When Is a Superstar Just Another Employee? (Update)

0:00:04 [MUSIC]
0:00:08 Hey there, it’s Stephen Dubner, and I thought you might need a bonus episode of
0:00:10 Freakonomics Radio for the upcoming Super Bowl.
0:00:14 We recently put out a new episode about the economics of the running back
0:00:15 position in the NFL.
0:00:19 This episode, which we first published in 2023,
0:00:23 looked at NFL teams as employers.
0:00:27 We’ve updated facts and figures as necessary, although the team rankings we
0:00:30 discussed are from the 2023 report card.
0:00:34 So stick around to the end to hear what changed in 2024.
0:00:36 As always, thanks for listening.
0:00:43 [MUSIC]
0:00:47 When I say the words workplace environment, where does your mind go?
0:00:51 If you’re like most people, you might think about an environment like this.
0:00:54 Or like this.
0:00:58 Maybe even something like this.
0:01:01 Stand clear of the closing doors, please.
0:01:08 What you probably don’t think about when I say workplace environment is this.
0:01:12 [MUSIC]
0:01:18 But if you are one of the roughly 2000 men who play in the National Football League,
0:01:20 that’s your office.
0:01:23 I mean, it’s business, let’s not get it wrong, it’s business.
0:01:29 The NFL Players Association, or NFLPA, is the union that represents the players.
0:01:35 And in 2023, they conducted their first ever employee survey about workplace
0:01:36 conditions.
0:01:39 I would never have thought to ask, are there rats in your locker room?
0:01:43 And they gave letter grades to each of the league’s 32 teams.
0:01:47 This is really about, are we giving you the inputs you need to be as productive
0:01:49 as possible?
0:01:53 The NFL is the richest and most successful sports league in history.
0:01:57 Each team is worth at least $4 billion.
0:01:59 Nobody wants to be known as the cheapskate.
0:02:03 Before, when it was rumored you were the cheapskate, it was harder to prove.
0:02:05 Now there’s data.
0:02:09 And what does the data have to say?
0:02:13 Among US employees in general, job satisfaction is higher than it’s been
0:02:14 in decades.
0:02:18 How satisfied are NFL players?
0:02:22 Now, you may be saying to yourself, who cares about the workplace environment
0:02:23 of NFL players?
0:02:26 They make so much money, the environment shouldn’t matter.
0:02:31 Or you may say, pro football is so different from what I do for a living,
0:02:35 there’s no way I’m going to learn anything worthwhile from this.
0:02:40 Well, if we have done our job in making this episode, you will.
0:02:45 At the very least, with another NFL season in the books, you will learn which teams
0:02:48 got the best grades and the worst.
0:02:50 Never really heard of an F minus before.
0:03:08 This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side
0:03:11 of everything with your host, Steven Dubner.
0:03:20 [MUSIC PLAYING]
0:03:24 Imagine that you have just graduated from college with a degree in, say,
0:03:25 mechanical engineering.
0:03:29 And you know exactly what kind of company you want to work for.
0:03:34 And let’s say there are 32 such companies within a 100-mile radius
0:03:35 of where you want to live.
0:03:39 So which company will you end up at?
0:03:41 To a large degree, that is up to you.
0:03:43 You can apply wherever you’d like.
0:03:47 And if that company thinks you are qualified and they make you an offer,
0:03:51 you can decide whether to accept or reject the job.
0:03:55 This is not how it works in professional sports.
0:03:59 Imagine now that instead of studying mechanical engineering,
0:04:01 you went to college to play football.
0:04:04 If you are good enough to play in the National Football League,
0:04:08 or if you’re an athlete good enough to play in any of the other major American
0:04:12 sports leagues, you don’t get to choose which team you play for.
0:04:16 It’s the teams that choose the players in an annual draft.
0:04:20 Teams with the worst records the previous season typically get to pick earlier
0:04:23 in the draft and the best teams pick later.
0:04:28 In the NFL, most rookie contracts will bind you to that team for four years.
0:04:34 The top ranked players may sign huge rookie contracts with millions of dollars guaranteed.
0:04:36 But that’s just the top of the pyramid.
0:04:40 Around 50 percent of NFL players make the league minimum.
0:04:44 This year, that was a base salary of $840,000 for a rookie
0:04:47 with gradual increases for each year of service.
0:04:51 So yes, that’s a big paycheck compared to most first jobs.
0:04:56 But the average NFL career is barely three years long.
0:05:00 So a lot of players are out of the league before their rookie contract expires.
0:05:04 They are replaced by someone even younger and cheaper.
0:05:07 If you are good enough to stick around, pass that rookie contract.
0:05:11 And if you’re lucky enough to have remained healthy, those are two big ifs.
0:05:14 Then you become what is called an unrestricted free agent.
0:05:18 And you can sell your services to whichever team wants you.
0:05:23 Finally, after four years in the NFL, you have achieved the workforce freedom
0:05:26 of a newly graduated mechanical engineer.
0:05:33 At this point, you may be in for big money, five or 10, even $50 million a year.
0:05:37 And how does a free agent decide which team to play for?
0:05:43 Your agent will speak to all the interested teams, try to drive up your price
0:05:45 and help you sort through the offers.
0:05:48 There’s a lot to consider how the payout will be structured,
0:05:52 what kind of incentives and bonus clauses you can get in the contract,
0:05:56 even the occasional restrictive clause like in the recent contract,
0:06:01 the Arizona Cardinals offered to resign their star quarterback, Kyler Murray.
0:06:04 They wanted Murray to, here, I’ll read from the contract.
0:06:10 They wanted him to complete at least four hours of independent study each week.
0:06:13 In other words, they wanted to make sure he’s doing his homework,
0:06:17 studying the playbook, watching film at night, things like that.
0:06:22 Arizona was criticized for adding this clause and they ultimately removed it.
0:06:26 And Murray did sign the contract, a five-year deal that could pay out more
0:06:29 than $230 million.
0:06:34 When players get to choose their team, they usually go with the highest dollar offer.
0:06:37 But there are other factors to consider.
0:06:39 How good is the team?
0:06:41 Most players want to play for winners.
0:06:46 How good is the coaching staff and how secure if they’re in danger of getting fired?
0:06:48 You may be too.
0:06:50 You might consider the weather.
0:06:53 Are you a Miami guy or a Minnesota guy?
0:06:59 And maybe you will also consider the workplace conditions at your new club.
0:07:02 How good is the locker room and the weight room?
0:07:04 What about the food?
0:07:08 How does the team treat your family members on game day?
0:07:11 Those are the kind of questions most of us wouldn’t think to ask.
0:07:16 But Joseph Carl Treader, Jr. isn’t most people.
0:07:21 When we interviewed Treader for this episode, he was president of the NFL Players Association.
0:07:28 His tenure ended in 2024, and he was succeeded by Detroit Lions linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maven.
0:07:31 You’ll hear from him a little later in this episode.
0:07:34 I asked Treader to start with his college background.
0:07:40 I went to Cornell University and studied industrial labor relations.
0:07:44 That’s a pretty typical college and major for an NFL prospect, yes?
0:07:45 Yeah.
0:07:49 It’s not the normal pipeline to the pros and I think leading into my election, it probably
0:07:57 helped substantially because there’s not many Cornell ILR grads walking around the NFL.
0:08:01 The election, Treader mentioned, was for the union presidency.
0:08:07 He had a long successful career in the NFL, nine seasons as an offensive lineman for the
0:08:13 Green Bay Packers and the Cleveland Browns with around $45 million in career earnings.
0:08:20 He retired in 2022 at age 31 and he had two years left on his term as union president.
0:08:25 I was looking for some new projects to do, so I had a ton of time on my hands and it
0:08:27 was like, I’m going to take a stab at this.
0:08:33 This being the workplace survey of all current NFL players, which the union had been talking
0:08:34 about for years.
0:08:39 As we saw the responses start pouring in, this is a proof of concept.
0:08:40 Yeah.
0:08:41 I was shocked at the response rate.
0:08:44 I don’t know how many players got the survey and how many responded.
0:08:49 We have 2,200 active players and we had 1,300 fill out the survey, which is about 60%.
0:08:53 As we saw the numbers start pouring in, it was like, oh man, we have to do something
0:08:54 here.
0:08:58 It’s going to be like report cards, you had to ask somewhat qualitative but also quantitative
0:09:02 questions to try to figure out how to compare these franchises.
0:09:04 Give an example or two.
0:09:08 Rate your locker room one to five, but then also what would you change about your locker
0:09:09 room?
0:09:10 What’s missing in your locker room?
