Report: NFLPA to oust Upshaw

Ragu, you have made an excellent point regarding the leverage of both sides. If the owners have all the power, then how come they agreed to the last contract, which they now regard as onerous? The situation was exactly the same then as it is now in terms of the relative strengths of the two sides as economic units. I have to believe that the owners felt the costs of that contract were not as onerous as the costs of a work stoppage -- and that implies that even today those costs would hurt them.
If I had to guess, I'd bet that the new contract will be regarded as moderately onerous by the players, but not tremendously so. That is, they'll give a rookie cap (easy for them), and the expanded schedule (hard), and get back roster expansions (unions like having more members) and the money will end up pretty much a wash. That means SOME salaries will go down (more players into same pie = smaller slices), but not as much as many think.
Sports are a really unusual industry, and people who use sports labor relations to vent about economics, society and politics at large are on very thin ice on the Lake of Reality.

 

They currently get about half of the gross revenues as I understand it and nobody "dictates" anything -- like you say, it's a negotiation. I agree with you on the leverage aspect, to a great extent, anyway, and I think it should lead to a deal but I'm not convinced the NFL won't have themselves a lockout as a show of force that will demonstrate what a tough guy Goodell is. I'm amazed the football media isn't questioning the NFL's demands for financial givebacks AND two extra games. Unchecked greed....

There was nothing "unfair" about the last contract. It didn't become a great players contract until the league and the union BOTH wanted to anoint Gene Upshaw as a tough negotiator. At the time, the NFLPA was the laughingstock of sports unions and it was in both organizations interests to prop up the union. The NFLPA wanted to send the message out to the troops that it was actually winning some things at the table and the league wanted to play down the fact that it had a house union because it was in danger of pushing too far and waking up a sleeping giant. It's all PR, just like everything else in and around the NFL.

 

Over/under on when this is resolved?

I'm guessing Labor Day.

 

What the players do not seem to grasp is that a strike will only benefit about a third of the membership. Most will lose more money then they gain when you consider that average playing span of NFL player is 3 years.

There are only 600 players out of 1600 from when last agreement was struck. 1000 are now out of league on to other careers.

In a season long strike most players would be giving up 1/3 of their total income made in the NFL.

Upshaw was criticized at time for making cozy back office deal with Tagliabue but it turned out to be a really good deal for the players.

If the current players really want to strike for something it should really be for long term benefits.

 

The owners proposal basically is this:

We are making more money than ever, but we want to make more and give the players less.
In return for taking less money, the players will agree to play two more games, so we can make even MORE MONEY and the players can suffer more injuries and maybe even have someone die on the field.

Yup, this is the perfect business model.

 

Players aren't asking for anything and they're not going on strike. They're being threatened with a lock out by a management that is demanding substantial givebacks.

So what you're saying, in affect, is that the players should just roll over and capitulate to these demands because, well, they have short careers and can't waste time not playing.

If you want to take that viewpoint, fine, but there's a big difference between refusing to capitulate and going on strike.

 

Long term benefits are likely something the owners would be happy to offer in return for more of what they want, as by definition their costs are spread out much more thinly.

 

But in any negotiation there is always a pie in the sky starting point.

I would much rather see the real numbers that owners are willing to settle for.

I have not crunched numbers but with League revenues way up from 2006 I would guess actual dollars to players would still be more if share percentage goes down.

 

It's not so much share percentage going down, it's the definition of "shared revenue" and the amount that the owners want to excluide from the calculation of the salary cap.
Basically, the owneers want to take X billion dollars off the top -- to increase their guaranteed profit before they ever sell a ticket -- before they calculate what percentage to give the players.

 

They could carve out some of profits and put it into a Bernie Maddoff type deferred income investment fund for the players.

 

It says a lot that the NFL players have by far the worst deal of any of the big four sports yet they're the ones who are going to be locked out.