The NFL and The NFL Players Association have a message for you, The Fan…
The last time the NFL lost games to a strike, fantasy football was a fantasy; 1987 to be exact. The only issue at that time was free agency.
Since that strike, baseball has canceled a World Series, the NHL canceled an entire season and the NBA lost nearly half a season. Remember when tons of NBA players were going broke because they apparently blow their money like crazy and live six-figure paycheck to six-figure paycheck?
Well the 22 years of NFL labor peace is over and here is why: The economy tanked, nothing makes negotiating a labor agreement a total bitch like a sour economy. Unions still want pay increases and Management wants to protect assets. Couple that with a 2010 season with no salary cap if the parties fail to sign a deal before the end of Super Bowl 44. That is ten months away… If the NFL does not get an agreement in the next ten months then we will see Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder go fucking nuts on the free agent market.
This time next year we will have a salary cap free NFL… think about that for a second. Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, for all his on-field mismanagement, has turned his team into an ATM machine, and he is masturbating to the possibility of “making it rain” on players next summer, no matter how great or F’ed up the economy is. What will Cowboys owner Jerry Jones do when his new Billion Dollar Stadium starts making money like a printing press?
The shit is not going to hit the fan. The shit has already hit the fan and is beginning to cover the walls. The only question is how much crap is going to get tossed? The players’ union has said, in no uncertain terms, that once you go black no-cap, you never go back. This is a fundamental law of collective bargaining: Once you get something as good as a non-salary cap is for the players you don’t give it up, not for anything.
The union believes that teams averaged $25 million in profit last year. The owners are refusing to open their books and are doing what major league sports owners always do and are crying poor… which never made any fucking sense to me. You own the New England Patriots and you are not making money? Then you must be retarded or burning hundred dollar bills to heat Kraft factories.
So what is Goodell doing about this? Saying things like: “Ownership has spent a lot of time evaluating the current C.B.A. and determined it is better to terminate that agreement and come up with a new one that will be beneficial to the clubs and players. The economy turning sour has accentuated the importance of the C.B.A.”
Let me interpret that for you: “We think we are spending way too much money in this current C.B.A. and frankly we believe that by terminating this one we can force the player to work for less money… also with the economy nose diving like a Japanese Kamikaze what better time then now to help us cram it up their ass?” In negotiating, management’s best friends are gloom and doom. Hey it worked for the NHL. The “we’re fucked” angle was real for them… in the NFL, not so much. Goodell spent the weeks after the Super Bowl talking up a 17 or 18 game regular season but really what he should have been talking about was the next CBA. Time is running out… unless you are not interested in a new deal.
Everyone knows the NFL sells it competitive parity, anyone (but the Lions) can win on any given Sunday. But the real secret is not just competitive parity but it also has to be the financial parity between its owners. This comes from the league splitting its national broadcast revenue evenly among all its teams, and the fact that true free agency did not hit the league until the early 1990s, two decades after it fucked up baseball.
Now we have the Red Skins throwing $100 million at Albert Haynesworth, 41 of it guaranteed. This does not happen unless Snyder is certain that the days of a salary cap are numbered. Owners have developed a knack for pulling cash out of their stadiums that no one would have tried even 15 years ago… luxury suites, stadium builders licenses, public-seat licenses and all those sponsorship deals. Owning a NFL team has gone from a hobby for the uber-rich to being a business that is expected to generate profit. That means ruthless behavior on the part of individual team owners.
So what is happening or what is going to happen? 1. The current CBA is fucking toast. It is over. No one is saying it but owners (esp. two of the most powerful) are acting like it. So therefore it is done. 2. If the CBA is done then so is the salary cap. Players have said it time and time again. Once the salary cap is gone it is not coming back. When a Union takes a hard line position on a term or condition of employment like the NFLPA is taking here they are not going to back off. They can’t.
What does this mean to me? Football is never going to be the same. The NFL’s success in recent years is based at least in part on Fantasy Football and gambling. Why else would people get the NFL Package or the Dish? No one cares to watch the Pats beat the Chiefs 42-6 unless you are starting Tom Brady and/or have a C-note riding a 49.5 point over. If the NFL loses the salary cap then financial parity’s days are numbered. The Bills are not going to drop nine figures on a defensive lineman… so with financial parity so goes competitive parity. No competitive parity in football could be a disaster for Fantasy Football…less people in Fantasy Football, less people watching that blowout win by the Pats. Less parity, less gambling… are you seeing a trend?
And all of this does not address what would happen to the league when there is a lockout. It would be a shock to the American male’s system to not have football on every Sunday during the fall of 2011. But would people be running to get it once it decides to come back? The NFL product is not Coca-Cola… once you switch to New Coke you can’t just go back to canning Coca-Cola Classic after people tell you your new product sucks. Whatever is in place via the new CBA will be the way things are for a long time…and I don’t think people will like the taste of it. Unfortunately for us the new formula is already taking shape and the sane owners (if there are any) inside the NFL only have 10 months to save the goose who lays the golden eggs.
Thanks for coming and suckling on Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Bearcat
Daddy's Sugar Ball 