0:09:15 What would be in a five rated locker room and what would be in or maybe missing from
0:09:16 a one rated locker room?
0:09:19 I would never have thought to ask, are there rats in your locker room?
0:09:21 Are there physical rats in your locker room?
0:09:24 And yet that comes out in the survey because there were.
0:09:26 In Jacksonville, we should say.
0:09:27 Not everywhere.
0:09:28 Right.
0:09:32 You have to allow the players to fill you in with what’s bothering them.
0:09:36 There’s one team that doesn’t have outlets in their lockers where they can’t charge their
0:09:37 devices.
0:09:38 Who is that?
0:09:39 Cincinnati.
0:09:47 The survey was conducted online with guaranteed anonymity.
0:09:52 In our business, you’re so on razor’s edge of being cut and losing your job.
0:09:57 The idea that these owners actually think players can walk into their office and tell
0:10:00 them like, Hey, I think you’re being cheap and you’re not spending enough money on us
0:10:04 and there wouldn’t be any retribution is a little crazy to me.
0:10:08 There are some players that do and a lot of it’s the star quarterbacks who are untouchable
0:10:12 or players that have guaranteed money and feel like they’re safe and they can go in there
0:10:16 and they can try to drive change for their teammates because they’re a little more protective
0:10:17 than the average player.
0:10:20 But that was one of the reasons about making it anonymous.
0:10:27 It was allowing everybody to voice what they’ve seen without fear of retribution.
0:10:32 The survey covered eight categories, three were about the physical facilities, the locker
0:10:35 room, weight room and training room.
0:10:39 That’s where a player goes for a massage or the hot tub or to get an injury treated.
0:10:42 There was one question about nutrition.
0:10:46 How well does each team feed and hydrate the players also travel?
0:10:49 How comfortable are the airplane seats?
0:10:52 How about the hotel rooms and do you have to have a roommate?
0:10:58 The survey also asked how well the team takes care of the players families during the games.
0:11:03 Is there, for instance, a place for your mom or maybe your wife and young kids to watch
0:11:06 where they won’t get pelted by beers?
0:11:12 And finally, the survey asked about the training staff and the strength staff, but interestingly,
0:11:14 not the coaching staff.
0:11:20 I didn’t want a category that I felt could be too tracked to wins and losses.
0:11:23 I really wanted to stick to standard of care like, “Hey, where do you spend most of your
0:11:24 time?
0:11:27 The locker room, the training room, the weight room, the cafeteria, like what staff is around
0:11:28 you most of the time?
0:11:31 The training staff, the strength staff, how do you travel?
0:11:32 How do they treat your families?
0:11:36 Those are the core issues that impact their daily life.
0:11:38 And I didn’t want it to become like, “Hey, this is a good coach because we win a bunch
0:11:39 of games.”
0:11:40 That’s not telling us anything.
0:11:44 There are some coaches that have a leadership council of older players that meet once a
0:11:47 week and then acts on those recommendations.
0:11:50 And I think that’s what a good workplace looks like.
0:11:53 That was something probably 15 years ago in the NFL.
0:11:54 There wasn’t any of that.
0:11:58 It was very much, “We’re doing this because I’m the coach and I’m the boss and I say we’re
0:11:59 doing it.”
0:12:05 And now I think more and more of the younger coaches are coming in, being much more receptive
0:12:08 to hearing feedback and acting on that feedback.
0:12:12 Trader says the players union had two primary goals in running the survey and giving each
0:12:14 team letter grades.
0:12:18 The first was to give players information that could help them decide where to work if they
0:12:20 ever got that choice.
0:12:25 The second goal was to help raise the standards across each club by bringing problems out
0:12:26 into the open.
0:12:29 That’s why the union published the results.
0:12:33 We will put the link in our show notes if you want to take a look and why they graded
0:12:40 each club in all eight categories because in the NFL, turnabout is fair play.
0:12:41 We’re always measured.
0:12:43 We’re always graded.
0:12:45 They can use letter grades, number grades.
0:12:51 You play 60 plays and they’re like, “All right, you did your job on 80% of plays.”
0:12:53 That is Jalen Reeves-Maban.
0:12:58 He is a linebacker with the Detroit Lions and president of the NFL Players Association.
0:13:03 We’re judged at every step and I don’t think there’s ever really been a time where accountability
0:13:10 has gone to the teams or the ownership of like, “Hey, are you being excellent here?
0:13:12 Like, where’s your grade in this area?”
0:13:15 Reeves-Maban has been in the league since 2017.
0:13:20 He started his career with Detroit, then went to Houston for one season and when we spoke
0:13:27 with him, he was back with Detroit on a one-year contract with a base salary of $1.25 million.
0:13:34 He played well and last year he signed a two-year extension with the Lions for $7.5 million.
0:13:36 What does Detroit get in return for that salary?
0:13:42 It’s the combination of the mental aspect where every week I have to learn a new opponent,
0:13:46 I have to learn what they’re trying to do to attack me, but I also have this physical
0:13:49 aspect of I’m playing a violent game.
0:13:53 If I’m not violent, I’m probably going to get hurt, but I can’t be scared.
0:13:56 I can’t be scared to get hurt because then that’s going to show in your performance.
0:14:02 So you kind of got to have a recklessness in the sense or just a willingness to take
0:14:03 that pain.
0:14:08 That combined with the physical, the conditioning, the stamina, the energy, the persistence you
0:14:10 have to have, it’s a lot.
0:14:14 So I think it’s extremely hard, but I know that in all walks of life, people are working
0:14:15 extremely hard.
0:14:20 I have to add, too, just the media scrutiny and the fact that you’re basically on public
0:14:22 display all the time.
0:14:28 I don’t think the average person knows how heavy that feels on your shoulders.
0:14:33 You can basically determine a mood for a whole city or a whole state based off what you did
0:14:35 on Sunday in a three-hour period.
0:14:38 So there’s a lot that comes with it.
0:14:41 The NFL is a commercial juggernaut.
0:14:46 If you look at Variety’s list of the top 25 primetime TV broadcasts from last year,
0:14:50 you’ll see that 18 of those 25 were NFL games.
0:14:55 The exceptions were the Oscars, the Summer Olympics, the Grammys, the Presidential Debate,
0:14:58 the World Series, and a college football semifinal.
0:15:01 I mean, there’s so much money involved.
0:15:06 And with so much money, the league has TV deals worth more than $100 billion over roughly
0:15:07 a decade.
0:15:11 Reeves Maven says the survey findings were pretty surprising.
0:15:17 Well, there was reports of teams having a rat infestation in the locker room.
0:15:21 There’s guys who don’t get fed after practices.
0:15:23 The team was charging them for food.
0:15:28 I know sometimes these things might seem like, oh, you got enough money to pay for it, but
0:15:31 we are operating at the highest level possible.
0:15:36 They demand excellence from us, and I think that we should be demanding excellence from
0:15:37 the teams.
0:15:42 Jaycee Tredder was also surprised to learn that some players were being charged for food
0:15:44 at team facilities.
0:15:48 That was one where I had to reach out to several people to make sure I was hearing it correctly
0:15:52 of, wait, I just want to make sure for the fourth time, is this true?
0:15:58 Because that is so preposterous, and a job where what you fuel your body with is so important
0:16:02 to almost push them out of the building, to push them to fast food, to push them to poor
0:16:06 nutrition is such like a backwards way of looking at our industry.
0:16:07 It was crazy.
0:16:09 And why do you think those teams do it?
0:16:11 Is it just, it’s the way it was always done?
0:16:13 Are they really trying to save money?
0:16:14 I don’t know.
0:16:15 It was one team.
0:16:18 It was the Arizona Cardinals who made people pay.
0:16:22 There are three other teams that didn’t provide it, and I don’t think the cost they were charging
0:16:27 would pay for the meals anyways is almost like the control factor of it of, hey, just
0:16:28 know your place.
0:16:32 Can you talk about what you mean with that know your place sentiment?
0:16:38 Because I think the public sees football players as superstars, not as employees coming into
0:16:42 a workplace with bosses and needing to know their place.
0:16:43 Yeah.
0:16:46 From a union perspective, we’re negotiating for the same things that any union is, better
0:16:53 wages, better benefits, better working conditions, but there is a level of control that’s always
0:16:59 being fought after and the league, there’s a piece of them that just wants to make sure
0:17:03 that we know that they have control of us.
0:17:09 From individual teams, like you said, we are just workers and some coaches and some bosses
0:17:15 are better at working with their employees about different changes that need to be made,
0:17:20 whether it’s scheduling, whether it’s technique, whether it’s how they operate.
