CBA News: NFL and NFLPA Meet in Washington

by Jason Garrison on Feb 9, 2011 5:30 PM EST

On Wednesday, in our nation's capital, the NFL and the NFL Players Association met in an attempt to come to a new collective bargaining agreement. The two sides are also set to meet on Thursday and will likely meet at more regular increments now that the NFL season is officially over.

Now that the current CBA expires in less than a month, the NFL and NFLPA are working harder to come to some sort of agreement to avoid a lockout in which they could possibly lose billions of dollars.

The NFL has said that if a lockout goes into effect and lasts through September, when the regular season starts, the league will lose up to $1 billion in gross revenues. If regular-season games are canceled, the league says the financial hit would be an additional $400 million per week.

There are a few major issues left that have kept the two sides from coming to an agreement already, but there are four major issues that are creating a kink in negotiations, including the NFL's desire to go from 16 regular-season games to 18.

The major issues on the table are health benefits for players after they retire, how to split about $9 billion in annual revenues, creating a new rookie salary scale, and the NFL's desire to increase the regular season from 16 games to 18.

There are 22 days left before the CBA expires on March 4. Those 22 days, in which no professional football will be played, are likely the most important days in the NFL's recent history and for it's future of remaining the most popular sports leagues in America.

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Wow I know this isn't exact or anything and probably far from accurate but..

9 billion in annual revenue divided by 32 teams would give Mike Brown annually 281 million dollars in revenue. That’s obviously not profit but still that’s a lot of revenue.

by JamesShively on Feb 9, 2011 5:53 PM EST reply actions

Health Care

Can anyone here imagine how different our lives would be if we had a national health care system? The health care portion would no longer be an issue. Workman’s comp. payments, home and car insurance costs. This is not the venue, but just imagine if all the money presently spent went directly into a national heath care system for this unfortunately misinformed nation.

by Cherii on Feb 9, 2011 6:06 PM EST reply actions

Ummm... Yea... Not the venue for this.

by JamesShively on Feb 9, 2011 6:10 PM EST up reply actions

meet hot singles online yada yada yada

The worst running team in the NFL wants to run more ? meh

by bengals life on Feb 9, 2011 11:44 PM EST up reply actions

where's the link? hahahaha

by WHYUS!! on Feb 10, 2011 12:14 AM EST up reply actions

$400 million per week.

greedy pricks will blackout a game over $10 thousand. FAN FRIENDLY.

by mikel12q on Feb 9, 2011 7:46 PM EST reply actions

ESPN reports...

…that talks have already broken down.

Not a good sign. I was hoping that that would be at least close by the end of the month, but that is appearing unlikely.

On the various issues, I tend to be more sympathetic to the players. I don’t watch football to see Mike Brown arm wrestle Dan Rooney, I got to watch Palmer hookup with Ocho. The players trade their bodies for paycheck. Granted it’s a big paycheck, but it’s not their fault that Americans spend so much of their disposable income on sports entertainment, so I don’t blame them for looking for good pay in a multi-billion dollar industry.

I think the players would be willing to make concessions on games and rookie scale, if the the owners agree to expanded rosters, and increase on the percentage of money earmarked for the players, and their was a set aside for players’ retirement and long term healthcare/disability.

The owners insist that the current system isn’t fair for veterans because rookies can get paid more, well put that in writing (that you will pay veterans/retirees more) if that is so important to you. It always cracks me up when owners express such concern for their employees only when it comes time to negotiate a union contract. But I think we all know that the owners supposed concern for the players and the fans is a smokescreen.

by goffchile on Feb 10, 2011 9:47 AM EST reply actions