.jpg)
For some reason, that remains a secret, the NFL Owners opted out of the current Collective Bargaining agreement with it’s player unions last year. This effectively ended the agreement, even though it could have gone on as is for two more seasons. Now if a new CBA cannot be reached by 2010 the Salary Cap in the NFL, which has existed since 1993, would become a moot point for the 2010 season. What happens after that is anyone’s guess at this point.
An uncapped season in the NFL could cause many problems for the league and its owners not only in the present but for years to come. NFL players and fans alike cannot trust the 32 owners of this league to do the right thing and spend their payroll dollars responsibly. If we had that trust than a salary cap wouldn’t be needed in the first place.
While NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is putting a plan into place about how an uncapped season would work, for example the top eight teams from 2009 would be restricted in some fashion, letting owners spend freely will ruin the parity this league has worked hard to establish.
The main issue in all this is of course money. Ever since the League and the NFLPA agreed to extend the CBA in 2006 the owners have been complaining that the players are paid too much. Under the current system, the players get 60% of all revenues. The team owners say this number is so high it is shrinking profit margins and leaves the teams responsible for generating all the revenue while the players simply sit back, and cash the checks. Of course this is a short sighted statement since the owners would make no money if it were not for the players.
The Players union is also being a little stubborn in all of this. They think that since the NFL owner’s opted out of the CBA that the burden is on them to propose a new plan. It seems the players are being short sighted in the fact that if there is no NFL there are no paychecks to cash.
Before there is a dreaded work stoppage and, or an uncapped NFL season that could ruin the business model of the current NFL, the two sides must come together and figure out some sort of compromise.
Comments