0:17:25 And some aren’t good, I sometimes get frustrated when we’re defined too much as just players
0:17:29 because I think it takes us away out of the real world and puts us into football world
0:17:31 and we are workers and we’re fighting for the same things.
0:17:36 And I think that’s one of our struggles as a union because of our short lifespan where
0:17:44 somebody comes into a union job and they can make sacrifices and bargain a certain way because
0:17:47 they have the opportunity to be in that job for 30, 40 years.
0:17:50 So sacrificing for today, they’re going to see the fruits of that labor and that’s not
0:17:51 always true for us.
0:17:56 So the sacrifices one group makes, they’re probably never seeing the benefits of those
0:17:57 sacrifices.
0:18:01 But when it comes to the negotiating, there is a pie out there and I think your job as
0:18:05 an individual or as a union is to get the biggest share if possible.
0:18:09 I have to say, you can really sound like an old fashioned union agitator when you need
0:18:12 to.
0:18:16 When you look at the overall results of your survey, especially the team rankings, the teams
0:18:24 that come in ranked high and the teams that come in ranked low, among the top ranked teams,
0:18:25 what do they have in common?
0:18:28 Whether it’s ownership, whether it’s an attitude.
0:18:31 The top three teams all have brand new facilities.
0:18:37 When we talk about facilities, I think sometimes the fans don’t understand how different franchises
0:18:38 work.
0:18:39 So everybody thinks of their stadiums.
0:18:43 So like the Rams and the Chargers were poorly ranked and you heard a lot of questions of
0:18:46 like, whoa, SoFi stadiums brand new, they put billions of dollars into it.
0:18:47 How is it poorly ranked?
0:18:49 That’s not where players spend their days.
0:18:51 That’s where they play for one day a week.
0:18:54 But their facilities are usually located elsewhere.
0:18:56 So some of that is just random when the survey is done.
0:18:59 So in 10 years, those facilities will be getting a little radion.
0:19:02 Whoever else has new facilities, they’ll probably rank a little bit higher because of that.
0:19:03 Yeah.
0:19:04 If teams do get new facilities, right?
0:19:10 Like some of these teams have had old facilities forever.
0:19:14 So who are the top three teams in the players union survey?
0:19:15 Not their teams.
0:19:19 Our Minnesota was number one, Miami was number two and Las Vegas was number three.
0:19:24 The owners of the Minnesota Vikings and the Miami Dolphins both made their money in real
0:19:25 estate development.
0:19:29 So it probably shouldn’t surprise us that they brought their real estate shops to their
0:19:31 football investments.
0:19:37 The big surprise, to me at least, is that some of the best teams in football rank toward
0:19:38 the bottom.
0:19:42 If you look at the winners of the past six Super Bowls, the New England Patriots, the
0:19:47 LA Rams, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Kansas City Chiefs who won it three times,
0:19:52 none of them ranked higher than 24th out of 32 teams in 2023.
0:19:58 I asked JC Tredder if he was surprised to see so many top performing teams at the bottom
0:19:59 of his list.
0:20:00 No.
0:20:01 And that’s the thing.
0:20:05 Like having a star quarterback like Patrick Mahomes is the ultimate deodorant.
0:20:10 Whether it’s telling around them or facilities or coaching, he’s going to make everybody
0:20:13 look good because he is that freaking good as a quarterback.
0:20:17 But that doesn’t mean the offerings shouldn’t be up to snuff.
0:20:22 It shouldn’t be, hey, come here to play with Patrick Mahomes and potentially win a Super
0:20:26 Bowl, but also the facilities are going to be old and dilapidated and you have to deal
0:20:27 with that.
0:20:28 That shouldn’t be the trade-off.
0:20:29 Just pay for better facilities.
0:20:34 If you’re making so much money, the idea of making it a choice of one or the other when
0:20:37 you could just provide both doesn’t make much sense to me.
0:20:40 What do the teams at the bottom have in common?
0:20:44 Is it something as simple as they typically have older practice facilities?
0:20:49 We asked the players, do they think their owner is willing to invest money to make the
0:20:50 facilities better?
0:20:55 And I think the teams at the bottom, that number tracked being down there.
0:21:00 You don’t have to knock down walls, but are you willing to invest the money necessary
0:21:04 to make the changes necessary to fix the issues you have?
0:21:09 Like for Cincinnati, to rewire the locker room to make sure there’s outlets there is
0:21:11 not that costly.
0:21:17 For Washington, there was complaints that there’s poor drainage in the showers.
0:21:24 So the guys are literally standing in the water that’s been run off from the guy next
0:21:28 to him who’s showering the dirt and the blood and the sweat.
0:21:31 These aren’t knock the walls down and build a new facility.
0:21:35 Let’s get a plumber in there and fix it.
0:21:40 The Washington commanders with their backed up showers ranked dead last in the NFL report
0:21:41 card.
0:21:43 But that wasn’t their biggest problem.
0:21:48 The team was plagued with a variety of scandals concerning workplace harassment and financial
0:21:49 impropriety.
0:21:56 Finally, the wildly unpopular owner, Dan Snyder, gave in to pressure from the league and agreed
0:21:57 to sell the team.
0:22:02 This season, with new owners and a new head coach and general manager, the commanders
0:22:06 had a remarkable turnaround, making the NFC championship game for the first time since
0:22:08 1991.
0:22:14 Washington’s problems during the Snyder era got a lot of press, but at most clubs, routine
0:22:17 problems don’t get much coverage.
0:22:18 And J.C.
0:22:22 Tredder says that when players change teams, they often don’t have much information until
0:22:25 they show up at their new workplace.
0:22:29 And when they’re making these decisions about where they’re going to spend potentially the
0:22:32 rest of their career, they should know what they’re getting into.
0:22:38 I talked to a lot of guys as we did the survey and I said, “Hey, your team’s one of the worst
0:22:39 graded teams.
0:22:41 Did you know that before you signed?”
0:22:42 And they’re like, “No.”
0:22:44 And I got here and now I feel trapped.
0:22:49 The quality of care is poor and the facilities are poor and I’m stuck here.
0:22:53 So even if I’m making $8, $10, $15 million a year and the facilities are poor, it’s enough
0:22:55 to have buyers remorse, you’re saying?
0:22:56 Yeah.
0:22:58 And again, most of our guys aren’t making that.
0:23:00 So you start looking for differentiators.
0:23:04 And those guys, the minimum seller guys are the lunch pail hard hat guys of your team,
0:23:10 the special teams guys, the offensive linemen, the backups that make the team work.
0:23:14 Those guys are looking at and saying, “Hold on, I’m going to get the same dollar amount
0:23:15 from every team.”
0:23:17 What are the other variables I can look at?
0:23:21 And before it was, what do I think of the area, like the city, like how close it is to
0:23:22 my family.
0:23:26 And now it’s like, “Hold on, I’m not going to go to a team that has weight room floors
0:23:28 peeling up and charges me for dinner.
0:23:32 I’m going to go someplace else.”
0:23:36 So is this NFL team report card working?
0:23:42 Coming up, we’ll hear from an agent, an economist, and later the people who run the teams.
0:23:43 I’m Stephen Dubner.
0:23:47 I love making Freakonomics Radio and I love that you’re listening to him.
0:23:48 We will be right back.
0:24:04 Jim Eibler has worked for more than 25 years as an agent for NFL players, although he isn’t
0:24:06 an agent technically.
0:24:09 Technically we are called certified contract advisors.
0:24:15 Eibler’s job, as the name implies, is to advise players on their contracts.
0:24:20 For players coming into the NFL from college via the draft, remember they don’t choose
0:24:26 where they’ll play and their salary is predetermined by how high they were picked in the draft.
0:24:30 We’re also accustomed to the draft and that’s how talent is dispersed throughout the league.
0:24:34 But when you think about it in more of a macro level, it’s a pretty incredible process.
0:24:40 I mean, you’re told as a recent person coming out of college where you’re going to work.
0:24:44 I know when I graduated law school, if someone had called me up and said, “You’ve just been
0:24:48 drafted by a law firm in Green Bay, Wisconsin,” and that’s where you’re going to go, I would
0:24:50 have said, “You want a bet?”
0:24:55 But obviously these guys go, most of them very happily, to whatever team drafts them.
0:25:00 The process though really is we’re trying to achieve generational wealth for our clients
0:25:04 and I know it’s a buzzword and a cliche, but it’s really true.
