Sorry, Aaron Rodgers. Most years, the Packer quarterback’s Super Bowl heroics would still be the talk of the NFL. Unfortunately, this year an exciting, closely-contested Super Bowl has quickly been overshadowed by the looming threat of an NFL lockout and the prospect of not having a 2011 NFL season.
To better understand the conflict, one must know exactly what has created this great divide threatening to eliminate an entire season. The NFL rakes in about nine billion dollars each year in revenues and the owners and players cannot come to an agreement on how to split this money. In 2006, the NFL Players Association and the league’s owners settled on a Collective Bargaining Agreement that gave the players approximately 50 percent of the revenue of the league. However, the economic downturn in the United States since 2006 has caused the owners to reconsider the deal they signed less than five years ago.
The reported proposal from the league’s owners would see the players concede about a billion dollars in revenue. However, as one might expect, the players have little interest in agreeing to such a significant pay-cut and the discrepancy between the proposals of the two sides have led some to believe that a lockout is inevitable. In fact, DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, has declared that the likelihood of a lockout in 2011 is a “14 on a scale of one to ten.”
One reason for this pessimistic view is the fact that, according to Smith, the NFL and its owners would have much less to lose economically if a lockout were to occur. He claims that the NFL negotiated their television deals with FOX, CBS, NBC, and DirecTV with a potential lockout in mind and would stand to make four billion dollars in 2011 regardless of whether any games are actually played.
On the other hand, some find it difficult to pity either side given that NFL players make an average salary of $700,000 per year while the median income in the entire population of the United States is around $30,000. However, as Smith is quick to point out, the average NFL player may make a nice salary, but their career only lasts, on average, about three years. Beyond that, a player has to play over three seasons in order to qualify for just five years of health care following their retirement. Even if a player is fortunate and plays long enough to be eligible for this insurance, after the allotted five years they will run into plenty of healthcare-related problems given all the pre-existing conditions they will have accrued throughout their long careers in such a violent sport. For this reason, another issue that has been discussed in the ongoing negotiations is improved benefits for retired players.
Another prominent proposal that has divided the sides is the owners’ suggestion of expanding the NFL season from 16 to 18 games by converting two preseason games into regular season games that bring in more revenue than the sparsely attended preseason games. Though this would bring in more money, the players are already quite concerned about their health and do not appear to support the addition of more games to their already grueling regular season.
With the current Collective Bargaining Agreement set to expire on March 3, the two sides do not appear any closer to coming to an agreement than they were months ago when the talks of a lockout began. Thus, the prospect of the cancellation of the 2011 NFL season is becoming more of a reality with each day that passes without the owners and players reaching a resolution.
Regardless of which side you support, if any, it is important to also keep in mind the less prominent potential victims of a lockout. Stadium employees, stores that sell NFL merchandise and businesses around NFL stadiums all depend on the NFL season to survive financially and could stand to lose the most if the owners and the NFL Players Association fail to come to an agreement.