Uber’s service would complement an existing program run by the union in which players can summon a car by placing a phone call.
I see how using Uber is an improvement, but really, if no-one is using the existing service then I think the problem runs deeper than whether they need to talk on the phone to use it.
It's never been difficult to call a cab instead of drunk drive.
I would like to respectfully disagree. Calling a cab is a nightmare, at least in San Francisco, prior to Uber. You were put on hold for several minutes, you had to explain where you were, the driver could not show up or show up extremely late.
When you are inebriated, these steps can easily be considered overwhelming and lead to many people not wanting to go through the process.
In contrast to open phone > tap uber app > tap call cab. The difference is night and day, and I think that's why the program will succeed now when it has failed before.
The biggest upgrade is seeing where the car is. Calling a cab is basically playing the lottery in places like San Francisco, whereas with Lyft/Uber/Sidecar you get to see how far it is. It's much easier to convince yourself not to drive (if that's something drinking causes you to do) if you can see how long you will be waiting.
What make you think that the existing program was a regular cab? One would hardly describe "NFL players can call cabs" as "an existing union program where they call a phone number for a car" without intending to mislead.
The barely-described prior program could be slower than calling a cab, if it's a national call-center that then picks a city-specific service, and doesn't draw on as many providers. Clearly there have been problems with it.
And if you're drunk and out past some contractual/implied curfew, talking to strangers is harder: there's some embarrassment involved. Pushing a button in an app depersonalizes the situation, helpfully so.
According to this article (http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201304/nfl-players-worry...) the major problem is privacy - players worried that the team management could find out that they'd been drinking (and to a lesser extent, cost, and perhaps to a greater extent, stupidity. Cost will be reduced with Uber, privacy should be less of a concern, and stupidity will remain unaffected).
> NYC is the only city where getting a cab is easy
Define "easy". I've had several infuriating experiences trying to get a cab in NYC, all of which ended in me walking or taking a subway instead. NYC has a lot of cabs, but they also have a lot of cab patrons.
I would argue it's easy to get a cab in Chicago from most parts of the city where people spend time at night. No, it's not easy to get a cab from the the West Side or Uptown at night, but that's because it doesn't need to be. The cabs follow the people.
> This seems to be the central issue with Uber- it has solved a San Francisco problem, and is now trying to apply the same solution everywhere.
Dealing with taxi dispatchers in Seattle is awful. They're rude, they don't tell you when your cab is coming, sometimes they just don't pick up.
Some taxi drivers aren't much better. They can be extremely reticent to accept credit cards, and I have been refused service before because I wanted to pay with one.
The introduction of Uber (and especially UberX) in Seattle has made deciding whether or not to drive a total no-brainer.
Note thought that the existing program for the players doesn't involve just calling any random yellow-car cab company - they have a special number and service set up.
But it is good marketing and PR. Uber's task now is to be known and accepted by the mainstream so that people feel offended when they are attacked through the legal system by entrenched interests in various jurisdictions.
Yeah, I see how it's good PR for Uber. I'm just not sure that it does anything to tackle the actual issue of NFL players driving drunk, endangering themselves and others.
Going a little deeper, we are talking about a 53 man roster times 32 teams, only some percentage of which drive drunk with or without the program.
How much impact does this actual issue have? What is the over/under on how many marginal drunk driving accidents the partnership with Uber will prevent per year? 10?
The primary effect will be to set up these 1500 or so celebrities as examples for how to behave when drunk. If using Uber after a bender is good enough for John Q Sportshero, then it's good enough for you. And that may make a real difference for the other 300 million of us.
It's good PR for the NFL management, too. 22 year old millionaires will always have a DUI tendency, the management just needs to be seen as doing things about it.
I'd bet this project came out of their PR firms rather than the biz dev department.
Yeah I really don't see this going anywhere, it seems more like a PR move by the NFL mated to a PR campaign from Uber.
NFL players are some of the highest-paid in any profession in the world, most of which could rent a limo for the entirety of the night whenever they go out and it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket against their earnings. But, they don't...
NFL players are some of the highest-paid in any profession in the world, most of which could rent a limo for the entirety of the night whenever they go out and it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket against their earnings. But, they don't...
