AB 1309 - Told You So

There's no surprise that California Governor Jerry Brown signed the National Football League's bill largely terminating workers' compensation benefits for nearly every football player that could ever make a claim, what with its draconian eligibility requirements and jurisdictional restrictions. I had predicted this bill would pass.

And it's no surprise that nobody cares.

Except Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, who said yesterday that the NFL, “unabashedly misrepresented its effect to the soft-headed state legislators who sponsored and passed it.”

The NFL is incredibly powerful because it is the biggest, most profitable sports franchise in the world. The NFL means jobs, means taxes, means entertainment.

But most of all, the NFL means money - lots of money. Last season's estimated revenues were reported to be $9.5 billion, about 25% more than Major League Baseball. Forbes values the average NFL franchise at $1.17 billion.

I don't know what the residual economy is swirling around the NFL - sports betting, patronization of bars, travel, workers' compensation insurance premiums, etc. - but I'm sure it's billions more.

Dr. Bennett Omalu, who was the first physician to identify accurately the incredible increase in Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in professional football players says in the Public Broadcasting System's documentary, "League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis":

"I wish I never met Mike Webster [Webster was a former Steelers center and was the first player where the NFL, through its retirement board, acknowledge any link between football and brain trauma]. CTE has driven me into the politics of science, the politics of the NFL. You can't go against the NFL. They will squash you."

And that is really what this new law is all about - it is the culmination of a long drive to the goal by the NFL using the hefty might of its offensive line to bully, lie, intimidate and if there's too much resistance, just plow over whoever gets in the way.

Because the NFL knows that mostly everybody doesn't care about the athletes, so why should they?

For instance, a research group from Boston University published an independent report linking CTE to football and presented their research at the 2009 Super Bowl. No one showed up.

There is no rational reason for the discrimination reflected in AB 1309 other than the well planned "settlement" the league entered into with the player's union to pay for, over time, concussive brain disorders - something the league for many, many years completely disputed, even after their own study linked player's dramatic probability of brain injury. And I argue that settlement is inadequate.

Angie Wei, legislative director of the California Labor Federation and more famous to us in the work comp industry as the person who negotiated SB 863 on the Labor side of the table, told the Los Angeles Times, "This is a terrible precedent for players and a more dangerous precedent for all workers."

I was confronted at the California Workers' Compensation and Risk Conference last week by a high level insurance executive, who did not wish to be quoted, with claims administration oversight authority of his company's professional sports exposure about my stance against AB 1309. His essential argument was that the applicant's bar had taken the liberality of California work comp too far with professional players and that carriers were paying for claims decades old made by players with little connection to California.

I can sympathize with that argument, and likely wouldn't have a problem IF a) other states took care of their own players (and in my opinion they don't) AND b) AB 1309 didn't discriminate against the entertainers - the people for whom audiences actually pay to see - and who for the most part have very little earnings from their professional careers. After all, the bill covers ALL professionals in football, baseball, hockey, basketball and hockey.

For instance, minor league professional baseball players starts their first year at a MAXIMUM salary of $850 per month. If you get up to triple-A ball, then you can get $2,150 per month. In hockey a minor league player might make up to $39,000 per year, but it is pro-rated daily over the regular season. These aren't highly paid athletes, and now they are largely left with no remedy for the injuries incurred doing their jobs.

As noted in the Times article, the average professional life of a football player is only 4 years. During those 4 years one needs to make enough money to pay for his own medical insurance since the NFL doesn't provide such coverage post retirement.

The bill would cover Arena Football players who make a whopping $500 per game, or maybe $12,000 per year if they play all 18 games with bonuses and incentives.

Athletes in the National Basketball Association's D-league, or Development league, averaged between $12,000 and $24,000 per year.

One way to get the NFL to pay for the medical care needed by its employees who are the ones responsible for the $9.5 billion/year juggernaut we see on television is through workers' compensation.

But NO - instead now the rest of the nation gets to pay, even more, for its entertainment through social security, Medicare and other social programs.

Just another way for Big Business to stick it to the Little Guy, and the Little Guys just bends over - just read the comments to the LA Times article; there's no comprehension of workers' compensation, of athlete pay, or of league profits. People just want their football.

The NFL knows that America is populated mostly by the ignorant and that it has the most powerful marketing machine known to corporate America. The league's marketers are true professionals, turning a negative (unwanted attention to head trauma) and spinning it with the Head Health Initiative suckering GE into sponsoring it with a $60 million deal.

Dr. Omalu is right. You can't go against the NFL. Even Jerry Brown, probably one of the most independent politicians to run California in a long time, is a sucker for football.

The question in my mind is how far will this go? How many other special interest industries will see what the NFL accomplished and seek the demise of certain provisions of California workers' compensation law that cover and assist the working people of this state?

Time will tell of course. The door is opened however and I don't see it getting shut any time soon. Until some really smart plaintiff's lawyer figures out how to sue a team civilly ...