This is bad news for all football fans and players; it now looks like a work stoppage for the NFL in 2011 is all but inevitable. That means there will either be replacement players, or guys crossing the picket lines, or we are all going to become big United Football League fans in 2011.
With that in mind many NFL teams are preparing themselves for the loss of all on the field revenue. Most new contracts for head coaches, assistant coaches, and others now contain clauses that cut their pay by 50% should there be a work stoppage.
Pro Football talk.com and The Sports Business Journal are reporting that Mike Shanahan’s new contract with the Washington Redskins has such a clause, but in his case it is not the big of deal since the Denver Broncos are paying millions of dollars not to coach that team.
Beyond coaching staff’s, General Managers, or those front office staff with a contract, most if not all other front office type workers would be laid off. That is likely to make a bad economy even worse.
It now seems likely that NFL owners will lock the players out in 2011, to force them to work on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Players want a bigger chink of the revenue, the owners want a bigger chunk of the profits, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wants a rookie salary cap.
Of the Major Sports Leagues it seems the NFLPA is the weakest players union. The last NFL strike came in 1987 and big time players like Joe Montana and Lawrence Taylor crossed the picket line the moment it was formed. The NFLPA’s only win came with the CBA in 1993, and that followed a lengthy court battle.
2010 is the last year for the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and if not new agreement can be reached the NFL salary cap could be a thing of the past, and the owners will lockout the players in 2010 to force them back to the bargaining table.
The loss of a salary cap could be devastating to the league, and the parity that has been built in this league, but a rookie salary cap would limit a team’s exposure to paying out millions to a player who doesn’t develop, or who gets injured early on in his career.
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