Opinion: How To Solve The Core Issues In NFL Labor Negotiations

By Ray Bennett
Thursday March 3, 2011

Time is running out. Once the deadline passes, the future of the National Football League will seem as cloudy as it has ever been in over twenty years. The NFL's current Collective Bargaining Agreement between the league owners and the NFL Players Association was set to expire at 11:59 P.M. ET this evening. However, both sides agreed to extend the deadline for another day, although the time for when it is supposed to expire will stay the same.

This whole labor situation began a few years ago when league owners decided to back out of CBA that was signed back in 2006. This marked the lack of salary cap in the league last season. This new bargaining session is headed by two executives who are new to the whole process. Both NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith heed the responsibility of bringing satisfaction to their respective sides.

When the bargaining began before the start of last season, things were already heated. Accusations of the owners stockpiling money from television revenue deals, owners not caring for the well being of players and accusations of the players seeming that they want too much dominated those talks. Both sides even had to bring in a federal mediator to help work out some issues. After ten days of negotiating, including a ruling about said TV revenue accusations that went the players way, both sides appear to still be far apart of the four main issues that have come front and center of the discussions.

The four main issues are finding out how to spilt the league's $9 Billion annual revenue, implementing a rookie wage scale, whether or not to expand the regular season from sixteen to eighteen games and to possibly increase retirement benefits for former players. It is clear that both sides want what they think is best for those issues. The owners want more money, no rookie salary cap, more games and less benefits. The Player's Union wants a 50-50 split of revenue, the rookie salary cap, the same sixteen game schedule and more benefits. It's easy to say that both sides are not riding on the same wavelenght. Even though it sounds easy to fix these problems, it is actually harder than it looks. A players union that has over 1600 plus members greatly outnumbers a team of owners and league executives. Looking at how far apart both sides are to solving these problems and if I were involved in these talks, here's how I would solve the problems raised by the four core issues.

Concerning how to spilt league's $9 billion revenue is one of the hardest of the issues the both sides want to figure out. The owners want to keep the majority of the revenue by a margin of sixty to forty percent. The Player's union wants their cut of the revenues by half for both sides. From an independent viewpoint, let's take this in consideration: If the player's want a 50-50 cut of the revenue while a majority of the league's players make millions of dollars, would it make sense to take in more money from the league while NFL fans have to pay more for tickets? The only way to account for a 50-50 spilt on the owner's side is for teams to raise the leagues already high ticket prices. The reasonable solution would be for 55-45 revenue spilt in favor of the owners. This helps the owners not only pay players a respectable amount of money but it also helps with operating costs and prevents a huge spike in league ticket prices. This also leaves both sides with a respectable spilt in additional money.

A rookie wage scale is greatly needed in today's NFL. With all the guaranteed money that owners hand out to unproven players, there is a reason why the player's association wants this implemented. With rookies, you really don't know what outcome a first-round draft pick will have three-four years down the road. If the first overall pick of the year's draft makes more money than the league's star player, than there is a need for something like this. Look at the NBA and their rookie salary cap. It works perfectly by showing the owners and fans which draft picks should make the most money by the time a player needs to negotiate a new deal. A suggested wage scale for first, second and third year players should be around $800,000-$900,000 per year, depending on the lenght of the contract. This also gives veteran players a case for why they should be paid more than players that are given huge contracts, even though they might not play a down in their first season.

With the suggested expansion of the regular season schedule from sixteen to eighteen games, there are both pros and cons to the issue. The positive out of expanding the regular season by two games is strictly more revenue for the owners and the league as a whole. It will, without a doubt, expand the league's bottom-line. However, with the increased risk of player injuries, this seems like a recipe for disaster. Last season, almost twenty percent of the league's 1600 plus players were placed on season ending injured reserve. And with the rise of cases of players with head injuries, an increase in games can also cut short careers by two or three seasons. The best solution to this stalemate would be to not expand the regular season by two games. The league should instead expand the number of playoff teams from six to eight. The suggested playoff system would have the division-winning teams in both conferences have a bye week while the bottom four seeds play in the wild card round. This takes a little bit of the grueling toll of the long schedule off of the players.

The situation with retirement benefits can be summed up by looking at how the players react physically and emotionally after they leave the game they love. It is no secret that health-care benefits are a main issue that  the player's association has stressed since it's formation back in the 1950's. With the increased cases of depression and prescription drug abuse, the league may be more reluctant to provide more benefits to past and current NFL players. However, the league and the players association must provide clear guidelines in how these players would receive benefits. If former players show that they are in serious physical and mental distress, then the league should provide the benefits needed to treat their ailments. There should be no excuse by the league to why they can't provide a little bit more to retired players.

Though these are only suggestions to the four main problems to the bargaining process, the league and the player's association should remember that a work stoppage would not be appropriate at a time when fans can't even afford to buy tickets to games. It would also not make sense to have a lockout after the most watched and most profitable season in league history. As long as both sides can agree to keep the labor discussions going,  they cannot forget the people that provide the support of the league and the players alike.