Formo
14 years ago
No NFL for at least a year.
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Thanks to TheViking88 for the sig!!
macbob
14 years ago

No NFL for at least a year.

"Formo" wrote:



That will just give us a little extra time to enjoy being the NFL Super Bowl Champions... šŸ™‚
Nonstopdrivel
14 years ago

Lockout, decertification put league, players in limbo 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Unable to decide how to divvy up $9 billion a year, NFL owners and players put the country's most popular sport in limbo Friday by breaking off labor negotiations hours before their contract expired. The union decertified; the league imposed a lockout.

Ten players, including MVP quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, sued the owners in federal court in Minneapolis. Then, at midnight, the owners locked out the players -- signaling the NFL's first work stoppage since 1987.

"We are locked out," union president and former player Kevin Mawae said in a text message to The Associated Press. "We were informed today that players are no longer welcome at team facilities."

Despite two extensions to the collective bargaining agreement during 16 days of talks overseen by a federal mediator -- and previous months of stop-and-start negotiating -- the sides could not agree on a new deal. Now they will be adversaries in court: The players already requested an injunction to block a lockout, even before one was in place.

As was clear all along, the dispute came down to money. In the end, it appeared the sides were about $185 million apart on how much owners should get up front each season for certain operating expenses before splitting the rest of the revenues with players -- a far cry from the $1 billion that separated the sides for so long.

But the NFL Players Association refused to budge any further without getting detailed financial information for each team.

"I would dare any one of you to pull out any economic indicator that would suggest that the National Football League is falling on hard times," NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said. "The last 14 days, the National Football League has said, 'Trust us.' But when it came time for verification, they told us it was none of our business."

By dissolving and announcing it no longer represents the players in collective bargaining, the union cleared the way for class-action lawsuits against the NFL, which opted out of the CBA in 2008. The antitrust suit - forever to be known as Brady et al vs. National Football League et al - attacked the league's policies on the draft, salary cap and free-agent restrictions such as franchise-player tags.

Invoking the Sherman Act, a federal antitrust statute from 1890 that limits monopolies and restrictions on commerce, the players are seeking triple the amount of damages they've incurred. That means the stakes here could be in the hundreds of millions.

It could take a month for there to be a ruling on the union's injunction request, and antitrust judgments should take longer.

The court fights eventually could threaten the 2011 season for a league whose past two Super Bowls rank as the two most-watched programs in U.S. television history. The last time NFL games were lost to a work stoppage came when the players struck 24 years ago, leading to games with replacement players.

A lockout is a right management has to shut down a business when a CBA expires. It means there can be no communication between the teams and current NFL players; no players - including those drafted in April - can be signed; teams won't pay health insurance for players; players are not allowed in team facilities.

If the lockout lasts long enough, it would lead to the cancellation of games.

Even though the NFL is early in its offseason - and the regular season is six months away - this is hardly a complete downtime. Free agency usually begins in March, and there are hundreds of free agents now in limbo. Also this month, under a regular schedule, team-organized offseason workouts would start. The lockout grinds all such activity to a halt.

March and early April are when many sponsors and corporate partners renew their deals with the NFL, part of why the league says hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue are going to be lost now.

"This obviously is a very disappointing day for all of us. I've been here for the better part of two weeks now, and essentially ... the union's position on the core economic issues has not changed one iota," New York Giants owner John Mara said. "One thing that became painfully apparent to me during this period was that their objective was to go the litigation route."

The NFLPA also decertified in 1989. Antitrust lawsuits by players led to a new CBA in 1993 that included free agency, and the union formed again that year.

The sides met from 10 a.m. until about 4 p.m. Friday, discussing a new proposal by the owners. When the possibility of a third extension to the CBA was raised, the union said it first wanted assurances it would get 10 years of audited financial information.

"I will tell you this: Any business where two partners don't trust each other, any business where one party says, 'You need to do X, Y and Z because I told you,' is a business that is not only not run well, it is a business that can never be as successful as it can be," Smith said.

At 4:45 p.m., Smith and the union's negotiators left the mediator's office. About 15 minutes later, the union decertified.

"No one is happy where we are now," NFL lead negotiator Jeff Pash said. "I think we know where the (union's) commitment was. It was a commitment to litigate all along."

A league statement added: "The union left a very good deal on the table."

"No useful purpose would be served by requesting the parties to continue the mediation process at this time," said mediator George Cohen, who managed to keep a lid on public comments from both sides for much of the last three weeks.

But the public acrimony that arose Thursday night seeped into Friday.

After Pash spoke, outside union lawyer Jim Quinn said: "I hate to say this, but he has not told the truth to our players or our fans. He has, in a word, lied to them about what happened today and what's happened over the last two weeks and the last two years."

