NFL lockout 2011

[RavensDomination]

Not looking good for the league.

"The NFL is expected to play 2010 without a salary cap in place. NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said that once that genie is out of the bottle, it will be "virtually impossible" to go back to a capped environment." (http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/02/04/de-smith-virtually-impossible-to-go-back-to-capped-system/#comments)

Also "On a scale of one to 10 it's a 14," NFL Players Association (NFLPA) executive director DeMaurice Smith said Thursday about the chances for a lockout by owners in March of next year when the current labor deal expires. (http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Dispute_on_dividing_riches_could_sh_02042010.html)

Add this to Kevin Mawae's comments (http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d8160787c&template=with-video-with-comments&confirm=true) about teams being "on the opposite 10 yard lines."

and Bisciotti's comments (http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Dispute_on_dividing_riches_could_sh_02042010.html) "I've got partners out there whose teams are making less money than their linebackers," he said. "We've got an acute problem with general profitability of teams. It's a bad deal that puts us in the unenviable position of this thing ending in a lockout."

Also worthy of mention...

-New NFL television contracts through 2013 ensure payment even if games are not played are "lockout insurance" according to Smith.

-NFL's 2008 hiring of lawyer Bob Batterman, who represented the National Hockey League during a labor feud that wiped out an entire season.

[jonboy79]

The sooner that De Smith realizes that "genie' he is speaking of is NO SPENDING FLOOR, the better for the players. They are effed....

[Ravenswarrior19]

D Smith's "virtually impossible" comment echoes the long held sentiment of Upshaw. For years, Upshaw repeatedly said if the cap were ever to go away, players would never allow it to return.

At this point in the negotiations, I would characterize the comment as pure bluster. The real deadline for an agreement is next March.

Until then, just about everything is jockeying for initial battle lines.

I do think its safe to assume an uncapped 2010 is a certainty.

[Mista T]

Smith is full of crap. There is no way that the multi-millionaire NFL players would give up their careers over the principle of a salary cap. Long before that happens, they would fire Smith, decertify the union, whatever, to avoid a season-long lockout in 2011.

The NFL owners hold most of the cards and will play them in order to get out of the stranglehold of the last NFLPA agreement. TV contracts are in place, and owners certainly would have ample financial reserves to weather a lockout period. IIRC, the owners profitability went up when they played replacement players.

There's a major recession going on which will likely last a few more years, and the players are going to have to come to the realization that fans in Jacksonville, St. Louis, Oakland, Detroit etc would be just as happy to see CFL calibre players at $40 a ticket as watching NFL prima donnas at $100 a ticket.

[braven98]

I would be surprise if there wasnt a strike...mlb nhl they both had strikes. I also remember 1987,the owners will have the money for tickets in the bank long before the lockout happens, its a business

[RavensDomination]

This situation is very similar to the 1994 MLB strike. Before the strike a lot of people said Donald Fehr was posturing as well. MLB owners said because of the financial structure they needed a salary cap. Players said no. Strike. Also, MLB had a newer commish who the players union disliked, so does the NFL.

An uncapped 2010 is practically a guarantee. The players union has said for years once the cap is gone it's gone for good. They see how good the MLB players have it, and they want the same. MLB has lost a lot of fans but guess what? It's as profitable as ever for the owners and the players. Owners like Angelos still make money even with a pathetic team, and owners like Steinbrenner can spend twice as much as everyone else to buy success.

A lot of NFL owners would make out well without a cap, they would still get all the revenue from TV and merchandise sales and wouldn't have to spend a certain amount on player salaries. The loss of ticket sales would be made up by spending only 30 million a year on player salaries, like in MLB. Does anyone think most of the owners in the NFL care more about winning, or more about making money? I'm going with the latter every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

[braven98]

the nfl is big business...and if you run your team right a cash pig. When the Eagles we sold they sold for 185 million ,a close friend of mine almost won the bid. They are now worth a billion plus. The owners know what they are doing and will stick together...

[RockGod]

I could easily lose interest in the NFL if it strikes, I did it with baseball when they went on strike and cancelled the world series and I haven't looked back. I can only name one or two players for the Orioles and maybe 5 league wide. I don't care let them strike and if they do I hope the NFL never recovers from it. The Unions have screwed everything else up they've had a hand in, Steel, Auto, Baseball, teachers, why stop there when there's a perfectly good league to ruin.

[HoustonRaven]

The players have no cards in this fight. None.

There is a better chance of all the snow in Maryland melting in the next 20 minutes than the players going on strike. It all comes down to cash.

The owners have Billions in reserved cash should there be a strike / lockout. The players have managed to save up something in the area of $24 Million. The players know this.

