It is a distinct possibility come 2010 after NFL owners voted unanimously to opt out of the current agreement with the NFL Players Association. The owners have a few items on their shopping list.
They want to limit the amount of money paid to rookies vis a vis veteran players, which I think is a very logical goal. Its absurd when some hotshot out of college comes in and starts making more than a Pro Bowler. Something like what the NBA has with contracts basically fixed based on draft position would make sense, though an NFL equivalent would have to be nuanced to control for paying a quarterback more than a punter.
They are also crying about economic need (they are paying the players 60% of revenue) given construction costs of new stadia and so forth. That is a load of crap. Any NFL owner that cries poverty should be punched hard in the mouth until he shuts up. How many billions are the networks paying for broadcast rights? How much NFL Officially Liscensed Merchandise gets sold? How much do game tickets sell for? To say nothing of the fact that NFL owners are usually pretty good at milking corporate welfare and getting local governments to foot bills on building new facilities. Try, try not to be absurd please.
So now we will have protracted negotiations for a new CBA. I look for the players especially to try to drag this out to the un-capped year (no salary cap). They would love to kill that so they can get their elite players Alex Rodriguez type money. And that is the great danger here in this game of brinksmanship. If the NFLPA succeeds in killing the salary cap it could blow the economics of the sport out of the water. Could the New Orleans Saints hope to win a bidding war with the Dallas Cowboys or the New York Giants? I think not. Anything that takes the economics of the NFL and makes it look more like the economics of Major League Baseball would be a bad thing and should be avoided at all costs. NFL owners have generally been wise over the decades, but now we must hold our breath that they don’t foul it up this time.
May 29, 2008 at 5:22 pm |
[...] association. The most important ramifications of this action are that unless a new CBA is in place the 2010 season will be uncapped and the possibility of a strike or lockout if a new agreement is not worked out [...]