One thing that hit me today while reading through the various media articles about the ongoing restructuring in the Steelers ownership:  How will the change/restructuring in ownership affect the teams ability to stay competitive a) if football becomes uncapped indefinitely or b) football remains capped, but the caps keep increasing, like they have in previous years.

In Tribune-Review I was reading about how the Steelers, when they want to give a player (like Ben) a big signing bonus, it basically comes straight out of the owners wallets, and thus, cuts into the profitability of the team.  For the past decade the team has focused on maintaining a winning product, at the cost of their profit margins.  Us fans should be so lucky, the Rooney's have a "cheap" reputation, but the hard facts and income statements support that they have in fact sacrificed their own potential gains to put a winning product on display.  Now, moving forward, it has become more and more difficult for NFL franchises to maintain profitable (hard to believe I know) with increasing player costs and overhead costs.  The Rooney's have already been squeezing their pockets to keep a winning product on the field, so I want to examine the two most likely scenarios, 1) Rooney's (led by Dan & Art II) maintain majority control, and 2) Druckenmiller gains majority control, with Dan & Art II left in charge of day to day operations

In Scenario 1, most likely, Dan & Art II are going to find outside investors to back them, but at the same time, they will need to incur some amount of debt, and spend some of their own money.  In two years, if the league goes uncapped, this will severely hamper the Steelers, as management will be feeling the squeeze to keep costs under control, and the NFL-mandated debt limit COULD (not necessarily, but possibly) put a damper on the Steelers remaining competitive.  So, if Dan & Art II retain majority share, we all better pray that a salary cap remains in place.  I would also imagine though, that any plan that has Dan & Art II as majority owner, addresses future cash issues, as the Rooney's are just too smart to not see that.

In Scenario 2, this is basically the one positive of having Druckenmiller become majority owner.  While I definitely want to keep the Rooney's as majority owners, you have to also see the positives of a multi-billionaire in control.  For one, in an uncapped league, Druckenmiller's large cash reserves, combined with (presumably) Dan & Art II's personnel decisions, the Steelers might even be a more dominant powerhouse than they already have been for the past 30 years.  Even with a new cap in place, it would increase the ability of the Steelers to add "cash over cap" signing bonuses to contracts (not that these contracts are good ones, as they usually are overpaying players) but it would help us retain players who we might not want to lose --like Faneca, who even though he was way overpriced, if a year earlier we had just offered him a top 10 deal, he would've stayed, instead of leaving for #1 paid guard in the league money a year later-- in the long run.

In conclusion, it's easy to see how any ownership outcome with Dan maintaining majority share is most likely going to put a pinch on his own families finances, and thus, POSSIBLY the competitiveness of the Steelers.  Again, I must stress it's more likely that Dan comes up with a plan that will allow the Steelers to maintain their winning ways, as THAT is the bedrock of the Steelers.  However, IF he has to choose between keeping the team, and keeping a winning team, what will he do?  We all know and love the Rooney's and know they want badly to do the right thing, but there are SO many factors at play here, it's murky to predict what will happen.  That said, I'm pretty confident no matter what, the future of the franchise is going to be stable, at worst.