The NFL said its offer included splitting the difference in the dispute over how much money owners should be given off the top of the league's revenues. Under the expiring CBA, the owners immediately got about $1 billion before dividing the remainder of revenues with the players; the owners entered negotiations seeking to roughly double that.

But the owners eventually reduced that additional up-front demand to about $650 million. Then, on Friday, they offered to drop that to about $325 million. Smith said the union offered during talks to give up $550 million over the first four years of a new agreement -- or an average of $137.5 million.

"We worked hard," said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who was joined at mediation on Thursday and Friday by nine of the 10 members of the owners' powerful labor committee. "We didn't reach an agreement, obviously. As you know, the union walked away from the mediation process."

Also in the NFL's offer, according to the league:

Maintaining the 16 regular-season games and four preseason games for at least two years, with any switch to 18 games down the road being negotiable.

Instituting a rookie wage scale through which money saved would be paid to veterans and retired players.

Creating new year-round health and safety rules.

Establishing a fund for retired players, with $82 million contributed by the owners over the next two years.

Financial disclosure of audited profitability information that is not even shared with the NFL clubs. That was proposed by the NFL this week, and rejected by the union, which began insisting in May 2009 for a complete look at the books of each of the 32 clubs.

As Pash outlined each element of the owners' last offer, he ended with the phrase: "Evidently not good enough."

When Goodell, Pash, Mara and owners Jerry Jones of the Cowboys and Jerry Richardson of the Panthers emerged from Cohen's office shortly after 5 p.m., they sounded hopeful negotiations would resume soon.

"We're discouraged, we're frustrated, we're disappointed, but we are not giving up. We know that this will be resolved in the negotiation process," Pash said. "We will be prepared to come back here any time the union is ready to come back here."

Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



I am deriving so much schadenfreude from this situation. I hope the fans are so thoroughly alienated that advertising revenues plunge, which means that TV deals will lose their value, which means that player salaries will necessarily also plummet.

Only idiots kill the golden goose. Both the players and owners are idiots, and I have sympathy for neither side. How anyone can play the victim when they are making hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year is beyond belief.
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Greg C.
14 years ago

No NFL for at least a year.

"Formo" wrote:



Nice overreaction. Very simple and to the point.

From what I hear, though, the two sides closed most of the gap before talks broke down. What I'm wondering now is how long all of this legal stuff is going to take.
blank
macbob
14 years ago
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/03/12/the-lockout-has-officially-begun/related 

The lockout has officially begun
by Gregg Rosenthal

For the first time since 1987, the National League Football has officially entered a work stoppage.

It came with a whimper.

As of 12:33 a.m. ET, the league hasnt released a statement on the matter. (The collective bargaining agreement ran out at midnight.) NFL Network did announce on air, however, that the owners have imposed a lockout on the players, and NFL.com also has a story on it.

The Associated Press also confirmed the move and teams received an email notifying them a lockout was imposed.

The start of the lockout will set off a number of legal maneuvers. The players have gone to court in an effort to block the lockout.

They have filed an antitrust lawsuit officially known as Brady et al vs. National Football League et al. The owners are expected to try to prove that the NFLPAs decertification is a sham. That argument could have problems.

All of the legal wrangling above is not something the average NFL fan (and writer) will fully understand. Nor should they have to. Florio will break it all down on PFT in the coming days and weeks for us to digest.

We knew this day was likely coming, yet its still unsettling for anyone that loves the game. And you dont need a law degree to understand the emotional implications.

The issue of trust continues to be thrown around. The players and ownership talk about the trust necessary for them to come to an agreement. They clearly dont trust each other very much right now.

Both sides need to understand they risk losing the trust of a loyal, rabid fanbase. You cant file a lawsuit to get that back.

ProFootballTalk wrote:



http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/03/11/antitrust-lawsuit-alleges-that-nfl-has-waived-sham-defense-to-decertification/ 

Antitrust lawsuit alleges that NFL has waived sham defense to decertification
by Mike Florio

While trudging through the 52-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota by a group of players including three quarterbacks who have won five Super Bowls among them, I had to press pause at page 19 and share with PFT Planet language that, if accurate, prevents the NFL from arguing that the decertification of the union was a sham.

If the NFL were to prove that the decertification was a sham, the league would be able to lock the players out, since the antitrust laws would not apply.

Paragraph 45 of the civil complaint explains that, when settling the Reggie White antitrust lawsuit in 1993, the league insisted on the right to terminate the [agreement] if the players did not reform a union within thirty days. To get that provision, the NFL agrees that, if a majority of players decided to end their collective bargaining representation upon or after the [agreement's] expiration, the NFL would waive the right to argue, among other things, that the decertification was a sham or otherwise ineffective.

In other words, if the players allegations are accurate, the NFL cant use the sham silver bullet to block decertification. And that makes the players lawsuit a lot stronger, increasing the likelihood that a lockout will be blocked and well have football in 2011.