NFL is actually probably the least player-lucrative major sport franchise, due to the relatively low number of games (compared to NBA and MLB) and high roster size. Minimum rookie salary is around $300,000, which sounds like a lot until you realize players are basically forced into retirement after less than ten years, face tremendous workplace risks, and don't get easily translatable skills.
There's a reason you hear so many stories about homeless former pro athletes, and its not because they're dumb jocks: the system isn't exactly tailored around long-term fiscal viability.
I agree, but with one nitpick--the minimum rookie salary is $405,000. Definitely not a lot when you're always one play away from a career ending injury. However, relatively few players actually make league minimum and rookies are signed to 4-year contracts.
To elaborate slightly on 'workplace risks,' one of the biggest ones is healthcare. Football players, for example, can damage their bodies in ways that don't show up for years, until well after all those specialty doctors and trainers are no longer available, since you're not playing ball any more.
>NFL players are some of the highest-paid in any profession in the world, most of which could rent a limo for the entirety of the night whenever they go out and it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket against their earnings. But, they don't...
Well to be fair, a lot of players in the NFL only make it in the league for a few years if they are lucky and make closer to the league minimum. I would think a lot of software developers stand to make more money over their careers than some of these guys do.
That's to say, not everyone playing in the NFL right now stands to retire with millions of dollars in the bank, especially if they have the mentality of renting a limo everytime they go out.
League minimum this year is $405,000. I think they can afford a cab on that wage.
What isn't considered is the thousands of players on farm teams that make 80k. However, they're generally not the ones ending up in the news (nor the ones that this benefit covers).
How often do you any player start out in the CFL/AAFL and go on to become starters in the NFL. There is a handful who fall into the "undiscovered talent" category and that's it.
They are far from being a developmental league where players hone skills with the hopes of "being called up to the big leagues", like what baseball, hockey, and to a lesser extent basketball do.
Sure, most anyone making a decent salary can afford a cab in most cities.
I was just pointing out that the caricaturization of all NFL players as multi-millionaires who could afford to rent limos every time they went out is unfair and not really true for the majority of them.
Does this mean if you are drafted to an NFL team your expected (minimum) earnings would be $1.62M?
My understanding is the median household income in the US is approx. $50,000 - about 32 years' worth of work to equal the (minimum) earnings of an NFL draftee.
They're hardly struggling, even if the contract isn't renewed and they have to find another job.
It's a black car service, the problem is privacy concerns - the players don't want management to be able to find out how late they were out and where they were.
I suppose having the Player's Association set it up is meant to help the players trust the service. Still, mixing the players in with Uber's capacity – maybe even with customer pseudonyms? – could offer faster service and more anonymity than a previous program.
To play devil's advocate, it's not the call-and-ride part that's difficult - it's the next day that's an actual hassle.
Depending on where you live, you need to call a cab to take you back, and depending on where that is, the cab may show up late, if at all. Then you have to hope that you car is still where you left it, and not towed or booted.
None of this excuses drunk driving, of course. The solution is to make plans, instead of just driving to the bar and assuming you'll figure out what to do later.
Dead right. Someone who plans in advance will avoid driving drunk. I typically take the bus downtown and a cab home after the buses have stopped. Somehow I don't see many NFL players doing that.
> It's never been difficult to call a cab instead of drunk drive.
It has, however, been difficult to wait for over an hour outside of a bar at 3am and have no cab show up. :/ Being able to see where the car actually is and that it's coming to get you is a killer feature of Uber / Lyft / Sidecar / Taxi Magic / etc.
They are using it. The article states they they have received an average of 50 calls a month for it, and that is just the service the NFLPA offers, never mind whatever each team offers.
> (...) then I think the problem runs deeper than whether they need to talk on the phone to use it.
Okay, well when you come up with a plan of execution to fix society as a whole, then we can move forward with that instead.
> It's never been difficult to call a cab instead of drunk drive.
I rarely use a cab... I called for a cab once and it was a horrible experience. The other person had such a thick accent I wasn't quite sure if the information was conveyed properly, after several attempts to confirm.
In the end, I said to myself, "Screw it. Just wait 5-10 minutes and call another cab." Fortunately the cab came to the right location and all was good.
I see how using Uber is an improvement, but really, if no-one is using the existing service then I think the problem runs deeper than whether they need to talk on the phone to use it.
It's never been difficult to call a cab instead of drunk drive.