0:25:08 The goal needs to be that when the player is done playing in the NFL, whether they play
0:25:12 four years or 14 years, that they can retire with enough money in the bank so they can
0:25:16 do whatever it is they want to do with the rest of their life because it’s a passion,
0:25:18 not because they need the paycheck.
0:25:23 And so unless you’re a, I’m going to call it a top 20 or 25 pick, you’re really not getting
0:25:26 that generational wealth from your first contract.
0:25:30 So we’re really all in this game to help our clients achieve a second contract and if they’re
0:25:33 really blessed, maybe a third and a fourth contract.
0:25:36 If you can get that bite at the apple where you’ve performed well enough, where there’s
0:25:40 multiple teams interested in you, that’s where the leverage maybe flips and it’s on
0:25:42 the player’s side.
0:25:46 It doesn’t happen to a lot of guys and I’m sure you’ve heard the average career span
0:25:49 of an NFL player is 3.3 years.
0:25:53 And it’s probably not a total coincidence that that’s just before the unrestricted free
0:25:54 agency kicks in.
0:25:55 Do the math.
0:25:59 If you can’t become unrestricted until four years and the average player is 3.3 years,
0:26:01 that means the average player is never getting that bite at the apple.
0:26:06 Okay, let’s say you represent a player who has just become a free agent and you do your
0:26:10 thing and you get offers from three teams.
0:26:15 What are the primary factors that will go into the decision of where your client will
0:26:22 want to go and I especially want to know if workplace conditions are at all a major factor.
0:26:26 Certainly compensation, anybody that says that’s not number one is probably lying.
0:26:31 Even if the player has made that sort of money over the course of his career to achieve that
0:26:36 generational wealth, the compensation is still going to be the primary factor.
0:26:41 And then the team itself, the talent that the player is surrounded with, teammate-wise,
0:26:45 the coaching staff, whether or not the team has anticipated to be a playoff, Super Bowl
0:26:49 team, these are all things that I would say are a little bit more important to players
0:26:51 than the workplace conditions.
0:26:54 But something that players are talking about, but I wouldn’t put it in the top few factors
0:26:57 of making free agent decisions.
0:27:02 Another thing you need to realize about unrestricted free agency, this happens really fast.
0:27:06 In terms of player has to make a life-altering decision in five minutes because if the player
0:27:10 is not ready to commit, that team is going to go on to the next guy on their list at
0:27:11 that position.
0:27:15 And when you have to make those quick decisions, the size of the locker room is really not
0:27:16 coming up.
0:27:20 One of the factors that a player and agent will absolutely consider is whether or not
0:27:24 there’s a state tax that’s levied against the player with the team that he is signing
0:27:29 with and eight of the 32 NFL teams play in states where there is no state tax and that
0:27:34 could be a pretty big difference monetarily if you’re talking about 0% taken out as opposed
0:27:38 to 8, 9, 10, 11% in some of the higher states.
0:27:43 List for me the no-tax places, I guess it’s all the teams in Texas and Florida.
0:27:47 The two teams in Texas, it’s the three teams in Florida, it’s Vegas, it’s Seattle and
0:27:49 it’s Tennessee.
0:27:55 So it sounds like you put a lot less stock into the impact of the survey than someone
0:27:56 like J.C.
0:28:01 So I’m trying to get a read on how much this survey really matters in the end.
0:28:02 What do you think?
0:28:08 I think it was a great idea for him to commission this survey and get responses from players.
0:28:11 He should be holding teams feet to the fire because I can guarantee you there are some
0:28:16 owners that are upset from what I’ve read Arthur Blank down in Atlanta was disappointed
0:28:21 that his team ranked where it did and these guys are competitive regardless of whether
0:28:23 or not it’s really having an impact in free agent decisions.
0:28:28 It doesn’t mean that the survey is not going to affect change in a lot of these facilities
0:28:32 with these team owners because if they perceive that it could be a problem in free agency,
0:28:34 that’s really the most important thing.
0:28:40 So the Washington commanders got an F or lower, they actually got an F minus in a few categories
0:28:47 in 1, 2, 3, 4 of the categories and then a couple of D’s, C and an A plus in strength
0:28:52 coaches so the players loved the strength coaches but in terms of the things the team
0:29:00 does otherwise, locker room, F minus, team travel, F minus, treatment of families, F.
0:29:05 Can you talk about why those things matter so much to a player that they’re going to
0:29:07 give their own team an F minus?
0:29:12 For sure and I’ve never really heard of an F minus before.
0:29:16 But it is important and certainly I think as a player ages throughout his career it
0:29:21 becomes more important because presumably they have a wife, they have children and how
0:29:24 the family is treated on game day for instance is a big deal.
0:29:29 I remember about 15 years ago speaking to the front office of the Jets and they were
0:29:33 asking well what could we do better and we brought up the concept of a family room on
0:29:37 game day and they didn’t even understand what we were saying and we said hey listen you
0:29:42 have players whose wives are coming with little kids and they’re sitting in the stands and
0:29:45 the beer is flowing and there’s things that are said.
0:29:51 The concept of having a daycare in an NFL stadium not too long ago was unheard of.
0:29:54 Now I think it’s close to half maybe half them.
0:30:00 Same thing with a family room where the players, families can go and shelter from bad weather,
0:30:02 shelter from crazed fans.
0:30:09 Are you surprised that so many, I mean these are billion dollar franchises and they could
0:30:14 pretty easily fix some of these problems if they cared with a little bit of money.
0:30:18 Like the family room is going to cost some money plainly but not a ton.
0:30:22 Are you surprised that there’s this sort of penny-wise, pound foolish approach?
0:30:24 Yes, I’m surprised.
0:30:27 These are multi-billion dollar organizations.
0:30:32 Their most important asset of course is the talent that they’re putting out on the field.
0:30:38 So to read some of the things in the survey, uneven floors in the weight room where players
0:30:43 feel afraid walking around, slippery floors in the pool area where players are falling
0:30:48 when you invest so much in your assets to have a workplace injury potentially happen,
0:30:51 it would not be a good look and it is very surprising.
0:30:57 But on the other hand, some of these teams are run by old school owners.
0:31:01 You look at some of the teams that are low on the list, I don’t think it’s an accident
0:31:05 that the owners made their money from the team.
0:31:07 They didn’t come from a different industry.
0:31:11 They came from where their grandfathers paid $500 and a bottle of whiskey for the team
0:31:19 back in 1942 and they are kind of mired in old school ways or maybe a little bit slow
0:31:24 to come around and no matter how much the front office wants to be progressive and implore
0:31:33 them to change certain things, it still starts at the top and the owner has final say.
0:31:39 One problem for family-run firms is it can be hard to innovate.
0:31:42 How do you think outside the box when you’ve never left the box?
0:31:44 That is Betsy Stevenson.
0:31:52 I am an economist and professor at the University of Michigan and I study labor markets.
0:31:53 Are you a football fan, Betsy?
0:31:57 I teach at the University of Michigan so I have to just plead the fifth and refuse to
0:31:59 answer this question.
0:32:01 So that’s a big fat no plainly.
0:32:03 Yeah, it’s really awkward.
0:32:07 Stevenson may not know football, but she does know labor economics.
0:32:14 I served as the chief economist at the Department of Labor and I served as a member of the Council
0:32:19 of Economic Advisers giving advice to President Obama.
0:32:24 Can I have an example of some labor economics advice you may have given?
0:32:29 One big thing we talked a lot about was whether we should require forms of compensation outside
0:32:30 of wages.
0:32:34 Like should people be required to get paid sick days?
0:32:40 Should we require that people get paid maternity or paternity leave?
0:32:45 What makes a good job and what’s the role of government in shaping the conditions?
0:32:47 So what makes a good job?
0:32:48 That’s an easy answer, yeah?
0:32:56 Yeah, it’s hard because we all have different preferences and I think the hope of economists
0:33:01 who believe in market forces is everybody wants different things and they’ll just be
0:33:09 able to sort around the labor market till they find the thing that works for them.
0:33:14 So when a company does provide what economists like Stevenson call compensation outside of
0:33:18 wages, why do they provide that?
0:33:21 Economists have come up with two buckets of reasons.
0:33:25 So the first bucket is the benefits might be a compliment to hard work.
0:33:30 We actually see higher productivity because it induces more effort from workers.
0:33:36 The second bucket is that employees might value the benefits more than it costs the
0:33:39 employer to provide those benefits.
0:33:43 So let’s start with the first bucket, compliment to hard work.
0:33:49 That’s why every company going back to the 50s that has office workers has coffee in
0:33:51 the break room, right?
