The NFL labor agreement thread

The bigger question here is what is that supposed to prove? Maybe this is another glimpse into who Goodell is: Is he someone who can get some action happening in this agreement or is he someone who's just gonna grandstand with this silly $1 salary BS?

 

I've always thougt that the best method is to sit down and figure out creative ways to generate more revenue. And the players can help with that. In a bad ecomony, the one thing can you do is spend money cheaply to generate more revenue. For me, it's an opportunity to grow the NFL and they should take it.

Once you start cutting, nothing good happens, morale goes down, and ultimately new leagues start taking some of your market share.

There is a lot of money to be made. They just need to sit down and figure out how to do it. And it will probably come at the comsumers expense, but the league is relatively elastic, and not likely to face price resistance.

 

They should leave well enough alone. Greed will kill the good momentum they have going.

 

I think the last 2-3 years have shown that he's at least not the first one.

These CBA talks have been going on in some form or another for quite a while now: last offseason's discussions regarding whether or not to renew the league salary cap before its expiration were in fact part of this; had the salary cap been renewed, the CBA would have (had to) been renewed, and there would not have been the current looming lockout.


Roger's skill and successes as a commissioner seem to be more in the areas of business, revenue, etc - which isn't necessarily a bad thing for a market monster type league this big

(it shows in how his priorities have been mainly in areas of expanding/increasing the league's revenue - teams playing in London, pushing to lengthen the regular season, trying to create ways to make the final season games mean more / push for teams to play their starters in those weeks, talk of putting at team in London or Canada, etc)


But I don't think he can be a 'sit down and make them' kind of guy.

I can't see him doing like the former commissioner Taglibue had to do back in the 2004 offseason (i believe it was 2004, possibly 2003), where on the last day of the league's March meetings he brought both sides in and made/had them reach an 11th hour (that the term? or is it 13th hour) agreement to extend the salary cap right before the deadline (it had been set to expire that offseason)

In comparison, the last two years of talks - including the discussions on preventing the salary cap's expiration - have ended with both sides unable to reach an agreement, and both sides storm out early and not meeting again in the days leading up to the deadline; and Goodell really has just let them go and the meetings end these times


I just don't think he can do it in this case and am not expecting him to come March; especially considering the way the last 2-3 years of talks under him have gone.

 

Owners won in court I believe (though I'm not fully certain), meaning that if no season were to occur, they still receive all the money the television deals would have been giving them had there been a season (I think the number might be from $4 to $8 billion)



the general concensus last March (on the owners) was in their opinion they felt the league would be fine with the time off and that (they think) the fans will all come rushing back when a lock out ended

 

16 full games; 4....what are more or less half games, the starters get around 1 1/2 maybe 2 games playing time in preseason games

both sides have their faults here, really; it is, though, the owners locking out the players here, not the players going on strike

 

same was said about the salary cap expiration talks the last two years, which were what led into the current situation. And those in turn fell apart;

this is something that's been a few years coming now and has been rolling downhill for sometime now

 

I feel bad for both owners and players. There is a limited small pie that they have to divide up between them. This pie is only 9 BILLION dollars. They need an 18 game season to cover the extra expenses that comes along with it, like an extra Bentley, a couple of mansions in Italy, etc...

http://www.latimes.com/sports/football/nfl/wire/sns-ap-fbn-super-bowl-nfl-labor,0,1772145.story

 

owners will get their way, there are literally thousands of players, and 10 thousand right behind them. There are 32 owners and they have all $9b

 

I just watched Goodell on Fox News Sunday, and he did not do very well defending the owners' position here. He came off defensive IMO. Basically the spin from the players' side is that the owners are trying to take back some of the benefits that the players were given in the last settlement, which does not play well with the public unless the company in question is GM or a local government (someone LOSING money).

Owners may get their way, but this will get ugly IMO.