Confidence men: Both sides expect football to be played in 2011

[stillers4me]

That's what Commissioner Roger Goodell keeps saying. So do many of the owners and lots of players, even though labor talks collapsed, the union dissolved itself, and star players including MVP Tom Brady (http://www.nfl.com/players/tombrady/profile?id=BRA371156) asked for a preliminary injunction to prevent a lockout hours before the league even implemented one.

Despite the nasty rhetoric of last week, no one would paint the doomsday scenario of no football come September. Instead, we hear Chargers president Dean Spanos say, "We will get through this. There will be a new agreement and we're looking forward to playing football this season."

And we hear Bears president Ted Phillips echo with "A deal will get done and we expect to play football in 2011."

Are they right? And how will they get there?

"There will be no negotiating for a while," said Gary Roberts, dean of the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis. "Both sides will wait to see how the legal maneuvering plays out...............

Read more @ http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d81ebecc4/article/confidence-men-both-sides-expect-football-to-be-played-in-2011

[zulater]

That's what Commissioner Roger Goodell keeps saying. So do many of the owners and lots of players, even though labor talks collapsed, the union dissolved itself, and star players including MVP Tom Brady (http://www.nfl.com/players/tombrady/profile?id=BRA371156) asked for a preliminary injunction to prevent a lockout hours before the league even implemented one.

Despite the nasty rhetoric of last week, no one would paint the doomsday scenario of no football come September. Instead, we hear Chargers president Dean Spanos say, "We will get through this. There will be a new agreement and we're looking forward to playing football this season."

And we hear Bears president Ted Phillips echo with "A deal will get done and we expect to play football in 2011."

Are they right? And how will they get there?

"There will be no negotiating for a while," said Gary Roberts, dean of the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis. "Both sides will wait to see how the legal maneuvering plays out...............
Read more @ http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d81ebecc4/article/confidence-men-both-sides-expect-football-to-be-played-in-2011


http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11073/1131883-66.stm

Yeah there will be no negotiations for awhile, because the players walked away from the table. IMO if they had stayed with it, and not punted it to the courts this all would have been resolved before the draft. Right now our best hope is that the Union's butt buddy Judge Doty will see that the Union's been using him and find against their sham decertification and send them kicking and screaming back into mediated talks.

[siss]

I had a feeling this would turn into a who blinks first contest.

Does anyone know if the Anti trust law suite includes the judges ordering the players to open up their books?

[zulater]

Now, I'll make one last point about the transparency. Several on the league side believe the players' side really doesn't want to see the numbers, because if they got the numbers and they proved the owners' point about declining revenue, then their case about immense team profits would be out the window. Is it worth an extra $10 million per team to keep the statements hidden? If so, this deal gets done tomorrow. Think of it. The league offered a cap number in year one of the new deal of $141 million on Friday, rising to $161 million in year four; that's salary plus player benefits, per year. The players' number is $151 million in year one, rising to $161 million in year four.

The difference isn't even an average of $10 million per year, given the fact that each side is at $161 million in year four. Even with the vagaries of how much, if any, revenue would be shared if the league exceeds its projected revenue in a given year, there's a deal to be made even if the league continues to say it won't open the books as wide as the players want them opened.

If the issue were put to a vote, I'm not sure the NFL wouldn't have 24 teams that said, in effect, we don't want the release of redacted financial statements to stand in the way of a new labor deal. As Broncos COO Joe Ellis told the Denver Post: "If the league decides they want to open up the books of the Denver Broncos to present them to the union, I don't know if the league is into identifying individual clubs because they're private businesses. But with a neutral [auditor] to verify the fact that certain teams haven't been operating as effectively as they did in the past, we're a willing and able participant.''
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/03/14/labor/index.html#ixzz1GavrVMhC

This is absurd. :frusty: When you actually crunch the numbers the sides aren't all that far apart. That's why it pisses me off that the union walked away from the table.