0:33:54 You got to caffeinate your workers to get them to work hard.
0:34:00 The tech sector went a little crazy with this like, “Hey, let’s have ping-pong tables.”
0:34:04 But it really was the same idea, “Well, if you’re socializing at work, you’ll have less
0:34:06 of a reason to leave.”
0:34:10 One of the more extreme examples was some of the tech companies started providing a benefit
0:34:13 which is, “We will pay for you to freeze your eggs.”
0:34:19 Oh no, we have these hard-working female employees wringing their hands in their early 30s thinking
0:34:20 they better have a baby.
0:34:23 I know what we’ll do, we’ll pay to freeze their eggs and then they’ll be able to keep
0:34:25 working hard for a few more years.
0:34:29 Betsy, I know you took a look at the NFL Players Survey.
0:34:34 How do you think about their non-wage compensation in terms of this first bucket?
0:34:38 Yeah, it’s great because you can actually see the categories here which are clearly
0:34:40 a compliment to high productivity.
0:34:41 Nutrition.
0:34:46 They’re like, “What you eat is going to affect how you play, so we’re going to feed you.”
0:34:50 The weight room, how you train up is going to affect how you play.
0:34:52 We’re going to give you a weight room.
0:34:57 This is really about, “Are we giving you the inputs you need to be as productive as possible?”
0:35:01 When we think about things like the treatment of families.
0:35:03 That’s bucket two, I assume.
0:35:07 Yeah, this is something that’s going to have a cost to them, but the question is what’s
0:35:17 the value to the person receiving it, and that value might be quite high.
0:35:24 My wife, my mom, my sister, my dad, they didn’t come to games to tailgate and booze it up and
0:35:26 cheer for the Cleveland Browns.
0:35:30 They came to the game to make sure I walked off the field at the end.
0:35:35 That again is JC Tredder, former president of the NFL Players Union.
0:35:37 I understand the guys on the field are making a lot of money.
0:35:40 Even the guys making minimum salary are making a lot of money.
0:35:45 The risk they are taking, though, is substantial, and the damage they are receiving is substantial,
0:35:53 and parents and kids and wives and siblings are there worried about their well-being.
0:35:59 The idea that the guys out there making the owner hundreds of millions to billions of
0:36:04 dollars for what they’re doing on the field, well taking all of the risk physically, the
0:36:09 idea that their wife and newborn baby are sitting on the grimy floor of a public restroom
0:36:12 breastfeeding is just preposterous to me.
0:36:16 18 of the teams offer family rooms, 14 don’t, and the teams that don’t, like, where is
0:36:18 that wife supposed to go?
0:36:20 What’s your prediction for, let’s say, two years from now?
0:36:22 How many of those 14 will offer it?
0:36:25 We’ve heard from some teams being like, “Hey, you know, we have an older stadium.
0:36:26 There’s no room for it.”
0:36:30 But everybody has suites, you know, like, in the end, it comes down to a choice.
0:36:34 So how many games did your family attend when you were playing for Cleveland?
0:36:40 Yeah, they would be at almost every home game, and in the end, once I got my third contract,
0:36:44 me and two other teammates went in on a suite, like, we bought our own suite.
0:36:49 We all had young kids from two and under, and we didn’t want them out in the cold.
0:36:52 So we said, like, “We’ll pay the money and buy a suite.”
0:36:54 How much did you have to pay?
0:36:55 $150,000.
0:36:56 Okay.
0:37:00 Split by three players with, let’s call it, eight home games a season.
0:37:04 So a little over $6,000 a game, you’re paying out of pocket.
0:37:06 I’ll trust your math.
0:37:10 Looks like a lot of teams are doing a really bad job.
0:37:13 I mean, I saw a lot of Fs.
0:37:16 That, again, is the economist Betsy Stevenson.
0:37:21 Like, maybe they’re not getting the great inflation that our university students get
0:37:24 these days, but a lot of Fs.
0:37:30 And I think what that says is this is a job where there’s a lot of cash thrown at these
0:37:33 players and they don’t think about anything else.
0:37:38 Betsy, are you surprised that firms that are paying their key employees a relatively
0:37:44 very high salary, that at least some of them on some dimensions are apparently so cheap
0:37:47 when it comes to perks and benefits?
0:37:55 I am surprised that any team is messing up when it comes to perks and benefits that would
0:37:58 actually increase the productivity of the players.
0:38:06 I think that’s a clear mistake because those perks and benefits are probably quite cheap
0:38:12 compared to not just pay, but compared to the benefits they yield on the playing field.
0:38:15 Like one more victory would be worth quite a bit of money.
0:38:16 One more victory is worth a lot of money, right?
0:38:21 You could probably do a full renovation of your weight room.
0:38:25 Do you think the issue here is that they’re not connecting it necessarily or not believing
0:38:29 the connection to productivity because otherwise it’s hard for me to understand why they would
0:38:31 cheap out?
0:38:38 I’m pausing only because sometimes people do stupid things, Stephen.
0:38:44 So I think that’s one answer is they’re just being dumb.
0:38:51 Now another answer is what’s necessary in the weight room or the training room or nutrition
0:38:57 in order to get the best out of your players on the field is being given, but players are
0:39:04 looking for little aspects of that that don’t actually have any impact on their productivity.
0:39:08 Maybe they want a brighter, sunnier room.
0:39:10 It can be hard to measure these things.
0:39:14 Maybe if you had the brighter, sunnier room, they’d work harder in training and if they
0:39:16 worked harder in training, they’d do better on the playing field.
0:39:21 So you should figure out how to make it brighter or sunnier.
0:39:26 I painted little poppies on the wall in my gym and I swear I pellet on faster because
0:39:28 I love my field of poppies.
0:39:32 Can I just say if this economist thing doesn’t work out for you, maybe NFL training room
0:39:35 decorator would be a lovely second career.
0:39:41 That would be fun, yeah.
0:39:46 Are NFL team owners and bosses really just doing stupid things?
0:39:48 We’ll find out after the break.
0:39:53 If you like this episode of Freakonomics Radio, there are three things you can do.
0:39:56 Number one, listen every week.
0:39:57 We’re here.
0:39:58 You should be too.
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0:40:04 That’s the gift that keeps giving.
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0:40:10 app.
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0:40:12 We’ll be right back.
0:40:29 So according to a recent survey conducted by the NFL Players Union, many pro football
0:40:32 teams are not such great places to work.
0:40:38 We reached out to all 32 teams asking for an interview with their owner or president.
0:40:44 The line never responded, 21 declined with one communications director asking why we
0:40:49 thought he would ever let us speak with his boss about this topic.
0:40:52 In the end, two teams did agree to speak.
0:40:57 Not surprisingly, they were the top two teams in the player survey.
0:41:01 This is Mark Wilf, owner, president of the Minnesota Vikings.
0:41:06 So Mark, congratulations on acing the NFL PA’s reporter card.
0:41:09 I’m just curious how much did that matter to you?
0:41:11 Well, it matters a lot.
0:41:17 I mean, from day one of our ownership, 2005, it’s our highest goal to make our organization
0:41:20 a world-class organization.
0:41:24 And of course, that’s winning Super Bowls, which is paramount, but facilities, staff
0:41:26 and community involvement as well.
0:41:29 So here’s a choice for you, Mark.
0:41:35 You can keep an A grade, the number one ranking on this report card for, let’s say, 10 years,
0:41:37 not win a Super Bowl.
0:41:38 Would that be worth it?
0:41:40 I mean, maybe winning isn’t everything.
0:41:44 Maybe treating people well is, in the long run, more important.
0:41:49 Well, I strongly believe that culture in a building is critical, and I think it’s critical
0:41:51 to building championships.
0:41:55 So I want to be greedy and say we want both.
0:41:56 Okay.
0:42:00 And let’s hear from the team that came in second.
0:42:06 Tom Garfinkel, vice chairman, CEO and president, Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium.
0:42:11 Garfinkel is the top lieutenant to Stephen Ross, the real estate developer who is majority
0:42:13 owner of the Dolphins.
0:42:17 Steve is very focused on being best in class and being willing to invest in being best
0:42:18 in class.
0:42:22 So congratulations on doing so well on this NFL team report card.
0:42:26 What was your first response when you saw your grades?
0:42:29 Well, my first reaction was, I don’t like being second.
0:42:30 So we’re going to fix the family area.
0:42:36 I could promise you that we will have the best family area in football next year.
0:42:42 The Dolphins got an A or A plus in every one of the eight categories except for the treatment
0:42:43 of families.
