The looming NFL labour war - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

Sylvanfan · 02-05-2010, 11:35 AM

Today NFL Commisioner Roger Goodall talks about the likelyhood that NFL owners are going to go with an uncapped season next year.

http://www.tsn.ca/nfl/story/?id=309055
Speaking Friday at his annual state-of-the-league address during Super Bowl week, Goodell said fans "expect solutions ... and we should deliver" on a new collective bargaining agreement.
The NFL Players Association said Thursday it is bracing for a lockout in 2011 after the current labour pact expires. Goodell said he and the league's owners want an agreement and it's "absolutely false" that owners would want to see a work stoppage.
<snip>
NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said Thursday the union views the chance of a lockout as a "14" on a scale of one-to-10, something Goodell said he hopes won't become a "self-fulfilling prophecy."

There was a bit of discussion in this topic about the possibility of an upcoming uncapped season.

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...hlight=lockout

A couple of things to keep in mind are that the cap is currently forcing all teams to spend to the floor and is forcing more owners to spend more than they want as opposed to limiting a few from spending whatever on who ever. The free agency rules in a non-cap environment get very strict and a lot of guys who are 4 or 5 year players looking for a big pay day will suddenly have a lot of restrictions and won't end up getting the long term deals with guaranteed money they're after. The numbers I heard are that owners claim revenue of 3.6 billion and player costs of 2.6. Of course owners will not open up the books to back these claims, and really they never will.

Also a real key thing is that in the last TV contract the owners got guaranteed TV money even if there are no games. So the owners are going to get pretty good revenue by not playing games for the time being. Football careers on average are even shorter than hockey careers and at this time there is not much else in terms of other leagues for players to go play in.

Another thing I heard on the Sirius NFL channel is that the owners have hired the guy who did the NHL labour negotiations (not Bettman but the actual negotiator) so they're willing to wage a war even though Goodall says thats not what they want.

A lot of owners recently have had to build or upgrade stadiums with money out of their own pockets. It does increase the value of their franchises, but to me it looks like they want todays players to take a pay cut to increase profits to help them pay this off and make more money down the road plus get the increase in franchise values. More or less a promise to pay the players down the road if they take a cut today. Problem is that 80% of the leauge will be done with football by the time they pay them back.

calgaryrocks · 02-05-2010, 11:52 AM

yea it's interesting stuff, I didn't realize a non-cap year would actually hurt salaries for some players, interesting point with the floor limit.
It sure sounds like there will be a lockout year in 2011, if the owners get tv money anyways. maybe we will see more than usual amount of players from the NFL coming to CFL teams for a year...although many players would likely just take the year off and train instead of getting a bad reputation, since they all make enough money that an extra 100k from a CFL team isn't a big deal.

of course the CFL has its owner labour deal that needs to be signed this offseason as well

transplant99 · 02-05-2010, 11:58 AM

One would like to believe that with the amount of money available for the two sides to work with they could somehow find a comfortable middle and get this thing done.

Alas, because it is humans involved its almost more likely it wont happen and both sides will go to losing money instead of finding a resolution. In the HL/NHLPA debate I sided with owners 100% simply because the system in place wasnt working for far too many teams and the players were the ones benefitting the most. In this debate, because contracts are not guarenteed, I have to go with the players if i am to pick a side. However, i find it almost incomprehensible that either side will go to a lockout...but its probably fait accompli unless the owners bend a whole bunch.

Sylvanfan · 02-05-2010, 12:11 PM

Another thing is that the former union leader Gene Upshaw passed away not too long ago and him and Goodall had a pretty good working relationship and ability to communicate with each other. I don't know if Smith and Goodall have developed that yet. There are a few changes within the PA like retired players being on the committee and them wanting to get pensions for retired NFL players. In the past this hasn't been a great union as a lot of former players are that ex players an ex members.

In the NHL dispute I thought it was pretty key for the league to get revenue linked with player costs in order to keep the league sustainable. The players dug in their foot and said lets fight this war. Here it appears that the players are willing to make concessions and are willing to negotiate but the owners are more or less trying to force things on them with no explanation. I would lean towards siding with the players here.

Bobblehead · 02-05-2010, 12:11 PM

I tend to agree tranny.

The owners are making money hand over fist. And while some football players have long careers, I think I read something in a Peter King column recently where he had some quotes about a HOF candidate who mentioned the average lifespan for a former NFL player is 58. Now I'd be willing to be a lot of that was the lack of helmets in the old days and some players through the steroid eras, but just looking at how beat up many of these guys get on every game day leads me to think that they do not deserve a pay cut.

Yeah, the owners are taking the risk, but there isn't much risk in a NFL franchise. The biggest seems to be if their profits will be huge or simply massive.

Bobblehead · 02-05-2010, 12:13 PM

Upshaw was accused by many of the players of being in the back pocket of the commissioner, although I do think keeping labour peace is beneficial for maintaining long term growth.

Sainters7 · 02-05-2010, 12:14 PM

As a fan of a small market team, the thought of the NFL of the near future operating under an un-capped system terrifies me.