If the players has their way, they would have an MLB system of pay so I am 110% in the camp of the owners on this one.

[Captain Offense]

I am at the stage of just letting things play out. I have no power in this drama and as with all contract negotiations, nothing substantive will be done until the 11th hour - or like in Annapolis, where they take the battery out of the clock to freeze time and still talk. Everybody will play the media and rev the posturing up. I'll just find my ear plugs and wait to see what my Sundays look like in 2011.

The Football Union has never had a solid front like Baseball. The latter is a unique animal and especially in this day of ME/ME/ME players I do not see the unified team necessary to weather a storm. There are plenty of Replacements out there and I could see a lot of line-crossers. As my favorite philoshopher said "A man's got to know his limitations". The union will have to be real about the rank-and-file before they try to play chicken. As to the owners, their weak link is the all-for-one/one-for-all mantra. They have to have Jones- and Snyder-types on board with the "share the pie" mentality to hold their position. The TV contract helps them, but watch the legal battles over collusion. No other sport is like baseball in the union sense, but owners do have a way sometimes of blowing a lead. Strong-willed owners will need to punch the Jones/Snyder mindset in the gut.

Someone once mentioned taping all of the 2010 games to play them back in 2011. Hopefully, we never have to consider that an option.

[FellsPointRaven]

Worst comes to the worst, we can always replace this guy

http://www.everyjoe.com/emqb/files/2008/07/joe-flacco.jpg

with this guy

http://www.movieforum.com/movies/titles/thereplacements/images/shanefalco.jpg

[Dave Lap]

If the players has their way, they would have an MLB system of pay so I am 110% in the camp of the owners on this one.

Me too. It was the greed of the players (and to a smaller degree, management) that ruined baseball for me. Was a big O's fan and stopped after free agency. I refuse to watch a professional sport that doesn't offer equal opportunity for each franchise to compete on an even footing.

The players could care less about the fans if they want to go to an uncapped system like baseball.

Unfortunately there is no organized fan base to stand up for the fans in these battles.

[jonboy79]

Smith is full of crap. There is no way that the multi-millionaire NFL players would give up their careers over the principle of a salary cap. Long before that happens, they would fire Smith, decertify the union, whatever, to avoid a season-long lockout in 2011.

The NFL owners hold most of the cards and will play them in order to get out of the stranglehold of the last NFLPA agreement. TV contractsare in pace, and owners certainly would have ample financial reserves to weather a lockout period. IIRC, the owners profitability went up when they played replacement players.

There's a major recession going on which will likely last a few more years, and the players are going to have to come to the realization that fans in Jacksonville, St. Louis, Oakland, Detroit etc would be just as happy to see CFL calibre players at $40 a ticket as watching NFL prima donnas at $100 a ticket.

Right on.
There is really only one card in this fight, and the owners have it. TV contracts. The NFL all the big guaranteed money. IF the players want some, they have to play nice.
The Owners could lock out, pay cheap players and have cheap tickets and make MORE MONEY.
The players, can make accomodations and make TONS of CASH here, or go to the CFL and make a bit and "hope" that the CFL "change"s into the bigger league with the better talent and NO TV money.

[Dave Lap]

Worst comes to the worst, we can always replace this guy

http://www.everyjoe.com/emqb/files/2008/07/joe-flacco.jpg

with this guy

http://www.movieforum.com/movies/titles/thereplacements/images/shanefalco.jpg

Good one!

However I'm Walco for Falco just doesn't have quite the same ring.

[bmorebirds_24]

Is anyone else seriously scared of there being NO football for the 2011 season and beyond??

[braven98]

I lived through the last strike it sucked...except for the fact that we tailgated and drank with the real players...Mike Golic was one of them. I remember the teamsters lining up trucks around the vet

[Mista T]

Is anyone else seriously scared of there being NO football for the 2011 season and beyond??

Scared? No.

I weathered no football from 1984 through 1995. A one or two month lock-out, to break the union's stranglehold on NFL's finances, would be flyshit compared to what we've already endured, and would be worth it. Too many of my friends are having a tough time weathering the bad economy coupled with the unreasonable ticket & stadium parking price increases -- I may have to give up a few of my own tickets as well. Screw the NFLPA.

Probability of a 2011 lock-out: 50%

Probability of no football in 2012: 5%

Probability of no future salary cap: 5%

Probability of an expanded regular season: 50%

[Rxdoxx]

I am at the stage of just letting things play out. I have no power in this drama and as with all contract negotiations, nothing substantive will be done until the 11th hour - or like in Annapolis, where they take the battery out of the clock to freeze time and still talk. Everybody will play the media and rev the posturing up. I'll just find my ear plugs and wait to see what my Sundays look like in 2011.

