Attention all football fans: By the time you read these words, you will only have 11 days left to plan the greatest Super Bowl party the world has seen. Start grilling the hot dogs, simmering the chili and spicing the salsa. Invite your friends. Call your family. Heck, hire a skywriter to write about it over Albermarle County, and use that money you were saving for next semester's tuition to rent out the biggest building you can find to hold it in.
OK, maybe don't do that last thing, but please, drop this paper, leave your classroom and get on the horn. History will be there next semester, but the NFL may not - so better give it one hell of a going-out party just in case.
The current collective bargaining agreement in the NFL will expire March 3, and the owners could potentially lock out the players. When the owners unanimously voted in 2008 to opt out of the current CBA - which was signed only two years previously - Commissioner Roger Goodell listed three reasons why the owners decided to terminate the deal: "high labor costs, problems with the rookie pool and the inability ... to recoup bonuses of players who subsequently breach their contract or refuse to perform." For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the intricacies of the game, allow me to translate the owners' concerns into everyday terms: "We want more money."
Although the league's anxiety about the rising rookie salary scale may be valid - most people will concede that paying $50 million in guaranteed money to a rookie who has never played an NFL snap when the average salary is only about $770,000 is preposterous - there is no way to sugarcoat their other two demands. Currently, the only part of an NFL player's contract that is guaranteed is the bonuses they receive. Unlike other sports where the player is slightly protected - think of the Knicks still paying Eddy Curry's carcass $11.2 million even though he hasn't played in more than a year - cut NFL players do not receive any of their contracted payment that is not part of that guaranteed bonus. Basically, the owners want to take even more money out of the wallets of players who, in their opinions, are failing to live up to the contracts they signed.
The owners' other major gripe - essentially saying the players make too much money - is where any sympathy that I may have had with the owners goes the way of Four Loko. The NFL claims that given current "economic realities," owners are losing money and players need to take a pay cut. They point to the Green Bay Packers' recent economic struggles - the team's profits dropped from $20.1 million last year to $9.8 this year - as proof of this claim. The problem with this "proof" is that the Packers' books are the only source of information the league has made public. The owners' claims lie in conflict with Forbes SportsMoney's assertion that the NFL has "never been more profitable," with more than two-thirds of all teams' net worth being at least $1 billion.
Additionally, the league has more than $4 billion in deals with various television networks to broadcast its games, and that number will soon be even higher with ESPN offering to almost double its current fee to extend its coverage of Monday Night Football. To the naked eye, it certainly doesn't look like the league is hurting for money. So unless the NFL allows me to look at its books, I can't side with the owners.
For me, the decision to side with the players comes down to this. As it stands, the players' salaries currently amount to just a little more than half of the league's total revenue - a figure agreeable to everyone but the owners. Without the players, the league would not exist. Fans shell out hundreds of dollars to go to games to see players like Peyton Manning and Calvin Johnson perform physical acts that they could only dream of, not to watch owners sit in their boxes and look disinterested. Likewise, when I want to show support for my team, I put on my Tony Romo jersey, not my Jerry Jones suit. The game is built around the players, and the players are the ones who have the most to lose in this struggle.
The owners don't risk their livelihoods every time they step on the field; the players do. The owners may argue that if the players' union agrees to lengthen the current 16-game regular season schedule by two games, the players will make all their money back, but that's 120 more minutes of game time for a player to accidentally roll over an offensive lineman's leg and end his career. Say you currently make $10 an hour and work eight hours a day for a total of $80 a day. Wouldn't you be upset if your boss claimed the business was failing and reduced your pay to $8 an hour but then "graciously" gave you the opportunity to work 10 hours a day to allow you to make your $80? Wouldn't you want to see the books for yourself?
Recently, Bob Batterman, one of the NFL's attorneys, said the players' union "wants a lockout to occur." I just can't believe this to be the case. Owners will be fine if a lockout does take place; it is the players who will suffer. The players and their families are the ones who will have to make tough decisions such as whether to induce labor before March 3 to ensure they will be covered under the league's health care policies, as Cleveland Browns' linebacker Scott Fujita recently said.
Ultimately, here's how I think this will likely play out. There will be a lockout, and it will extend into the summer with both sides refusing to blink. Once September comes around and players start losing their weekly checks, however, they will be forced to cave into the league's demands and take a pay cut to regain their salaries and their benefits. Despite this resolution, as more and more average fans are priced out of attending games thanks to the new mega-stadiums and the superiority of watching games from home, attendance figures will continue to dive and provide even more leverage for the owners at the next labor negotiation.
In the immortal words of Terrell Owens: Get your popcorn ready for next Sunday's big game because I'm not sure when you'll have the chance to do it again.
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