Here is a little handy-dandy guide to help you understand what to watch for and understand during the upcoming NFL lockout. Will games be lost? What else is there to know. This guide will help you navigate the stormy seas. Enjoy!
A-August
August is when the preseason begins. This is when the league would really start to feel the effects of a work stoppage. Preseason games don't nearly rake in the dollars that regular season games do, but since most teams (like the Redskins) force season ticket holders to buy preseason tickets, you will see even less motivation this year for fans to buy season tickets.
B-Brees, Drew
Drew Brees (New Orleans Saints quarterback) has been one of the faces of the union during the last few days as he has taken a very active role in the mediated negotiations. He was also the one who led the the Saints and Vikings in the solidarity finger prior to the first game of the year in 2010 (on Thursday Night Football).
C-Cohen, George
George Cohen is the federal mediator representing the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, who has overseen the negotiations between the players and owners since the Super Bowl. He himself has said that it is probably best that negotiations cut off after today for a while. Nothing good would be accomplished if they were to continue.
Just 23 letters to go after the jump!
D-DeMaurice Smith
DeMaurice Smith is the NFLPA executive director. He replaced Gene Upshaw after he passed away following completion of the most recent extension of the CBA in 2006. Owners opted out of the deal in 2009. He is a close friend of President Obama, but the President is on record saying he's going to let the millionaires and billionaires work out ther differences without him getting involved.
E-Empty stadiums
What you will see a lot of this Fall unless either an injunction is forced, or the two sides figure out a deal real fast.
F-Free Agency
The NFL Free Agency period usually begins with the start of the league year last week, but since the CBA has not been ratified yet, there is no free agency, and there will not be until that happens. For more, see my "lockout" item below.
G-Goodell, Roger
Roger Goodell (NFL Commissioner) was essentially handed this mess after Paul Tagliabue retired following the 2006 CBA negotiation. Goodell has spent essentially his entire professional career in the NFL. He was the son of a New York congressman, so he is well-versed on politics, and how to make it in business. He started his NFL career in 1982 after a massive letter writing campaign to all the teams and the league office. He started low on the food chain, as Pete Rozelle's driver, but slowly worked his way up. Now he is in charge of probably the most important labor negotiation in the league's 91 year history.
H-History
Historically speaking, this will be the first work stoppage since 1987. This was the strike year that prompted the league to hire replacement players to play games while the union was on strike. The use of scabs forced the players to return to work sooner than they had wanted because of the money they were losing. The film "The Replacements" is loosely based on this season (very loosely). The other work stoppage in league history was in 1982, a strike that cancelled nearly half the season. The players attempted to make up lost wages by staging 2 "all star games" that year. Both of those games garnered pitiful attendance, and actually caused the players to lose more money as a result. The strike also resulted in an unprecedented playoff structure where divisions were ignored, and a 16-team bracket-style tournament was used. This was also the only season (until 2010) that a team with a losing record qualified for the playoffs, and remains the only season where two teams with losing records qualified, thanks to the unique format.
**Of course, in both strike years, the Redskins won the Super Bowl. So if there are games lost and the season resumes, I'm booking my flight to Indy immediately :-) **
I-Injunction
An injunction is a legal ruling that would stop another action from happening, mostly as a precursor to a more thorough legal proceeding which will debate the legality of said action. Usually injunctions are granted when the party seeking them would suffer irreperable harm from the action that the injunction is trying to stop, in this case, the NFL lockout. The players are seeking the injunction in the court of Judge David Doty in Minnesota. Doty previously ruled against the owners regarding the negotiation of NFL TV contracts with Fox, CBS, NBC, and DirecTV. He ruled that the league negotiated in bad faith for securing a $4 billion payout from that contract in the event of a lockout. The NFLPA argued successfully that this payout was nothing more than lockout insurance, and was evidence that the league was planning a lockout from the beginning.
J-Jim Irsay
Jim Irsay is the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, and son of the most hated man in Baltimore. Indianapolis is currently slated to host Super Bowl XLVI next February at Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Colts. If there is no season, there is no Super Bowl. Since Super Bowl host cities are determined several years in advance (to allow host cities time to prepare), they cannot simply bump their game back by a year. Super Bowl XLVII is slated to be in New Orleans after the end of the 2012 season. However, Roger Goodell has promised the city that they would automatically reenter the Super Bowl rotation in the event their Super Bowl is cancelled or postponed. The first chance they would have to regain the Super Bowl would be in 2016.
