Labor Negotiations News

Thoughts on this?

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/06/22/new-cba-without-revenue-sharing-changes-could-be-bad-news-for-small-markets/

New CBA without revenue-sharing changes could be bad news for small markets
Posted by Mike Florio on June 22, 2011, 2:21 PM EDT

Getty ImagesSome believed that Tuesday’s ownership meeting in Chicago would become a gripe session of the owners who don’t like the path on which the current labor negotiations is moving. Apparently, however, there’s a fundamental difference between griping to a reporter on an off-the-record basis and standing up in the company of one’s peers and poking holes in the promise of progress.

The proverbial elephant in the room remains, for the owners, revenue sharing. As one source with knowledge of the situation tells us, it’s still a big issue for the small-market teams, but so far no one has been willing to bring it up.

Details leaked Tuesday regarding the league’s proposal will make revenue sharing an even bigger sticking point. Giving players 48 percent of all revenue means that the per-team responsibility will be skewed by the significant unshared revenues generated by large-market teams. As a practical matter, this drives up the relative labor costs — and eats into the profit margins — of the small-market teams.

In the past, a cap floor at less than 90 percent of the spending maximum gave the small-market teams some relief. With the league now willing to commit to a minimum annual cash expenditure that, according to ESPN.com, could approach 100 percent of the spending limit, the low-revenue teams will be forced to sacrifice profit in order to comply.

In the short term, that’s good news for each team’s fans. No longer will franchises like the Bucs be able to play games with the cap figures, using phony “likely to be earned” incentives to push cap dollars from one year to the next, building up an excess that, thanks to the uncapped (and unfloored) season of 2010, never was spent. Instead, the money must be spent on signing new players and/or keeping guys already on the team.

Absent improvements to the current revenue-sharing system, the fans of some teams could face heartache in the long haul. This new system, if adopted, will make small-market teams far less profitable in their current markets, forcing them to consider looking for greener (literally) pastures. Indeed, the only way to remain financially competitive will be to max out revenues. And if a higher revenue ceiling exists in, say, Los Angeles than in, say, Buffalo, it eventually will make good business sense for the team to move.

It all means that the business-minded owners finally have taken over. It never was going to happen via an edict from 280 Park Avenue; it was destined to occur organically, with nature taking its course after Mother Nature rewrote the rules. And so, without expanded revenue sharing, teams from the lowest-revenue markets eventually could migrate to large markets, with Los Angeles getting one or two teams, with a franchise moving to Toronto (if/when the Bills leave Buffalo), with a team moving to London, and with markets of a certain size, like Chicago, possibly picking up another team.

Of course, before teams move out of Buffalo or Jacksonville or any other underperforming markets, the NFL could attempt to extract Saints-style concessions and subsidies in order to stay put. Given that the public has developed a distaste for contributing taxpayer money to building new stadiums, perhaps the next frontier in NFL-style government cheese will entail sticking up cities and states to cut sweetheart deals for teams in small markets that have suitable stadiums.

Either way, the proposed CBA will change things dramatically for small-market teams. Without changes to the current revenue-sharing system, the drama eventually could include moving vans.

 

A bit overstated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/sports/football/nfl-labor-deal-is-likely-to-be-weeks-away.html?_r=2

N.F.L. Deal Is Said to Be Weeks Away as Talks Restart
By JUDY BATTISTA
Published: June 30, 2011

The N.F.L. had hoped to have at least an agreement in principle in place around the Fourth of July, but three people who have been briefed on the negotiations said that although a resolution remained possible within the next 10 days, it was more likely that negotiations would drag on past that time, with a better chance for a settlement coming the week of July 10.

One person said that little progress on the critical issues that divide the sides had been made earlier this week, when lawyers and staff members negotiated without owners and players in attendance, and another said he still believed it was possible that games would be missed and that it would require a breakthrough for a deal to be completed in the next couple of weeks.

Owners and players are expected to continue talking Friday in Minneapolis.

Recent joint appearances by Commissioner Roger Goodell and the chief of the decertified players union, DeMaurice Smith — including one Wednesday in which both men spoke to rookie players in Florida — fueled speculation that a deal was imminent. Despite the apparent thaw in the personal relationship between the two men, the sides continue to spar over such fundamental issues as the formation of a rookie wage system and how to divide revenue.

One person who has been briefed on the status of talks said that the sides were close enough to complete a deal within 72 hours with intense effort. But dynamics among the parties, the person said, could stall a deal. The league is concerned that some lawyers and agents on the players’ side will prefer to wait, perhaps for a court decision that could sway negotiating leverage, before reaching an agreement.

And players are concerned that owners want to change the terms on issues that they believed had already been agreed upon, including the revenue split that had appeared to be nearly settled last week, with players receiving slightly less than 50 percent.

A long delay in completing a deal could affect the start of the preseason. The N.F.L. had hoped to conduct a condensed free-agency period — perhaps one starting in mid-July — before teams began reporting to training camps at the end of the month. Preseason games begin Aug. 7 with the Hall of Fame Game, and the N.F.L. estimates that $200 million in revenue would be lost for each week of the preseason that would be missed.

Lost revenue will probably make a deal more difficult to complete because while players do not receive game checks during the preseason, revenue from the preseason — which includes ticket sales and television money — goes into the pool from which the salary cap is determined.

Free agency and training camps would not begin until a deal was completed, which would almost certainly include the resolution of the players’ antitrust lawsuit and probably the reconstitution of the players union. That process could take at least a week after an agreement in principle is reached, giving the two sides no more than another two or three weeks to complete a deal before training camps could be disrupted.

Hanging over the negotiations is the possibility of a ruling by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on the league’s request to have the injunction that would end the lockout overturned. That decision could come at any time, although it is likely the three-judge panel will wait to see if a settlement can be reached. The sides have not grappled with benefits for retired players.

Representatives for retired players who joined the antitrust lawsuit want a voice in determining what those benefits would be.

Remarks by the judges after oral arguments on June 3, which suggested that neither side would be entirely pleased with the outcome of the league’s appeal, have spurred this round of negotiations, which began in the days before the June 3 court appearance.

Still, for all the concern about prospects for a deal — Fox Sports reported Wednesday night that Smith told elite players on a conference call that a deal was not close — Goodell and Smith said this week that starting the season on time remained their priority.