ProFootballTalk wrote:

wpr
  • wpr
  • Preferred Member
14 years ago

Received an email from Roger Goodell today...

"macbob" wrote:


Roger is your email buddy too? Mine came to an email account I don't check all the time. I figured I would look at some of these threads before I posted it.
Roger sure sounds like someone running for office doesn't he?
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beast (3h) : Wow, 95% drop in investment revenue? Would be interesting to hear the details of why...
dfosterf (25-Jul) : It's my one day deal complaint dept. on shareholder meeting day
dfosterf (25-Jul) : Probably a homer access credential intimidation kinda thing
dfosterf (25-Jul) : Meathead "journalists" skip this, concentrating on operational revenue when convenient. They switch when net revenue is more favorable.
dfosterf (25-Jul) : Resulting in an actual drop of net revenue of 12.5%. She is from Minnesota. Just sayin'
dfosterf (25-Jul) : Any plans to hold Maureen Smith (CFO) accountable for a 95% drop in investment revenue?
Mucky Tundra (25-Jul) : In your face, HBO!
Mucky Tundra (25-Jul) : @ByRyanWood Mark Murphy: ā€œA great source of pride of mine is that we were never on Hard Knocks.ā€
Mucky Tundra (25-Jul) : *years
Mucky Tundra (25-Jul) : @mattschneidman Mark Murphy says he anticipates ā€œmany Packers gamesā€ being played in Germany, Ireland and/or the U.K. over the next 5-10 yea
dfosterf (25-Jul) : *cafeteria* I have hit my head also, so I sympathize
dfosterf (25-Jul) : Possibly hit his head leaning into the glass protecting the food in the cafateria
dfosterf (25-Jul) : Maybe a low flying drone
dfosterf (25-Jul) : Did Savion Williams run into a goalpost or something?
Mucky Tundra (25-Jul) : also, no bueno when a guy starts getting concussions right off the bat in his career
Zero2Cool (25-Jul) : Concussion is worse. Banks probably vet off day via back booboo claim
Mucky Tundra (25-Jul) : @AndyHermanNFL Jordy Nelson out at camp today. No word if he’s in play for one of the two open roster spots ; )
dfosterf (25-Jul) : Is that better or worse than Banks bad back?
Zero2Cool (25-Jul) : Savion concussion ... not good.
packerfanoutwest (24-Jul) : Aaron Rodgers’s first pass of first team period was picked off
Mucky Tundra (24-Jul) : tbh I didn't hear of his passing
Zero2Cool (24-Jul) : Cosby Show. Malcom Jamal Warner I think is real name
Mucky Tundra (24-Jul) : I was thinking of Ozzy and Hulk
Mucky Tundra (24-Jul) : Who's Theo?
Zero2Cool (24-Jul) : How is Theo alliteration?
Mucky Tundra (24-Jul) : Bad week for people whose names are alliterations
Zero2Cool (24-Jul) : Hulk Hogan gone too.
Zero2Cool (24-Jul) : Oh, it's toe injury
Zero2Cool (24-Jul) : Hope it's not serious. that would stink
dfosterf (24-Jul) : Sounds like an ankle not a knee for Fields
dfosterf (24-Jul) : Ya Flaccp on Browns
Zero2Cool (24-Jul) : Maybe Tyrod Taylor instead
Zero2Cool (24-Jul) : He's on Browns, right?
dfosterf (24-Jul) : They would probably go with Flacco is my guess if Fields out
dfosterf (24-Jul) : Fleece 'em again!
Zero2Cool (24-Jul) : Malik Willis might be someone Jets come after
packerfanoutwest (24-Jul) : Packers introduce 1923-inspired classic uniform, leather-look helmet
Zero2Cool (23-Jul) : Both LB Quay Walker and Rookie DB Micah Robinson have passed their physicals
Zero2Cool (23-Jul) : Happy to see site feels more snappy snappy
Zero2Cool (23-Jul) : No sir. I did not.
dfosterf (23-Jul) : You didn't get free childcare when you were at work?
wpr (23-Jul) : These guys make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Pay for their own childcare.
dfosterf (23-Jul) : 2nd issue. Number 1 issue was no gameday childcare. 1 of 3 teams not providing it
Zero2Cool (23-Jul) : Suppose if locker room is main issue, we sitting pretty
wpr (23-Jul) : I thought so Mucky. In those useless player polls GB always rates high overall. Locker is a part of it.
Mucky Tundra (23-Jul) : Wasn't the locker room just updated like 6 or 7 years ago?
Zero2Cool (23-Jul) : I have forum updated on different site. We'll see how this one goes before going to that
Zero2Cool (23-Jul) : Elgton Jenkins has a back injury, is expect to end contract dispute
wpr (23-Jul) : It's funny the PA complained about the locker room. It wasn't that long ago it was top shelf. Things change in a hurry.
wpr (23-Jul) : The site is much more better.
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