As you sit at home and prepare for your fantasy football drafts, follow Big Ben's road to redemption, and laugh as Brett Favre holds the Minnesota Vikings hostage, please savor every second of it because there will NOT be an NFL season next year. Well let me rephrase that: next fall there will not be an NFL season with the superstar athletes that are on your fantasy rosters this year. Your starting RB1 might be a guy similar to Rod “He Hate Me” Smart or your QB1 may be cough Tommy “Gun” Maddox from the XFL several years ago.
Many people are aware of the growing labor dispute between the NFL and the NFLPA (National Football League Players Association), but the average fan doesn't know what the jockeying and negotiating is about. I am going to highlight the bargaining positions of both the NFL and NFLPA in order to explain why these groups are willing to argue over this $9 billion per year industry. $9 billion – that is 9 zeroes after the number 9 or roughly the Gross National Product of Jamaica.
As the old adage goes; “History finds a way of repeating itself.” Just as in 1982 and 1987 the main sticking point in the labor negotiations between the NFL and the NFLPA is the percentage of gross revenues that the league is giving back to the players in the form of player salaries. Currently the players receive 60% of the Gross National Product of Jamaica – sorry of the $9 billion revenues. The NFL claims that it is in bad financial shape because of the shrinking economy and that it wishes to reduce player salaries by between 18 and 20 percent.
The real problem arises because the NFL is refusing to “open the books” to the Players Association in order to prove exactly how bad of financial shape they are in. Well technically one team already has. The Green Bay Packers are a publicly held team and therefore are required to disclose their financials to the public. Although the Packers are showing a declining profit and rising player costs they still have a net profit and show no signs of falling into the “red” any time soon.
To highlight just how well the NFL is doing it may be necessary for one to look at the assets of the NFL as a whole. The assets owned by the NFL have grown over 500% in the last 15 years. It is difficult to compare this number to any other industry, as economists have had a hard time finding any business that has grown at such a rate.
Why won't the NFL open its books to the Players in order to come to an agreement? The answer is two-fold. First, the NFL claims that during the labor disputes in '82 and '87 they never had to open the books and an agreement was made. Second, and most likely the real reason, the NFL is making a ton of money, but wants to hide it from the players in order to keep rising player salaries down. This absolutely cannot be said for certain and I am not taking either position on the issue, but this is the way that it looks to people who are following the labor strife.
Another battleground of the labor negotiations between the NFL and NFLPA is the 18 game schedule. NFL owners wish to add two games to the current 16 game schedule by reducing the preseason schedule by two games. Superstar players aren't used in all of the preseason games anyhow and the owners would be able to capitalize on their investment by having “real” games that fans want to attend and watch. On the flip side, the Players are against the 18 game schedule. An 18 game schedule brings more injuries and increased risk to the players. This would be offset by a boost in pay to the players, but it also brings increased roster sizes and another dark hallway that the NFL and NFLPA has never been down. Personally, I see the 18 game schedule on the horizon.
Finally, the one thing that most certainly will be included in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is the introduction of a rookie pay scale. This is the one area where the NFL and NFLPA agree and this may be the one thing that may bring them together. Rookies coming out of college are “slotted” at a certain amount of total money and a certain amount of money guaranteed. For example, Sam Bradford this year's number one overall pick will make $86 million over 5 years and $50 million is guaranteed. He can never take a snap in the NFL and he pockets $50 million. Last year's number one overall pick, Matthew Stafford agreed to a $72 million dollar deal with $41.2 million guaranteed.
I personally believe that every man is worth every penny that someone is willing to pay them, but there is something wrong with this rookie system. Currently, Tom Brady – yeah the guy that seemed to beat the Steelers every year in the early 2000's and won 3 Super Bowls – is having a difficult time getting a new contract from the New England Patriots. Brady is a sure fire Hall of Famer and one of the best quarterbacks to ever play. But when he signs his new deal with the Patriots, he is not going to get anywhere near $50 million or even $41.2 million guaranteed. Currently Brady is set to make $6.5 million this season and can become an unrestricted free agent next season.
The Players Association desires an agreement which allows players, like Brady, to be taken care before the rookies who have never played an NFL down . This plays right into the hands of the Owners who want to reduce the overall pay to players in order to increase revenue. Both sides agree that rookie salaries are out of control and this is the one place where both parties are able to come together to begin their negotiations.
Although the NFL and NFLPA have a place to begin negotiations, both parties have “drawn a line in the sand”. The head of the Players Union, DeMaurice Smith and the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell (Washington & Jefferson graduate) have barely had communication with respect to getting a deal done so that there will be an NFL season next fall. In 1982 the Players strike lasted 57 days and the regular season lasted only 9 weeks. In 1987, the players struck for roughly a month, during which time the Owners fielded teams of “scab” players. The Owners during this season were able to crack the Players Union and force them to comply with the Owners' demands.
With this cloud of uncertainty hanging over the NFL for next season, I believe it is fairly safe to say that there will a work stoppage of some sort. MLB and the NHL both endured similar work stoppages in the 90's and 00's respectively and the NFL experienced stoppages the last two times that there were labor disputes. So please enjoy the 2010 NFL season because there is no telling when this $9 billion dollar per year industry will field the Superstars that we watch on Sundays this fall. It is more likely that we will be cheering for players similar to those in the movie “The Replacements” such as Danny Bateman, Nigel Gruff, Clifford Franklin and Shane Falco. More realistically, when the Steelers find a “scab” player to replace Ben Roethlisberger, his name will rhyme with Shane Falco but in fact be former high school super athlete – Tyler Palko. Haha.
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