Yeah_Baby · 02-05-2010, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sainters7

As a fan of a small market team, the thought of the NFL of the near future operating under an un-capped system terrifies me.

Guess you better win on Sunday eh?

Sylvanfan · 02-05-2010, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sainters7

As a fan of a small market team, the thought of the NFL of the near future operating under an un-capped system terrifies me.

I don't know if it should though. NFL owners want the amount of money doled out to the players to be a decreased percentage of league revenues. NFL owners are not trying to get rid of the cap so Jerry Jones can try and sign away the Saints best players by paying them obscene amounts of money.

Jerry Jones wants to keep his same team, and pay them less money and not have to share the money he makes with his fancy stadium with the Jaguars. He wants to make back that big chunk of his personal fortune that he put into that stadium right now. Owners want to use the uncapped year to show the players that they'd pay them less if it didn't exist as opposed to more.

Sainters7 · 02-05-2010, 01:23 PM

^^^
I hope you're right. Just the thought of Dan Snyder operating under a no cap system is frightening for me. The dude threw $100 million at a defensive tackle in a hard capped system. Imagine what he'd do without such restrictions? Scary..

Pastiche · 02-05-2010, 01:33 PM

OT:

Why are the Redskins such a huge revenue franchise? Washington isn't that big Baltimore is right there next to them. I don't get it.

Sylvanfan · 02-05-2010, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sainters7

^^^
I hope you're right. Just the thought of Dan Snyder operating under a no cap system is frightening for me. The dude threw $100 million at a defensive tackle in a hard capped system. Imagine what he'd do without such restrictions? Scary..

Yeah, but it didn't really help his football team win any games. It just cost him a big truck load of money. His new GM Bruce Allen never would have wanted to spend that on a player. Than consider that in the uncapped system a lot less guys are unrestricted so instead of Albert Haynesworth from last year being unretricted, it's Albert Haynesworth two years from now. At that point he no longer wants the player so badly.

The NFL has a very deep feeder system with NCAA football and for 80% of the players in the league after 6 years there is an equilvilent player coming out of the system to replace that guy. The production window for most players is pretty short. If they get a limit on rookie contracts and the free agency restrictions stay at 6 years....small market teams will be able to put good teams on the field, it's just that the fans won't be able to identify as many of the players as they will turn over most of their veteran guys every 6 years and be very selective about who they keep. In short it will force managment to be smarter whereas big market teams would continually make costly mistakes.

Sylvanfan · 02-05-2010, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pastiche

OT:

Why are the Redskins such a huge revenue franchise? Washington isn't that big Baltimore is right there next to them. I don't get it.

They built the largest stadium at that time and have a lot of private boxes. Washington is a big business city as there is a lot of lobbying the nations politicians to pass laws that benefit these big companies. So although Pfizer may not have their corporate head quarters in there....they'll buy a suite for the season to entertain clients.

YourCalgaryFlames!!!! · 02-08-2010, 09:24 PM

I hope they don't get into a lockout....

Sylvanfan · 02-08-2010, 10:41 PM

Yesterdays Superbowl was the most watched television event in History. I don't think any league wants to get into a labour war riding a popularity wave like that. One side is going to end up caving here, and I think it might be the players. The owners just wield too much power against a group where a lot of them are looking at losing 25% of their career.

burn_baby_burn · 02-09-2010, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sainters7

As a fan of a small market team, the thought of the NFL of the near future operating under an un-capped system terrifies me.

Don't worry about it. The owners have put rules on an uncapped year that will keep the Daniel Snyders of the world from going all Brian Cashman like.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=090...o&confirm=true

Quote:

The one factor fans have heard the most about is that 2010 and 2011 would be "uncapped" years. But there are three main trigger points that will go off in 2010 if there isn't a new CBA in place, and they may offset the fear of life with no salary cap. They are: 1) free agency will require six years of service (instead of four years in 2010 and five years in 2011); 2) teams will have three tags to use to restrict free agents instead of one tag, as they do now; and 3) teams that go deep in the playoffs could have some spending restrictions.

Pagal4321 · 02-09-2010, 09:41 AM

Apparently the 4 teams that played for in the Championship games, have some restrictions on free agency, I don't recal what they were exactly.

Sylvanfan · 02-09-2010, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pagal4321

Apparently the 4 teams that played for in the Championship games, have some restrictions on free agency, I don't recal what they were exactly.

Before they can sign any unrestricted free agent I think they have to lose one of their own players to another team.

The uncapped environment is definitely more restrictive for the players than what the capped system was.

Pagal4321 · 02-09-2010, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Before they can sign any unrestricted free agent I think they have to lose one of their own players to another team.

The uncapped environment is definitely more restrictive for the players than what the capped system was.

Yes, that's what I thought it was, but that didn't sound right in my head.

I think it's hilarious that some of the players were so excited about this uncapped year, but once they realized it would hurt them more, the changed their tune.

mykalberta · 02-09-2010, 10:22 AM

NFL has video where Mike Lombardi indicates the top 4 teams can resign their own players but not much else.

And there are huge restrictions so you cant sign someone long term with all the money upfront in this non cap year.

Their cap sounds very complicated compared to NHL.