Oatmeal Is Better Than No Meal

Labor negotiations need to maintain a degree of confidentiality, even one as public as the ongoing collective bargaining agreement between the National Football League owners and players. Still, key nuggets are going to be divulged to the public, intentionally or unintentionally. If one reads between the lines of what is revealed to the public, one can draw some broad conclusions with a relative degree of certainty and accuracy.


Labor Negotiations: As pleasant as going to the dentist for a root canal. 1

 NUTS AND BOLTS

ESPN, yesterday, released some details of the agreement being proposed to the owners in the latest talks. Just looking at the bullet points, I think the players can breathe a collective sigh of relief. The owners were determined to roll back some of what the players had and ask for more out of the players. That was done, but players did not get hammered, more like an inconvenient pinch.

The following are some of the details of the proposed agreement, reported by ESPN, which will likely be a part of the final agreement.

Players get 48 percent of “all revenue” – According to NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith, players, after off-the-top expenses, were receiving about 53 percent of the revenue. Many of the reports I had read said that the players could have lived with a 50/50 split. I would call this, under the circumstances, a “win-win”.

Teams required spending close to 100% of the salary cap – That is a win for the players. I do not pretend to have any more knowledge of NFL labor conditions than the average football enthusiast. However, to my knowledge, I am unaware of any minimum salary expenditures that clubs faced in the past. This is a big win for the players, any way one slices it.

Rookie wage scale part of the deal – There are still details to be ironed out, but this is a “win-win” for everyone involved, except for rookies. Owners can save money spent on rookies and spend that money on proven veterans without succumbing to the pressure of an otherwise unencumbered free market for rookie players.

You probably would not like going to your office and seeing this! That is probably how veterans feel when a rookie comes in and gets $60 million guaranteed. 3

Four years needed for unrestricted free agent status – This is another “win-win”. In the absence of a collective bargaining agreement extension in 2010, players had to wait six years (instead of four), well beyond career expectancy, for unrestricted status and owners had no salary cap protection.

18-game regular season designated only as negotiable item and at no point is mandated in deal – Hallelujah! This is a “win-win-win”! The players, obviously win; they wanted no part of an extended schedule. Most fans, expressed through talk shows, Internet polls, scientific polls, and other media, expressed no interest in extending the season. And while the owners may have wanted an 18 game regular season schedule, this condition, should it be agreed upon, may help save the owners from themselves. The Daily Hat Trick has run multiple articles explaining why this was a bad idea. For the fans, this may be the biggest win.

I don't think this is the image the NFL would want after an 18 game regular season. 2

New 16-game Thursday night TV package beginning in 2012 – I have yet to read any details of the thinking and motivation from each side that went into this part of the deal. I am going to take an educated guess and say that this is a win for owners, TV Networks, and fans. This is probably not as much of a win for players (or coaches). Playing a game on Thursday night significantly reduces the rest and preparation time available before a game, 4 days instead of 7 or 8 days for a game played on a Sunday or Monday.

Retirees to benefit from improved health care, pension benefits as revenue projected to double to $18 million by 2016 – This is a win for the players and, besides that, I think it is morally right. Football is a brutal sport that brings fans a lot of entertainment and makes a lot of money for a lot of people. When a player’s career is over, the benefits continue for everyone else, so I think the players responsible for making the great game what it is should be taken care of.


ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?

Let us all keep our fingers crossed and hope that the recent goodwill and progress continues. Maybe, just maybe, training camp will start on time and the looming threat of lost activities will turn out to be little more than a scare. I am ready for some football! Are you?

Oh yeah. I'm ready! Good thing the NFL cheerleaders aren't locked out. 4

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1) Image from jonesview.wordpress.com
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4) Image from endzonebuzz.com

You Got LOCKED the ____ OUT!!!

Well, it has happened. The NFL owners have locked the players out. There are officially no activities involving National Football League players. All gone…. POOF!

I wonder if the owners are laughing at the players the way you are laughing at James Woods right now. 6

This appeared to be all but inevitable after Super Bowl XLV, when there was almost no progress made on the owners and players coming to an agreement. This appeared likely before the start of the 2010 season, when there were no substantive efforts made to extend the current collective bargaining agreement between the players and owners. This was always a possibility in 2006, when the players and owners reached the existing agreement in the 11th hour and the owners were able to, and subsequently did (in 2008), opt out of the final two years of the agreement, which would have been 2011 and 2012.*

So much for preparation….. The question now is if this labor clash, and subsequent money to be potentially lost by both sides, has been on the radar for three years and an agreement has not been reached, what is the possibility of a deal getting done soon enough to not interrupt the normal operations of an NFL season?


The clock is ticking. Free agents are not being signed. Trades are not being made. Draft day strategies and needs are now murky because there is no set of guidelines in place to determine who plays where, for how much money, and by what means.

There are two sides to every story. The owners claim that they are not earning enough profit under the (previously) existing agreement. The players are satisfied with the existing agreement and do not want to change the existing agreement. Generalizing the players’ position, they do not believe the owners are in any financial distress that would warrant a rollback of player earnings and benefits or an extension of the regular season from 16 to 18 games.

