Can the NFL still be great without a Collective Bargaining Agreement?
The NFL earns very substantial revenues. But the clubs are obligated by the CBA to spend substantially more than half their revenues – almost $4.5 billion this year alone -- on player costs. In addition, as we have explained to the union, the clubs must spend significant and growing amounts on stadium construction, operations and improvements to respond to the interests and demands of football fans. The current labor agreement does not adequately recognize the costs of generating the revenues of which the players receive the largest share; nor does the agreement recognize that those costs have increased substantially -- and at an ever increasing rate -- in recent years during a difficult economic climate in our country. As a result, under the terms of the current agreement, the clubs’ incentive to invest in the game is threatened.
There are substantial other elements of the deal that simply are not working. For example, as interpreted by the courts, the current CBA effectively prohibits the clubs from recouping bonuses paid to players who subsequently breach their player contacts or refuse to perform. That is simply irrational and unfair to both fans and players who honor their contracts. Also irrational is that in the current system some rookies are able to secure contracts that pay them more than top proven veterans.
The players have some issues and concerns as well. As more former NFL players suffer from debilitating and disheartening injuries and diseases related to their hard-hitting profession. Many of them diagnosed with the kind of brain damage that will likely cause full-on dementia. Asking the players to play an additional two games a year will only add to their future health problems and shorten their careers. Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/05/04/2850795/we-need-to-take-football-head.html#ixzz1LaLsjPJ9
One of the things that has marked the modern NFL as different from other major professional sports leagues is the apparent parity between its 32 teams. While from time to time, dominant teams have arisen, the league has been cited as one of the few where every team has a realistic chance of winning the championship from year to year. The league's complex collective labor agreement with its players' union, which mandates a hard salary cap and revenue sharing between its clubs, prevents the richest teams from stockpiling the best players and gives even teams in smaller cities such as Kansas City, Green Bay New Orleans
Regardless of the results of the new agreement between the NFL Owners and Players, chance are that unless another CBA is implemented and parity maintained among the league; the best years of the NFL may be the ones in the past, not in the future.
