Raiders allow employees to sell season tickets in lieu of furloughs

When Amy Trask, chief executive of the Oakland Raiders, gathered the entire staff for a meeting at team headquarters on the night the NFL lockout began on March 11 to outline plans for dealing with the work stoppage, apprehension loomed.

The Raiders unveiled details of an incentive plan requiring that team employees sell new season tickets that totaled at least 10% of their salaries during the length of a lockout. This, in lieu of salary cutbacks or furloughs. Just last week, the Miami Dolphins had a similar meeting and announced that effective immediately, salaries for all employees would be cut from 10% to 20%.

"It was like Christmas," Raiders defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan recalled this week of the reaction at the meeting. "And with a big sigh of relief."

Bresnahan returned for a second stint with the Raiders this year, having spent the past seven years with other teams — including the last two seasons with the United Football League's Florida Tuskers.

Although he hasn't closed a sale, he doesn't sound worried about reaching his quota.

"I've got to sell millionaires in a room every day to run and crash heads," he says, referring to the players he coaches during normal times. "So this is easy."

Still, the added task of mining community events and knocking on the doors of corporations is quite a departure. All team staffers, from secretaries to equipment managers to executives, must effectively join the team's sales staff.

"I understand that some clubs are taking different approaches," says Trask, mindful that about one-third of the NFL's teams have cutbacks for team staffers, including furloughs and salary reductions. "(But) a very strong argument can be made that this is something that staff members of every team should be doing all the time."

Not every team has the tickets to sell like the Raiders, who averaged an NFL-low attendance of 46,431 for home games last season. They've had just two home sellouts the last two years, and since the franchise moved from back from Los Angeles in 1995 have had 83 of 129 home games blacked out.

And it's a tougher sell with a harsh economy converging with the uncertainty of the NFL's labor dispute. Furthermore, the Raiders, who snapped a string of seven consecutive losing seasons with an 8-8 finish in 2010, play at one of the NFL's most antiquated venues, Oakland Coliseum.

"Most of the people I've encountered have been understanding," Bresnahan says. "I think the public looks at us as caught in the middle. The hardest thing is looking someone in the eye during this economy. But on the other hand, people really want football."

Trask acknowledges that some employees might not be thrilled about "The 2011 Plan," as it is called, but she suspects the percentage of "intimidated" staffers is low. She says one assistant coach closed a sale on 10 club seats on the first day and that camaraderie between different departments within the organization has improved.

The target amount for each employee will depend on the length of the lockout. Through two months, an employee paid, for instance, $10,000, would have to sell $1,000 in new season tickets — payable one week before the regular-season opener.

Refunds will be issued if payments are made for games lost to the work stoppage.

"Everybody's trying to get creative in their own way," says Bresnahan, who was defensive coordinator when the Raiders won three consecutive AFC West titles from 2000 to 2002 and advanced to Super Bowl XXXVII. "I know I've got something to talk about at every establishment I set foot in — every restaurant, every store, every winery."

But he can't wait until the labor issue is resolved, and the return to his full-time job — football. Says Bresnahan: "We're drooling for that."

Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to For more information about reprints & permissions , visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com . Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com