fox. It is a copycat league. Teams emulate success and they anti-emulate failure. You can expect Warner, Universal and Fox to move away from their current systems {the Labor-Accord Paramount also practices} and move towards the model Lion's Gate manifests.
This would mean no finance for art films... At least from the major studios. This would mean artists would have to self-finance their movies about insanity, drug addiction and homosexuality. Most artists don't like that idea. They seem to be aware that they won't be able to punish society with very many films on this subject should these events come to pass.
Entertainment companies are run by businessmen. They want to make money. The best way to do that is to give the people what they want from a movie: Entertainment. Declinations from this stance are punishable by low profits and bad losses.
By the way, I should mention that the definition of hit has nothing to do with what the critics, the people, or the Oscars say about a film. A hit is defined as a 15% rate of internal studio return, within 12 calendar months, after all costs and payouts have been made. 15% pure cream makes a movie a hit. If you make this rate of return within 12 calendar months, you made a hit. It does not matter how the film is ultimately remembered or what people said about it. It made money. It was a hit.
Artists are manic, depressive, schizophrenic people with sexual and substance abuse problems. They are also extremely narcissistic. They think there can be nothing more important, or timely, or provocative, or artistic than stories about their personal problems. They think personal confessions are the stuff of art. Artists like money, but they like to tell their own personal stories about heroine addiction and homosexuality and life with AIDS much more.
Entertainment companies realize that grueling, punishing, depressing stories about actors and writers with heroine addiction, homosexual issues and AIDS related illnesses have zero commercial value at the box office. That's right, I said zero commercial value. When you toss in the manic, depressive, bipolar schizophrenia behavior, the screenplay really gets ugly beyond ugly.
These movies very seldom make a 15% rate of internal studio return within 12 months. Most of them loose money. 75% of the people in the United States of America have no interest buying a $10 ticket for a film about an actor who peddles his ass on the streets of West Hollywood whilst awaiting his break, only to become addicted to smack and infected with HIV. 50% of the people wouldn't watch that movie if you showed it to them for free. 25% wouldn't watch if you offered them free chicken and biscuts along with a free ticket.
Nevertheless, this doesn't prevent 20 such screenplays from being written each and every year. Go down to West Hollywood and stop at any Starbucks for a cup of coffee. You will see three guys, each with an Apple MacBook, writing just such a screenplay right now. I assure you, these three guys are each convinced that they are writing the most important literary work in the past 20 years. They know they are way beyond cool. They will all be shocked when doors get slammed in their faces. The corporate studios just can't recognize great art, or so they say.
Now how does this connect with the Great Depression II? Movies did well during the Great Depression I. It turns out that Hollywood is surging right now, but not everybody is doing equally well. It is said that Paramount may well fold in the year 2009. They are going to release just 18 new films this year. In the glory days, they tried to have 1 film ready to launch every single week. Not so now.
Everybody is keenly aware of Paramount's problems. The other four major studios are watching Paramount's dilemmas very closely. They know many of the material weaknesses in the Paramount system are evident in their own systems as well. They know they could suffer collapse unless they rid themselves of the problems Paramount is suffering from.
What are these problems? You might call it the Labor-Accord of the 1960s. I'm not talking about Unions or pay or benefits. I am talking about the balance of Art vs. Entertainment. You see, ever since the 1960s, there has been a clear understanding that goes a little something like this.
Artists have to work on a certain number of blockbuster A-pics each year for their respective studios. These are movies designed from jump street to make money. Hopefully they all make money. Some profits from these successful blockbusters are used to finance a limited number of art movies which the artists basically control. This is where you get strange movies like the ones made by Fox Searchlight, or Disney's Miramax. These movies contain a lot of drug addiction, insanity and homosexuality. Everybody understands that very few of these art films ever turn a profit. If you don't work on the blockbusters, you don't get to do an art film. If your blockbuster doesn't make money, you don't get to do a movie about your psychological train-wreck. You don't get any pudding until you finish your meat.
