Regardless of whether the NFL would have suspended a player six games for the same Personal Conduct Policy that resulted in a six-game suspension for 49ers owner Jed York, there’s a fundamental disparity between the handling of the financial consequences of owner and player suspensions.
When a player is suspended, he loses all of his compensation. Depending on the terms of the contract, he becomes potentially responsible to refund money (e.g., signing bonus) that he already has received. At a minimum, the player gets no new pay during the period of his suspension.
When an owner is suspended, what does he lose? He can’t go to the games. He still gets his full cut of the massive revenues that the 32 teams share, for every week of his suspension.
Yes, the sheer magnitude of the money involved is very different. But there are no distinctions drawn between the highest- and lowest-paid players who are suspended. If a player is suspended for a game, he loses all of the money he would have made.
On the surface, York’s $500,000 fine seems significant. Considering that the franchises shared $453 million last year (based on the Packers’ annual financial report), $500,000 is a drop in the bucket. It’s a mere 0.11 percent of the shared revenue. (Teams directly make even more than that, which isn’t shared.)
We’re not suggesting that York should lose the per-game equivalent of the money his team makes. The point is that, for the player, a suspension results in a 100 percent loss of his football earnings. For York, he’ll sacrifice the ability to attend six games (he self-suspended for three) and lose a very small slice of the money he’ll make during the six games for which he’s suspended.
That fact alone shows that, even though the league says owners are held to a higher standard than players, the system takes all of the player’s revenue — and hardly any of the owner’s.