Greed is one of man’s worst enemies. The NFL is a business that does well in bad economic times. It is a goose that lays a golden egg for all involved. Players earn six figure salaries. Owners have franchises with values near or in excess of a billion dollars. Television networks beg the league to take their money for the rights to broadcast games and advertisers, in turn, beg TV networks to take their money. Sports bars are jam packed every weekend with fans, who will watch games and/or many of whom will stretch their budgets as much as possible, if necessary, to buy tickets.

So…what is the holdup? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right?


Revenue Sharing

Currently, the NFL brings in $9 billion annually in revenue. The players receive close to a 60/40 split after the owners take $1 billion off of the top for expenses. The owners want another billion. They have cited expenses such as growing stadium maintenance, among other increasing costs. **

Maybe the owners have a point. Maybe they do not. A billion dollars is a lot of money and the players would be conceding, roughly, a net of $600 million by conceding to this demand. I do not believe the players should cough up that much money without seeing the owners’ books. Intuitively, with tickets sales, merchandise sales, and TV ratings exploding, I find it very hard to believe that the average owner is not profiting enough under the current agreement.

On the other hand, if owners truly are squeezed by higher expenses, the players need to cough up some dough for the good of everyone involved, including themselves. Owners are not going to operate without the ability to make a reasonable profit. And if the owners are not making money, the players will make less money.

Judge Hat Trick rules in favor of: Players

If money were junk, most owners would look like hoarders. 2

18 game schedule

In an earlier article in The Daily Hat Trick, I cited a number of reasons why an expansion of the regular season schedule from 16 to 18 games, while removing two preseason games, was a bad idea. I also concluded that it was inevitable.

In spite of a move that I believe will shorten player careers, water down the significance of regular season games, reduce the collective talent on the field at any given time, and increase the number of meaningless games late in the regular season (all the while every measure of fan opinions indicate that majority of fans, the customers, do not want an 18 game schedule), the owners stand to earn more money from additional television revenues and increased attendance. I think the owners will their way to forcing this move upon us all. That doesn’t make it a good idea.

Judge Hat Trick rules in favor of: Players

Please sir! May I have two MORE games! 3

Health Care for Retired Players

Players sacrifice the long term good of their bodies to play a game that entertains us and makes owners profitable. I personally believe that the NFL has a moral obligation to take care of players’ medical needs, and the players are signing up for a lesser quality of health after football. The owners already want more revenue and more games. Find a way to GET THIS DONE. There is no league and there is no legacy without the players, who will all retire sooner than later.

Judge Hat Trick rules in favor of: Players

"I really was gonna retire this time, but I need the heath insurace." 4

Rookie Salary Cap

Without a rookie salary cap, owners have felt increasing pressure to pay bigger and bigger guaranteed eight figure salaries to high draft picks. This reduces the ability of the owners to sign veteran free agent players and (obviously) reduces the ability of veteran players to earn more. Players and owners have some mutual interests in this matter.

Owners would like to push rookie salaries as low as possible. Players need to conduct a careful balancing act in negotiations, not wanting rookies to earn too much without having proven their worth but not wanting to push starting salaries so low that the market value for veteran free agents is lowered. Both sides have valid concerns and because there is a mutual interest in implementing a rookie salary cap, I think that this wrinkle may be the easiest for the two sides to iron out.

Judge Hat Trick rules in favor of: Push

Veteran players are getting tired of seeing THIS. 5

The Owner's Knockout Punch - In Their Own Faces

The owners have a lot. They are rich and getting richer. There is nothing wrong with that. Frankly, I do not care how much owners make as long as I, a fan, viewer, and ticket holder, am a happy customer. With the 2011 season being in jeopardy, I am not a happy customer and will be even unhappier if this labor situation begins to impact the quality of the product I will consume.

It is only a matter of weeks before organized team activities would otherwise begin. Delayed or cancelled OTAs, a means of players preparing for the season, would mark the beginning of the diminishing of the quality of the product fans get to view next season. A spillover into training camp will amplify that impact. A loss of preseason or regular season games will materially compromise the quality of the NFL product in 2011. So for those who say, “What the owners earn is none of your business.” Actually, it is.

I think, absent additional information about teams’ profits and losses, that the owners have a gravy train and want even more gravy, the players’ gravy. So the owners locked the players out? Well, you sure taught them a lesson. Why don’t you owners stand over the players, while they are down, and gloat. Dance a jig! Have a party! Just do not expect anyone else to continue to pay for your fun.




Well done, owners! I hope you feel good now. I don't.

  Don't forget to vote in the fan polls!

To advertise with The Daily Hat Trick or to submit a guest column, please contact the editor at eric@thedailyhattrick.info.

*Source: nfl.com
**Source: sports.yahoo.com

1) Altered original image from the movie "Friday"
2) Image from trcs.wikispaces.com
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4) Image from b1rdmanonthemoon.wordpress.com
5) Image from imagesfrom.co.cc
6) Image from roflrazzi.com