K-Kevin Mawae
Kevin Mawae is the NFLPA president and starting center for the Tennessee Titans. The union president usually is a current player, as opposed to the executive director (DeMaurice Smith) who is usually either a labor lawyer or similar official. He has played an active role in the negotiations since the latest round of bargaining started at the Super Bowl in Dallas.
L-Lockout
A lockout is an owner-imposed work stoppage, as opposed to a strike which is a player-imposed work stoppage. The players have no reason to strike. They like it the way it is and have no incentive to change anything. If there is no CBA, they have no restrictions on what they can make. What a lockout does (in addition to stopping league activity) is freeze player movement between teams. There can be no trades (except for draft picks) nor player signings or releases, including draft picks. Right now, players gain restricted free agency (current team can match) after 4 seasons and unrestricted free agency after 5. When the lockout ends, we will probably see a much different free agent landscape (if there is any).
M-Money
...and lots of it. $9 billion dollars worth of it to be exact. These revenues come from a variety of sources such as TV contracts, ticket sales, and (overpriced) merchandise. This is the pie the two sides can't seem to figure out how to split. Right now, the league takes $1 billion off the top of that pie to fund capital projects such as stadium construction. They want an extra $1 billion before splitting the rest 50-50. After mediated negotiations, they have lowered their request to $800 million, but that is not even close to something the players are willing to accept. The owners have propsed items such as 18-game schedules and rookie wage scales to try and offset some of these costs so the players will not have to give up as much of their cut. However, the players are adamantly against these proposals. I give a more detailed take on these issues later in the guide. This entire mess will not get resolved until the two sides figure out how to split these revenues, and if the mediated negotiations are any indication, that will not happen any time soon.
N-National Hockey League
If you're looking for a point of reference to see what happens to a league when labor strife gets out of hand, look no further than the NHL. They lost the entire 2004-2005 season due to a lockout. In that season, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman preached what he called "cost certainty" due to several small market teams losing money (and almost becoming insolvent) because of skyrocketing player costs. This is in essence what the owners are preaching now. In a reverse case of what happened in the NFL following the 2006 negotiation, the players were forced to swallow a salary cap as the owners bascially got everything that they wanted. The Stanley Cup was not awarded for the first time since it was a challenge cup. The league continues to deal with potential team insolvency, particularly in Phoenix, as the Coyotes are in quite a bit of financial distress due to lack of fan interest. They actually have a fairly good team, but since nobody seems interested in hockey in Arizona, they don't make money. The league is currently trying to sell the team, but various taxpayer advocate groups such as the Goldwater Institute are concerned that taxpayers will get a raw deal if they are forced to fund bonds necessary for the sale to process. If this is not resolved, there stands a good chance that the team will relocate back to Winnipeg (or another city in Southern Canada), which is something the league has been trying to avoid ever since they blocked the sale of the team to Blackberry mogul Jim Balsille.
O-Osaka
Osaka, Japan was the site of the "American Bowl" in 2002. This was the preseason game where the Redskins, under the tutilage of the ol' Ball Coach Steve Spurrier, whipped up the 49ers for absolutely no good reason, only to have the favor returned in September when the games actually started to count. This doesn't really have anything to do with the lockout, but I needed to throw a friendly shoutout to all the good guys in Japan following the devastating earthquake. I'd like to do a science post about the geology of what happened in the next few days.
P-Pash, Jeff
Jeff Pash is the lead counsel for the NFL. He has claimed on numerous occations that the deals the owners are looking for are fair, and that the "financial transparency" the union is looking for is there. The union is looking for 10 years of audited financial data from the league, verified by an investment bank. They also claim that Pash just another cog of the league's grand plan to lock the players out since 2006, as he played an active role in the negotiation of the most recent TV contracts. He continues to say (along with Roger Goodell) that shutting down the league was never their intention.
Q-Quarterback
...as in Tuesday Morning Quarterback (TMQ). Gregg Easterbrook is one of my favorite writers on ESPN.com. His column runs on Tuesdays (duh) during the season and in the two weeks surrounding the draft. He is big into astronomy and scientific research. I don't really care for his political commentary, but his memes have entered my lexicon on a regular basis (preposterous punts, cold coach, etc.). Check him out.
