On April 28, National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell walked on stage at New York’s Radio City Music Hall to announce the first pick of the 2011 NFL Draft and was greeted with a chorus of boos. A far cry from the usual celebratory mood, this year’s draft was marred by the contentiousness and uncertainty due to the lockout which has endangered the 2011-2012 NFL season. During the lockout, players are not permitted to meet with coaches or work out on team facilities, and player transactions are also barred.
The lockout crisis stems from a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the NFL owners and the NFL players’ association that ended after the most recent Super Bowl. Among other issues, the main reason for the lockout is the debate on the shares of NFL money that the players receive. Following a series of tense negotiations, the two sides revealed that their proposals for a new CBA had irreconcilable differences.
The disagreements over the new CBA are understandable, as the NFL is a $9 billion industry, but the labor dispute has done much to alienate fans, a consequence that could cost the NFL large amounts of money.
The media has largely portrayed the NFL player’s association (NFLPA) as the victims in this dispute, with the players suffering without wages through the work stoppage as the greedy owners thirst for more profit despite their affluence. However, such a one-sided view should be cautioned against as both sides have legitimate qualms.
For example, in negotiating the new CBA, among other provisions, the owners advocated an extension of the regular season to two games along with a rookie wage scale to control the salaries of draft picks. The wage scale would set a maximum salary that teams could pay to each draft pick, an effective solution to the skyrocketing salaries of top draft picks in recent years.
The extension to the regular season has been protested extensively by the players, and for good reason, given the prominence of concussions in the NFL. The addition of two games to the season would be a hypocritical action, considering Goodell’s recent push to decrease the numbers of dangerous hits during games.
However, fans should be cautioned before throwing too much support behind the players in the labor struggle because much of the NFL’s popularity is due to the CBA provisions that favor owners, such as the salary cap and the franchise tag, two tools used to control player salaries and to limit player free agency.
If the players were to have their way, a new CBA would lack the salary cap and franchise tag. However, these tools of free agency should not be removed, as they are part of the reason the NFL is so successful.
The salary cap establishes a maximum for a team’s player salaries, preventing the teams with the richest owners from signing all the best players. Because of the salary cap, no team can dominate the league by spending inordinate amounts of money, (as, for example, the New York Yankees do in baseball).
Because no teams are completely dominant, the NFL attracts fans who believe that their favorite teams could experience success any given year. The franchise tag allows teams to retain one star player each, even if his salary causes the team to exceed the salary cap. Because of the franchise tag, teams can keep their star players through free agency, and players cannot flock to desirable teams, as LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony did in the NBA.
Because the owners and players both have negative and positive plans for the NFL, the only good solution to the lockout is for both sides to cooperate in creating a new mutually agreeable CBA. Although negotiations have made little progress so far, both sides must realize the potential profit loss that could result from a lockout-shortened season.
Ideally, a new CBA would call for the normal 16-game season with the preseason shortened to benefit player safety. Additionally, a rookie wage scale should be instituted, but the current free agent system should not be changed. In this situation, both sides would receive some of their most desired aspects, while player safety and NFL popularity would not be compromised.
Although Goodell’s reception at the draft was shocking to him, a more encouraging moment occurred when second overall pick Von Miller, who is a plaintiff in the players’ lawsuit against the NFL, gave Goodell a sustained embrace, possibly foreshadowing a more conciliatory attitude in the future between the NFL and NFLPA.