0:42:47 That grade was a C plus with some players saying they didn’t get enough passes to the
0:42:49 post game area.
0:42:52 But otherwise, great reviews.
0:42:59 Not coincidentally, the Dolphins recently opened a new $135 million practice facility.
0:43:05 Long before they broke ground, Garfinkel says he and Ross toured a bunch of other football
0:43:11 facilities, including college facilities, which tend to be extra deluxe since colleges
0:43:14 can’t use actual money to recruit players.
0:43:19 One of the things that really struck us was at Clemson University, the locker room was
0:43:22 really at the center of the facility.
0:43:26 From a layout standpoint, we really thought that’s the right idea.
0:43:28 We want this to be player-centric.
0:43:31 We want the players to be at the heart of everything we do here.
0:43:35 So to put the locker room at the center of the activity was really paramount.
0:43:40 Then designing around that literally sat down with the architect with a pen and pencil and
0:43:45 drew out where the different functions would be adjacent to the locker room for players
0:43:50 so that they could easily and quickly get to all the different areas that they needed
0:43:51 to.
0:43:54 So during the course of the day, players are going from where to where to where.
0:43:56 So it could be the meal room, the cafeteria.
0:43:59 It could be the team meeting rooms, which are where they spend a lot of time.
0:44:04 There’s everything from the sauna and steam room to the cold and the hot plunge and the
0:44:05 underwater treadmill.
0:44:08 And then the training rooms next to that where the doctors and the therapists are.
0:44:11 And then next to that is the weight room.
0:44:12 Is the locker room kind of where you come in?
0:44:14 You drop your stuff.
0:44:18 You get ready to do your day and then are you cycling back through the locker room during
0:44:21 the day because in part that’s where your stuff is?
0:44:22 Yes.
0:44:24 I think the locker room is really home base for them.
0:44:26 There’s an area for them to charge their phone.
0:44:28 There’s a comfortable seat.
0:44:31 It’s not a locker, you know, talking to Dan Marino and those guys.
0:44:32 They literally had a nail.
0:44:34 They used to hang their helmet on.
0:44:37 These are very bespoke custom environments.
0:44:43 We try to design the environment to be almost more four seasons like without the mahogany.
0:44:46 I think you’ll find that the dolphin’s logos are subtle.
0:44:50 The only aqua you see in the locker room is the name plate above the locker.
0:44:53 Is that a test admission that people get sick of aqua?
0:44:54 Because I would make that argument.
0:44:59 I think you might get sick of whatever the color is if it’s all you see everywhere, right?
0:45:07 So we did a rough analysis with the NFLPA report card, the grades versus win/loss records,
0:45:08 basically.
0:45:10 And it turns out there’s very little correlation.
0:45:12 In fact, it might be a little bit negative.
0:45:18 A lot of teams that do really well on the report card have not had great seasons lately.
0:45:20 I haven’t won a Super Bowl in a long time.
0:45:25 Dolphins haven’t won a Super Bowl in a long time, whereas a lot of the teams who’ve won
0:45:28 Super Bowls lately rank really low.
0:45:29 That surprised me.
0:45:32 I’m curious what you make of that back of the envelope correlation.
0:45:36 Well, I would say is that causation or correlation?
0:45:38 This is the first year that survey has been conducted.
0:45:42 To my knowledge, if you’re winning over a long period of time, maybe you don’t feel
0:45:46 the need to put the resources in, and if you’re not winning, you feel the need to create some
0:45:47 competitive advantage.
0:45:51 So I’m not sure maybe over 10 years or something that’ll play itself out.
0:45:54 I’m not sure it’s relevant in the short term.
0:45:58 For a lot of reasons, including especially the pandemic, there’s been a realignment of
0:46:02 the relationship between firms and their employees.
0:46:04 The pendulum kind of swings.
0:46:07 It’ll go really strong one side, then it’ll come back.
0:46:13 I’m just curious what the last several years, including the pandemic, has taught you about
0:46:17 what it means to be an employer in the modern era.
0:46:20 Well, I certainly think employees are more empowered than in the past.
0:46:23 Their voice matters more.
0:46:24 It’s really about listening.
0:46:30 There’s a tradition in football where a lot of things in the NFL are done the same way
0:46:35 across teams in terms of how schedules are set, how coaching is applied, how scouting
0:46:36 processes work.
0:46:40 And one of the things I love about Mike, even in the interview process, was he really has
0:46:41 an innovative mind.
0:46:44 He really wants to do things differently.
0:46:47 Garfinkel is talking about Mike McDaniel, the Dolphins’ head coach.
0:46:52 And one of those things is that players are really different today than they were even
0:46:54 five years ago.
0:46:56 They want to understand the why of things.
0:47:00 And instead of just saying, shut up and get in line and do what I tell you to do, Mike
0:47:04 will sit down with a player and say, well, listen, wide receiver, here’s why I need you
0:47:06 to block corners and safeties in the run game.
0:47:08 Well, I get paid to catch touchdowns.
0:47:09 Okay.
0:47:12 So then I’ll show them the film and say, okay, here’s a three yard run and where the wide
0:47:14 receiver didn’t block the corner of safety.
0:47:19 Here’s the wide receiver blocking the corner of safety and here’s a 35 yard explosive run.
0:47:21 But watch what happens in the next play.
0:47:23 Now the defense moves up into the box.
0:47:25 Now you can run past them and score a touchdown.
0:47:27 So you see how it’s good for you.
0:47:30 So he explains it to them and they’re like, oh, okay, coach, you know, I was down in the
0:47:36 weight room today and the energy, the positive energy, the camaraderie, the excitement is
0:47:38 palpable.
0:47:43 I was at the Miami Dolphins training facilities last year and it’s pretty state of the art.
0:47:44 That is Jason Kelsey.
0:47:49 When we spoke with him in 2023, Kelsey was a longtime member of the Philadelphia Eagles.
0:47:53 He played center, the anchor of the offensive line, and he was considered one of the best
0:47:56 players that position in years.
0:48:00 In March of last year, Kelsey announced his retirement.
0:48:04 He’s also the brother of Travis Kelsey, who plays tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs
0:48:09 and who may wind up being the best player at his position in history.
0:48:14 The brothers played against each other in the 2023 Super Bowl, the Kelsey Bowl, some people
0:48:15 called it.
0:48:17 Travis’s Chiefs won.
0:48:21 Since we spoke with Jason Kelsey for this episode, the brother’s public profile has
0:48:22 only increased.
0:48:28 They signed a huge podcast deal, they appear in what seems to be pretty much every commercial
0:48:35 you see on TV, and Travis continued his very public romance with Taylor Swift.
0:48:41 And the Chiefs won another Super Bowl and are going for their third in a row this week.
0:48:44 Once again, they’re playing the Eagles.
0:48:48 Back then, I asked Jason about his Super Bowl experiences.
0:48:53 He was a key part of the Eagles team that won Super Bowl 52 in 2018, and then there
0:48:57 was his second one against the Chiefs a few years later.
0:49:02 The intensity and emotions of it are very, very high, but obviously, this being my second
0:49:04 one, I had some familiarity with it.
0:49:06 The game is the exact same.
0:49:12 The emotion and intensity and all of that is going to enhance what’s happening in your
0:49:13 head.
0:49:16 For better or worse, or it could be either.
0:49:18 It can be both.
0:49:25 I think it’s worse when you try to do things outside of either your job or the things that
0:49:27 you’ve done to get there.
0:49:32 Chris Long, who had won a Super Bowl in New England right before we played in Super Bowl
0:49:38 52 with the Eagles, his biggest advice was don’t let the moment dictate things to you.
0:49:42 Do everything that got us here, and when the play is there, you’ll be ready to make the
0:49:43 play.
0:49:46 Did you feel you were able to do that in this past year, Super Bowl?
0:49:48 For the most part, I mean, you always have plays you want back.
0:49:51 You’re never going to go out there and play a perfect game.
0:49:56 And unfortunately, I’ve found when you lose, you definitely remember the plays that you
0:49:57 could have had back.
0:50:01 Did losing a Super Bowl add to your wanting to come back or subtract to wanting to come
0:50:02 back?
0:50:05 Unequivocally added to it, and I don’t think it should have.
0:50:09 It’s so hard to get there, and there’s so many things that need to happen right after
0:50:15 the game I wanted to play another season, and I had to really step away and figure out,
0:50:16 is this the right thing?
0:50:17 Is this the right thing for your body?
0:50:19 Is this the right thing for the family?
0:50:20 And can you do it?