The only problem with this theory is that the blockbusters cost a ton of money, and they don't necessarily hit. When they fail, blockbusters loose a ton of money. Eddie Murphy's notorious Pluto Nash lost something like $90 million for Paramount. {This is an example of a worst case scenario.} The key point is that there are no sure-fire blockbusters. Some people in Hollywood say you need two good blockbusters just to cover the cost of one blockbuster failure. When you throw in the failures of the art films, you really start to encounter financial problems.
There were artists in Hollywood during the Great Depression I. They suffered the same insanity, drug addictions and homosexual issues current Hollywood artists do. There were also studio businessmen in Hollywood during the era of the Great Depression I. There was no Labor-Accord like the kind we have today. It was understood that money was too dear, failure too damaging, and studio-collapse too close to waste lots of capital on art films. The result was that very few art flicks got made during the Great Depression I. Thank God for that.
Rather, Hollywood constructed the Grindhouse system. A couple of film crews were formed at each major studio, and they were supposed to grind out 1 film every 2 weeks. Everybody had the same amount of time to write. Everybody had the same budget to shoot the pic. Some turned out. Some didn't. Any major actor under contract might shoot 10 or 15 movies per year. John Wayne did this during WWII. The objective was entertainment, always. The objective was to give the people a good show for their money, always. You were an entertainer, working for an entertainment company in those days, period. If you wanted to be an artist, you could get on a plane for Paris or Rome.
Most of the movies considered all-time classics were shot under this Grindhouse system. Casablanca was shot in this fashion. Casablanca is one of those films thought to be in top 5 all-time list.
Might this system return today? Might history repeat itself in Hollywood as the Great Depression II sets in?
Not exactly, but something like it is going to emerge. The model the Majors are studying very closely is Lion's Gate Entertainment. Lion's Gate has become little-big studio. It is the largest and most profitable of the minor studios in Hollywood, Pixar included. Right from its very inception, the guys driving the Lion's Gate project had a clear-cut objective of becoming a major studio. They didn't want to replace 1 of the big 5 studios, rather they wanted to become the 6th major studio. How do you do this?
Unless the studio execs can see a clear-cut path to profits, Lion's Gate will not finance a film. This means they make a lot of comic book films, action blockbusters, and horror movies. The objective is to give the people a good show for their money. The objective is to give the people what they want: Entertainment. If you work for Lion's Gate, you are a professional entertainer working for an entertainment company.
Lion's Gate is detested by the Hollywood art community. The members of SAG do not speak well of Lion's Gate. They are considered the ultimate corporate commercial studio in Hollywood. This means they don't finance art films. You don't see a lot of movies about heroine addiction, insanity and homosexuality coming from Lion's Gate. Despite their hard-hearted rejection of the art film, Lion's Gate is winning this game. They keep turning in one great winning season after another. SAG members often shake their heads in dismay that a studio can so brazenly disregard art and yet do so well financially.
If Paramount should fail, Lion's Gate will likely be the chief benefactor of this collapse. Lion's Gate will probably buy "I Love Lucy" and "Star Trek". Lion's gate will probably gain the Lion's share of the investor capital that Paramount once controlled. When the Hedge Funds return to the table, Lion's Gate will probably become the 5th major studio.
Moreover, the collapse of Paramount would send shock waves of fear through Warner Brothers, Universal and Fox. It is a copycat league. Teams emulate success and they anti-emulate failure. You can expect Warner, Universal and Fox to move away from their current systems {the Labor-Accord Paramount also practices} and move towards the model Lion's Gate manifests.
This would mean no finance for art films... At least from the major studios. This would mean artists would have to self-finance their movies about insanity, drug addiction and homosexuality. Most artists don't like that idea. They seem to be aware that they won't be able to punish society with very many films on this subject should these events come to pass.
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