The Football Union has never had a solid front like Baseball. The latter is a unique animal and especially in this day of ME/ME/ME players I do not see the unified team necessary to weather a storm. There are plenty of Replacements out there and I could see a lot of line-crossers. As my favorite philoshopher said "A man's got to know his limitations". The union will have to be real about the rank-and-file before they try to play chicken. As to the owners, their weak link is the all-for-one/one-for-all mantra. They have to have Jones- and Snyder-types on board with the "share the pie" mentality to hold their position. The TV contract helps them, but watch the legal battles over collusion. No other sport is like baseball in the union sense, but owners do have a way sometimes of blowing a lead. Strong-willed owners will need to punch the Jones/Snyder mindset in the gut.

Someone once mentioned taping all of the 2010 games to play them back in 2011. Hopefully, we never have to consider that an option.

:iagree: Usually I edit things shorter to save people extra reading, but not a lot of fat in what you are saying.


"The union will have to be real about the rank-and-file before they try to play chicken." Truth. The huge dollars are made by a handful of players on each team. The special teamers and the veteran minimums are the majority of the union membership, and don't have the cash reserves that the superstars do.
I sure can see the union fracturing when the pressure really hits. Right now is all talk and posturing, things will have to be brought to crisis for that to happen, and I read that as lockout.

"The TV contract helps them, but watch the legal battles over collusion."
This is the price that the owners will pay. The union will be broken long before the legal processes are effectively ramped up (no real legal fast track for this in our system here). But the anger/outcry of the fans will have Congress jumping in front of the cameras and doing their thing about it.
I expect the union to have a lawsuit but then withdraw it when they decertify, and I expect eventually to see a Microsoft-like anti-trust ruling that will change the owners playing field. But that appears to come only after the initial mess is resolved.

Until then, wouldn't surprise me to see the Sentinals, Locomotives, Redwoods, Tuskers add a number of teams to that league.

[RavensDomination]

Probability of an expanded regular season: 50%

I'm glad you brought this up. This is going to be another major point of contention between the two sides.

The owners want the players to take a reduced cut, and now they are going to want them to play two more regular season games? More work, less pay? I don't see how that will EVER fly with the NFLPA. Personally I think they should leave well enough alone.

[psuasskicker]

-New NFL television contracts through 2013 ensure payment even if games are not played are "lockout insurance" according to Smith.

Holy crap!

If this is true, it's an AMAZING bargaining chip for the owners! They can basically go knowing that they'll get paid regardless of whether or not the players are on the field. Sure they'll have the expenses of paying for the stadiums not being used, but it's not like they can't find events to mitigate if they need to. And they won't have $100MM+ of player salaries to deal with on the back end. Their profit margins are likely not to shrink at all if not grow!

Meanwhile, the players earning no less than hundreds of thousands of dollars and in many cases millions, sit around and wait and wonder if they're gonna get paid. Mawae can talk all he wants about the two sides being on the opposing 10 yard line. The problem is, the owners only have incentive to come out to their 15...they can sit back and wait for the players to beg for them to come to the 20!

I don't know if the players really understand how little they have going for them right now...

- C -

[Mista T]

The owners want the players to take a reduced cut, and now they are going to want them to play two more regular season games? More work, less pay? I don't see how that will EVER fly with the NFLPA. Personally I think they should leave well enough alone.

I believe that this is right behind the salary cap and rookie pay scale in order of priority to the owners. The 17th game allows the NFL to reduce the exhibition game scam on its fans, as it's obvious that fan support is dwindling based on the unprecedented number of modern era blacked out games and something needs to be done to regain support. The 17th game should provide for TV contract increases to existing contracts for another week of prime season games, and from from 17th game neutral site games played in London, LA, Toronto and/or Mexico City, without having to share the owners' pie via expansion.

With the leverage that the NFL owners have, I would be surprised if the 17th game isn't added. (The 18th game is IMHO just a negotiation shill)

[RavensDomination]

I believe that this is right behind the salary cap and rookie pay scale in order of priority to the owners. The 17th game allows the NFL to reduce the exhibition game scam on its fans, as it's obvious that fan support is dwindling based on the unprecedented number of modern era blacked out games and something needs to be done to regain support. The 17th game should provide for TV contract increases to existing contracts for another week of prime season games, and from from 17th game neutral site games played in London, LA, Toronto and/or Mexico City, without having to share the owners' pie via expansion.