0:50:26 My biggest thing is, I want to do it the way it needs to be done, being who you are in
0:50:31 the meeting room on the field around your teammates, investing in that, as well as practicing
0:50:36 hard, as well as lifting weights.
0:50:42 On the 2023 team report card, Jason Kelsey’s Eagles came out middle of the pack, 14th out
0:50:48 of 32 teams, with A’s for food and the weight room, but a C minus for the training room and
0:50:50 a D for travel.
0:50:54 I asked Kelsey if those grades reflected his own views.
0:50:55 I thought it was spot on.
0:51:03 I’d be curious to see what the standard deviation on each one of these was, because when I saw
0:51:05 the results, it was almost to the T.
0:51:07 You felt like you were looking at your answers.
0:51:11 Yeah, but I know that a lot of guys filled it out.
0:51:14 So for the Eagles, I’m looking at your report card.
0:51:24 Both coaches A plus, training staff A plus, but training room C minus, locker room C plus.
0:51:26 Explain why there’s such a split there.
0:51:32 I think that both of those rooms are led really well.
0:51:34 They do forward innovative things.
0:51:37 They’re open to discussing things with the players.
0:51:40 Give me an example if you don’t mind of the forward innovative things.
0:51:46 So there’s a whole discrepancy right now in the NFL of do you practice on Wednesdays or
0:51:49 how many hard days in a row?
0:51:55 The strength staff is very involved with the training staff at one, trying to help players
0:51:59 get better, but also to mitigate injuries.
0:52:06 Training camp used to be two days, hard every single day, three hour practices.
0:52:07 Pads and helmets.
0:52:08 That’s right.
0:52:16 And now it is much more of a tiered system where one day is a yellow day and that goes
0:52:20 into one, the intensity practice, but also the length at which you’re out there.
0:52:22 Green is a, we’re getting geared up.
0:52:28 This is going to be a barn burner, but it’s done in a calculated way that the coaches understand,
0:52:34 that the players understand, and that is done in scientifically the optimal way for
0:52:39 a player to one, stay healthy, but also improve.
0:52:47 Those changes were the result, I assume, almost entirely of NFLPA, the player’s union requests
0:52:50 and negotiations over the years, not from the teams, but tell me if I’m wrong there.
0:52:52 I would say you’re wrong.
0:52:57 The two days for sure was a big negotiating factor by the PA before I got into the league,
0:53:01 but there is a very large gray area in terms of how long practices are.
0:53:06 They can’t be over a certain amount of time on the field, but we are, quite frankly, way
0:53:09 underneath that threshold.
0:53:16 But I think I would be very much remiss if I didn’t give credit to the Eagles organization,
0:53:24 our strength staff and our training staff at going beyond what the collective NFL mindset
0:53:25 is on that.
0:53:30 Your team got an A in food service and nutrition.
0:53:34 Let me tell you, it’s so good, Steven.
0:53:35 Why have you not invited me for lunch yet?
0:53:36 Come on over.
0:53:37 All right.
0:53:43 The Eagles, to their credit, have taken that feedback from players since I’ve been there.
0:53:48 It is remarkable how much the cafeteria has changed for the better, and one, the quality
0:53:53 of food that’s there, and two, the wide range of what you can get.
0:53:58 During the season, are there days where you eat three meals a day at the facility or no?
0:53:59 Yes.
0:54:02 On Wednesdays and Thursdays, I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner there.
0:54:03 Okay.
0:54:04 So, walk me through those meals.
0:54:07 I’m not asking you to name everything you eat, but give me a typical breakfast, typical
0:54:09 lunch, typical dinner.
0:54:17 My breakfast is usually the, if not the exact same, one item different off, and it used
0:54:18 to be Chef Tim.
0:54:19 Shout out to Chef Tim.
0:54:25 He’s no longer with the Eagles, but I usually go in, I get three eggs over easy with three
0:54:30 sausage links and breakfast potatoes, and then I go get a bagel with cream cheese on
0:54:34 it and honey, and then a cup of blueberries.
0:54:35 Lunch, so we have a few stations.
0:54:40 We have a station right when you come in, which is really for your clean eating, right?
0:54:49 It’s going to be some type of rice or grain, maybe a noodle, and some veggies that have
0:54:50 been cooked.
0:54:57 And then to the left of that, there’s going to be a pretty clean, low-fat added type of
0:54:58 meat, right?
0:55:04 And then the more you go left, you’ll get a little bit of fried stuff, right?
0:55:09 So if you’re in the mood for some french fries or like a sausage, sandwich, hoagie, and then
0:55:15 if you go even left of that, this is probably my favorite station, they’ve gone to a like
0:55:17 regional dish.
0:55:21 A lot of times in season, it’s based on a player’s favorite food or where they’re from.
0:55:23 Give me a for instance.
0:55:30 Well for me, I went to Thailand one year, so I had them do Penang Curry with non-bread,
0:55:33 just absolutely one of my favorite dishes.
0:55:38 Another day, it might be, I think it was either Fletcher Cox or Brandon Graham was smothered
0:55:39 pork chops.
0:55:40 Okay.
0:55:44 So I can see why that gets an A. The D grade that Eagles got for team travel, would you
0:55:47 agree with that assessment?
0:55:51 That might have been lower than what I ranked it, but I did not rank it high.
0:55:52 If I was any higher, it was a C.
0:55:56 I’m reading here, it says only half of the players feel they have enough room to spread
0:55:57 out.
0:55:58 I guess that’s on the plane.
0:56:03 You don’t have roommates in a hotel at least, which some teams do, but you’re one of only
0:56:06 seven teams that don’t offer first class seats to their players.
0:56:09 And I did not know that before this study.
0:56:12 When Chip Kelly was the head coach, he did allow, obviously everybody can sit in first
0:56:18 class, but he did allow starters and players who are extremely large to sit in the first
0:56:20 class seats instead of the coaches.
0:56:21 It’s a nice perk.
0:56:24 Anybody who sat first class knows that those seats are pretty nice.
0:56:31 We have a player, Jordan Malata, who’s north of six, six and 400 pounds almost.
0:56:36 He’s going to struggle to fit any situation in the back of the plane.
0:56:42 I will say there was one point we were coming back on a short flight and they didn’t turn
0:56:45 the TVs on on the back of the seats.
0:56:48 And I remember just flipping out, we’re a billion dollar organization and we can’t
0:56:50 even get free movies on these flights.
0:56:52 Like, what’s going on here, guys?
0:56:53 Who’d you say that to?
0:56:59 I said that to one of the stewardesses and then one of the guys that runs everything for
0:57:03 logistics with the team kind of came back and he’s a guy we’re going to turn the TVs
0:57:04 on Jason.
0:57:10 So now what about being charged for food in Arizona, let’s say, did that surprise you?
0:57:11 It didn’t.
0:57:15 I was in Philly my first few years in the off season, at least, you know, we went to
0:57:21 Arizona and we used the Arizona Cardinals facilities and I can say first hand, they are not investing
0:57:22 in this place.
0:57:27 The weight room had, I’m not kidding you, the mats of the weight room were like, I don’t
0:57:31 know if they had water moisture that was getting in there, but the rubber mat that was on top
0:57:36 of the concrete floor was like peeling up on the corners of it.
0:57:38 You’re like walking on an uneven surface the whole time.
0:57:40 I was like, how are people not just getting hurt in here?
0:57:43 It was eye-openingly bad, in my opinion.
0:57:46 What about the rats in Jacksonville, did that surprise you?
0:57:47 Not one bit.
0:57:48 I mean, come on, man.
0:57:54 I’ve gotten trouble for talking trash on Jacksonville one time so I got to calm it down, but yeah,
0:57:55 that’s stadium.
0:57:58 I have not been too much and I’m very thankful of that.
0:58:01 Do you think this report card will lead to any change?
0:58:02 I do.
0:58:04 It’s already led to change.
0:58:09 They installed a much larger cold pool in the actual training room.
0:58:14 We used to have two above ground pools out back, which I always, you know, we’re a billion-dollar
0:58:16 organization with above ground pools.
0:58:19 I think we can maybe do better than this.
0:58:21 Above ground outdoors, like in the winter?
0:58:25 So they would have to shut them down in the winter and that was a big issue with it.
0:58:26 So they’ve already made corrections on that.
0:58:30 I believe they’re addressing some of the family issues at games.
0:58:37 The weight room is adding another tier that’s going to add more footprint for more bikes
0:58:40 and other workout equipment.
0:58:43 I do think teams are going to respond to it just like players are competitive.
0:58:48 I think owners are competitive and I think that owners are certainly a good portion of
0:58:53 owners are not going to like seeing their organization viewed in a negative light and
0:58:57 I think that they’re going to try and correct these things.