R-Rookie Wage Scale
This is one thing the owners want that makes sense. As I said in my State of the NFL post back in January, it makes sense because Sam Bradford got $50 million guaranteed...without playing a single down. This is just wrong. Now I'm not saying that Bradford isn't a good quarterback. He certainly is, leading the Rams to within a game of the NFC West title, but he didn't earn that $50 million. By imposing a wage scale for rookies (like the NBA), it makes contract negotiations on draft day that much easier, also lowering the number of potential training camp holdouts. After 4 years, make them unrestricted free agents, and give them whatever they deserve.
S-Schedule
One of the lesser (but still very important issues) is that of the 18-game schedule. I also already gave my take on this in my State of the NFL post, but it is worth repeating. One of the ways the owners have tried to convince the players to agree to an 18-game schedule is the additional revenue it would generate. Given the NFL's immense popularity, one would think that adding two regular season games (and eliminating two preseason games) would generate the extra revenue the owners would like to get off the top of the current $9 billion. That way, the players can maintain their current share. However, the player are adamantly against this due to the increased injury risk that would be present with two extra regular season games. They would just rather see the two preseason games eliminated all together, and not replaced. I argue that the 18-game schedule would water down the product, and may backfire down the road as market saturation could occur. 16 games is just enough to leave the fans craving more at the end of the season.
T-Tagliabue, Paul
Paul Tagliabue (former NFL commissioner) was adminant that his legacy did not conclude with a labor stoppage. Therefore, he worked one-on-one with Gene Upshaw and essentially gave the players everything they wanted in the 2006 negotiation. When he took the deal to the owners for a vote, he basically convinced them that the teams would still make tons of money thanks to new stadium construction, ever-increasing ticket sales, PSLs, and rising concession costs. This would be enough to offset the amount of money given to the players. This was fine for big-market teams, but small market teams took serious issue with this deal (see W below).
U-Upshaw, Gene
Gene Upshaw, who died prior to the start of the 2008 season, led the union strike in 1987 which was the first step in the process that eventually led to the CBA being ratified in 1993. He established the precedent of decertification to prevent the owners from taking away union jobs and giving them to replacement players. The decertification also allowed the "trade organization" to sue the league in antitrust court, a tactic the NFLPA is using right now. Upshaw also worked very closely with Tagliabue, who was so afraid to see the league go under in labor strife, bascially gave Upshaw everything he wanted.
V-Vic Carucci
Vic Carucci is a senior write at NFL.com, one of the best in the business. If you want objective takes on all things NFL, including on the whole lockout mess, check him out.
W-Wilson, Ralph
Ralph Wilson (owner of the Buffalo Bills) was one of just 2 owners to vote against the 2006 CBA extension that gave players 60% of gross revenues. At the time he said that the deal didn't make sense for owners, especially of teams in smaller markets (like the Bills) who relied mostly on revenue sharing among teams from larger, more financially stable markets (like New England, Dallas, and Washington). Despite a 30-2 vote, you just got the sense that this labor negotiation was not finished and that something would come to a head several years down the road. It has.
X-Xtreme Football League
The XFL was an "experiment" by World Wrestling Entertainment (then known as the World Wrestling Federation) to mix football with professional wrestling back in 2000. This was a mess from the start. Games were terrible, attendance was pathetic, and the league folded after one season. This item is included for two reasons. One, I have a hard time finding an item starting with X. Two, another upstart league, the United Football League (UFL), could provide an outlet for locked out players to earn a paycheck if the NFL is not in session. When the UFL started, they did not have the same goals nor the same business model as the XFL. The XFL was started to serve as a direct challenger to the NFL in popularity. However, most intelligent football fans saw through that charade. The UFL has no such delusions. They play their season in the Fall, but on nights that do not conflict with the NFL. They fully expected to lose money in their first two seasons, and they did. However, if there is no NFL, fans are going to want to watch something. You always have college on Saturday, but the UFL could gain a much more solid footing as a legitimate professional league, especially if NFL players jump ship and sign a contract with the Florida Tuskers or the Virginia Destroyers. The UFL could come out of this with something the XFL or the USFL could only dream of: a valid, self-sustaining rival league to the NFL.
Y-Yapping
That's all the two sides seem to be doing lately. I think toning down the rhetoric might be a good thing for them, but what do I know?
Z-Zorn, Jim
Jim Zorn is irrelevant, but what else do you put here for Z?
There you have it: labor unrest from A to Z. If you have any questions, drop me a line. Hopefully this puts everything in better perspective for you.
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