With the leverage that the NFL owners have, I would be surprised if the 17th game isn't added. (The 18th game is IMHO just a negotiation shill)

One more game wouldn't be killer, two more is a little much. I think three preseason games is just about right, but then I suppose you would get into the battle of who gets more home games than away games? With an uneven number of games some team would get shafted. Maybe this is Goodell's way of having even more games played overseas.

[BmoreBrawla]

Good one!

However I'm Walco for Falco just doesn't have quite the same ring.

I'm WACO for Flacco :rocking:

Anyway, I'd like to see replacements if there is a lockout.

[Ravenswarrior19]

Holy crap!
If this is true, it's an AMAZING bargaining chip for the owners! They can basically go knowing that they'll get paid regardless of whether or not the players are on the field. Sure they'll have the expenses of paying for the stadiums not being used, but it's not like they can't find events to mitigate if they need to. And they won't have $100MM+ of player salaries to deal with on the back end. Their profit margins are likely not to shrink at all if not grow!


It most certainly is true. If my understanding is correct from when the deal was initially cut, it works something like this.

DirectTV and the networks guaranteed the payments for future football seasons. The NFL will be paid in full and on time for the however many seasons were agreed upon, whether there is football played or not.

In the event that there is no football played in, say, 2011, the NFL will be paid for the season anyway. The network would then be "credited" for a future season at the end of the deal (2016 or however many years the extension was for).

So while it's not exactly free money for the NFL, it is a guaranteed payment or "line of credit" in the event of a work stoppage.

I have not seen anything concerning what happens if the NFL plays a season with replacement players. Would the price for the networks change? I doubt it, but I haven't read anything verifiable. If the price remains the same, the owners would be in line for a huge financial windfall.

The guaranteed tv contracts were truly the biggest win for the owners, and all but assured their victory in the labor dispute.



I don't know if the players really understand how little they have going for them right now...
- C -

What did the players have going for them in 2006? Its really perplexing to me. The situation at that time was not all that different. Yet, the players managed to score a major win with an agreement that wrecked the owners profit margins (apparently). I can't understand it.

I guess Gene Upshaw was a savant, and Tagliaboob was really a boob.

[Mista T]

Tagliaboob was really a boob.

While we would like to think of Paul "Museum" Tagliabue being rejected from HOF consideration due to bungling expansion with his pal Weaver landing the Jax franchise, it will really be due to his gross mishandling of the 2006 NFLPA agreement. Owners obviously are placing the blame for that on Tags, where it belongs.

I love it!

[RavensDomination]

While we would like to think of Paul "Museum" Tagliabue being rejected from HOF consideration due to bungling expansion with his pal Weaver landing the Jax franchise, it will really be due to his gross mishandling of the 2006 NFLPA agreement. Owners obviously are placing the blame for that on Tags, where it belongs.

I love it!

At the same time the owners voted in favor of it. Tags didn't hold a gun to their heads. It's clear they just wanted to pass something to simply delay the inevitable.

More from the AP (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/football/nfl/02/05/overtime.ap/index.html#ixzz0em0vUo9e)


FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell tackled a number of pressing topics Friday in his annual state-of-the-league address before the Super Bowl.


Longer season still in consideration

When the NFL and its players association resume contract talks, extending the league's regular-season will be part of the discussion.

Goodell is talking about a 17- or 18-game schedule once again, with the likely trade-off for a longer regular season being a shorter preseason.

Goodell says he hears "from players and fans that the quality of our preseason is not up to NFL standards."

The NFL currently plays a 16-game regular season.

League in want of progress in labor talks

The NFL wants to see more progress in labor talks between the league and players' union.

Speaking Friday at his annual state-of-the-league address during Super Bowl week, Goodell said fans "expect solutions ... and we should deliver" on a new collective bargaining agreement.

The NFL Players Association said Thursday it is bracing for a lockout in 2011 after the current labor pact expires. Goodell said he and the league's owners want an agreement and it's "absolutely false" that owners would want to see a work stoppage.

Goodell added that there is no contingency plan for the 2012 Super Bowl, on the chance that no football is played in 2011.

"We still have a lot of time and a lot of important opportunities here to structure something that makes sense for everybody," Goodell said.

NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said Thursday the union views the chance of a lockout as a "14" on a scale of 1-to-10, something Goodell said he hopes won't become a "self-fulfilling prophecy."

"I sure hope he's wrong. ... Right now, we we don't need a lot of focus on that," Goodell said.

Goodell has also said he doesn't agree with the union's contention that owners are insisting on an 18 percent player pay cut.

"The players should be paid fairly and they should be paid well," he said. "And I assure you that they will."