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Storm clouds gather and lockout looms large in NFL labor strife
"That's where we're headed. They're going to try to lock us out," NFL Players Association leader Gene Upshaw told ESPN.com this week.
Beneath the surface of this increasingly rancorous dispute is the bargain the players and the owners made in March 2006, an agreement that provided significant increases for players in salaries and bonuses. Instead of 55.5 percent of NFL revenues, the players now are entitled to 60 percent. The salary cap has jumped from $85.5 million per team in 2005 to an expected $123 million per team in 2009, an increase of 43 percent.
Although the owners agreed to those increases, they are not happy about their decision. A number of owners claim their profits have dropped from 10 percent each year to only 4 percent since the 2006 bargain was struck.
"They think [the current deal] is too rich for the players, and they want to take some back," Upshaw observed.
It is no surprise that the players will decline the opportunity to give anything back.
Although there is some dispute over the owners' claims of declining profits, there is no doubt that what had been 15 years of a mostly harmonious partnership since the historic free agency and salary-cap agreement of 1993 is turning into a brawl. If the fight continues at its current intensity, the owners will seize their first opportunity to terminate the current contract and start the process that will lead to a confrontation and a lockout in the 2011 season.
The first step is to opt out of the contract, a move the owners must and probably will make between now and November.
Under the terms of the player-owner agreement, the owners' termination of the contract will trigger two more years of salary-cap football, then the 2010 season will be played without a cap on salaries. After the 2010 season and the college draft in spring 2011, the players and owners will be at a critical crossroads.
Upshaw and others involved in NFL labor issues expect the owners to announce that the players will be locked out of training camps, putting the 2011 season in jeopardy. An NFL lockout would come six years after the National Hockey League locked out its players, which killed the 2005-06 NHL season.
The NFL's union, according to Upshaw, will counter with decertification, which means it will give up its role as the official labor organization of NFL players and become a trade association.
"How can they lock us out if we are not a union?" Upshaw said.
Jeffrey Kessler, a union attorney who was a leader of the court fight that led to the 1993 restructuring of the NFL, added: "If you lock out players who do not have a union, it is an antitrust violation."
The battle will lead to the same kind of litigation that began after the players' unsuccessful strike in 1987 and led to the 1993 settlement that allowed owners and players alike to prosper for 15 years. It will be a high-stakes struggle, as the players will seek to duplicate their triumphs in the early '90s with demands for triple damages and injunctions.
But it also might lead to the loss of all or part of the 2011 season.
Beneath the surface of this increasingly rancorous dispute is the bargain the players and the owners made in March 2006, an agreement that provided significant increases for players in salaries and bonuses. Instead of 55.5 percent of NFL revenues, the players now are entitled to 60 percent. The salary cap has jumped from $85.5 million per team in 2005 to an expected $123 million per team in 2009, an increase of 43 percent.
Although the owners agreed to those increases, they are not happy about their decision. A number of owners claim their profits have dropped from 10 percent each year to only 4 percent since the 2006 bargain was struck.
"They think [the current deal] is too rich for the players, and they want to take some back," Upshaw observed.
It is no surprise that the players will decline the opportunity to give anything back.
Although there is some dispute over the owners' claims of declining profits, there is no doubt that what had been 15 years of a mostly harmonious partnership since the historic free agency and salary-cap agreement of 1993 is turning into a brawl. If the fight continues at its current intensity, the owners will seize their first opportunity to terminate the current contract and start the process that will lead to a confrontation and a lockout in the 2011 season.
The first step is to opt out of the contract, a move the owners must and probably will make between now and November.
Under the terms of the player-owner agreement, the owners' termination of the contract will trigger two more years of salary-cap football, then the 2010 season will be played without a cap on salaries. After the 2010 season and the college draft in spring 2011, the players and owners will be at a critical crossroads.
Upshaw and others involved in NFL labor issues expect the owners to announce that the players will be locked out of training camps, putting the 2011 season in jeopardy. An NFL lockout would come six years after the National Hockey League locked out its players, which killed the 2005-06 NHL season.
The NFL's union, according to Upshaw, will counter with decertification, which means it will give up its role as the official labor organization of NFL players and become a trade association.
"How can they lock us out if we are not a union?" Upshaw said.
Jeffrey Kessler, a union attorney who was a leader of the court fight that led to the 1993 restructuring of the NFL, added: "If you lock out players who do not have a union, it is an antitrust violation."
The battle will lead to the same kind of litigation that began after the players' unsuccessful strike in 1987 and led to the 1993 settlement that allowed owners and players alike to prosper for 15 years. It will be a high-stakes struggle, as the players will seek to duplicate their triumphs in the early '90s with demands for triple damages and injunctions.
But it also might lead to the loss of all or part of the 2011 season.
It's hard to believe that Ralph was the one everybody laughed at when he refused to sign off on the new CBA and said it was a bad deal for the owners. It looks like he was right. Just like he was right about going to the cash to the cap too. 
" ~ yordad
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