0:59:05 What can the rest of us learn from this process of a union representing the workers goes in,
0:59:12 asks everybody a lot of questions, and then produces a report and it lands and now we’re
0:59:14 going to see what happens.
0:59:15 What should we be learning from this?
0:59:19 What would you say to a CEO who might be listening to this and saying, “Holy cow, yeah, like
0:59:21 this is low hanging fruit.
0:59:26 I fixed the mats in the weight room and I don’t have Jason Kelsey trashing me.”
0:59:27 That’s right.
0:59:32 I think unequivocally that more unions should be doing this.
0:59:37 It’s different when one person comes to you with an anecdote or a one-off as opposed to
0:59:43 a literal survey of your entire workforce saying, “This is what we think of the place
0:59:45 that you have us operate in.”
0:59:53 For CEOs and owners, I think that seeing it this way gives you a much more realistic idea
0:59:56 of what your workplace environment is.
1:00:03 I would want this information and as a worker, I would want my boss to know this, but to
1:00:07 also not be punished if I tell him to his face.
1:00:09 I’m a big fan of this survey.
1:00:14 I think that it will lead to a lot of change in some of these NFL organizations, especially
1:00:17 if it’s done on an annual basis.
1:00:24 I see no reason why other fields or places of business would not follow suit and try
1:00:26 to make changes as well.
1:00:32 What he wants to be known as the cheapskate, I think that as before, when it was rumored
1:00:43 you were the cheapskate, it was harder to prove now there’s data.
1:00:49 We want to live in a world where we’re giving out 32A pluses for all the teams.
1:00:51 That again is JC Treader.
1:00:56 When we went into this year one, I told the staff when we started it, “If all
1:01:01 that comes from this is four teams start giving dinner to those players, it’s a win.”
1:01:06 Now, I’m curious to know what you’ve heard from teams about the survey.
1:01:08 Have you heard anything directly from the teams?
1:01:13 Yeah, we’ve heard from about 12 to 15 teams who have reached out to us just to say, “What
1:01:14 can we do better?
1:01:15 Can you give us more information?
1:01:17 What changes would make us better?”
1:01:21 I give credit to Arthur Blank who’s the owner for the Atlanta Falcons.
1:01:25 There was an article written where he said he pulled his president and GM and head coach
1:01:31 aside and told them, “One, if this comes out again, they absolutely cannot be graded as
1:01:33 low as they were before.
1:01:37 Also that they need to start being more proactive and it shouldn’t take this type of thing to
1:01:38 create the change.
1:01:42 They should be, as leaders of the organization, be looking around corners and realizing where
1:01:44 they’re weak and where they need to improve.”
1:01:47 I don’t know Arthur well from people who do.
1:01:52 It seems like it’s not just lip service and that he’s going to act on those words.
1:01:57 After the report cards were released, the Falcons announced a $30 million upgrade to
1:01:59 their locker room, weight room, and cafeteria.
1:02:03 Although they also said the renovations had already been planned and they were not done
1:02:09 in response to the report card where they came in 23rd out of 32 teams.
1:02:10 Those are the things you want to see.
1:02:12 Don’t get defensive about this.
1:02:13 That’s not what we’re hoping for.
1:02:18 We’re hoping that people see like, “Okay, this team is providing this, this, and this.
1:02:19 Maybe we should provide that too.”
1:02:23 Because in the end, as adversarial, sometimes we are, the teams need the players and the
1:02:25 players need the franchises.
1:02:27 Do you plan to do the survey every year?
1:02:28 Yes.
1:02:32 And year two is going to be more important than year one because year one, owners could
1:02:33 claim ignorance.
1:02:36 I think more will claim ignorance than should claim ignorance.
1:02:38 For some of it, I’m sure they didn’t know.
1:02:41 I don’t think many owners are hanging out in the hot tubs with the guys.
1:02:44 And if they do, that’s a story of itself that we should be diving into of why are they
1:02:47 hanging out in the hot tubs with the guys.
1:02:53 But year two, now that this is out there, if some things aren’t changed, you can’t claim
1:02:54 ignorance anymore.
1:03:01 Considering that an NFL workplace is substantially different in many ways from a typical workplace,
1:03:07 what’s there to be learned from this survey for workers and employers who have nothing
1:03:10 to do with pro sports, et cetera?
1:03:14 The teams are called franchises, and I think that’s a connector outside of our industry.
1:03:18 I think there is an expectation that everything is equal in the NFL, and I think everybody
1:03:22 would think it’s equal at Starbucks and equal at Chick-fil-A and equal at McDonald’s.
1:03:27 And if you go to a franchise, the rules and the treatment of the workers are the same.
1:03:28 And I think we know that’s not true.
1:03:33 And if you’re a worker, I think it would be valuable to know the treatment you will receive
1:03:36 if you decide to work at one franchise versus another.
1:03:42 And I also think if you’re the overall company, it would be interesting to see how your franchises
1:03:48 who are carrying your name and dictating your brand image, how they treat their workers
1:03:58 and how they treat their customers and how that varies across different franchise operators.
1:04:05 I went back to Tom Garfinkel, the Miami Dolphins CEO and president, with a similar question.
1:04:09 What kind of lessons are there to be drawn from this report card for the companies that
1:04:11 aren’t NFL teams?
1:04:15 Are there things that are applicable, or is the NFL work environment just too different
1:04:17 to be useful for comparison?
1:04:19 I think it’s definitely useful for comparison.
1:04:25 I think it comes down to culture, values and standards, investment into your people.
1:04:31 I’m a believer that people need to work together physically, certain jobs, if you’re coding,
1:04:34 sitting at your computer all day, and that’s all you do.
1:04:38 You could probably do that as easily from home as from an office, but most environments
1:04:39 are still very human.
1:04:44 They rely on human interaction and investing in those environments and investing in that
1:04:49 organic interaction enhances creativity, it enhances productivity.
1:04:53 It enhances people want meaning, right?
1:04:56 It goes back to Victor Frankel and everything.
1:04:57 Meaning matters.
1:05:01 And I think what we do, it’s more than sports, it’s more than football.
1:05:02 It’s about meaning.
1:05:03 It’s about social interaction.
1:05:07 We bring people together to experience life together.
1:05:13 It’s still better to be in a stadium when someone catches that pass in the fourth quarter
1:05:16 to win a football game than to watch it on television by yourself at home because you’re
1:05:19 experiencing it with other people.
1:05:24 And whether it’s that as a fan or whether it’s employees interacting together in the
1:05:29 workplace, particularly in environments like this one and many are like this where people
1:05:30 work very hard.
1:05:36 They work long hours and you’re with your coworkers a lot and you want it to be inspiring.
1:05:41 You want it to inspire creativity, productivity, happiness, positivity.
1:05:45 And I think that’s the bigger lesson in all this than anything football related.
1:05:52 I have to say, when we started working on this episode about workplace conditions in
1:05:58 the NFL, I never thought we’d end up at Victor Frankel, but I’m glad we did.
1:06:05 Frankel was an Austrian psychologist, a Holocaust survivor, best known for writing man’s search
1:06:06 for meaning.
1:06:08 If you haven’t read it, I’d suggest you do.
1:06:12 It will make you think as it made Tom Garfinkel think.
1:06:16 Thanks to him as well as all the other guests on today’s show.
1:06:22 Also, let me share an update on the 2024 NFL Players Association report card.
1:06:28 The Philadelphia Eagles jumped from 14th out of 32 teams all the way up to fourth.
1:06:32 Too bad Jason Kelsey had retired and wasn’t around to enjoy that.
1:06:37 The Eagles opponent in the upcoming Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs, still get lousy
1:06:44 marks on their report card, ranking 31st due to poor facilities and low grades for team
1:06:46 owner Clark Hunt.
1:06:51 The biggest jump on the ratings list was the Jacksonville Jaguars, who went from 28th
1:06:57 to fifth thanks to upgrades in their facilities, which are now rat free.
1:07:04 And the very best team to work for, according to the 2024 report card, was the Miami Dolphins,
1:07:10 in part because Tom Garfinkel kept the promise he told us about to fix the family room.
1:07:14 Second and third this year were the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers.
1:07:16 That’s it for this update.
1:07:18 We will be back soon with another new episode.
1:07:20 Until then, take care of yourself.
1:07:23 And if you can, someone else too.
1:07:26 Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio.
1:07:32 This episode was produced by Ryan Kelly and updated by Dalvin Abouaji and Theo Jacobs.
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