the owners did their part :) Lets Play

[pbmax]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/07/23/in-season-padded-practices-plummet-under-new-cba/

You know who took the brunt of the CBA bargaining? Coaches.

Might be enough for them to form the Vince Lombardi "What The Hell Is Going On Out There" Coaches Association (the VLWTHIGOOTCA).

Actually, for the Packers, the weekly schedule isn't that much of a change. M3, if memory serves, usually had one padded practice per week anyway, with the occasional double and the occasional week off. In fact, with two a days gone, it looks very much like the Packers current schedule.

[vince]

Well, your statement that player costs have outpaced revenues is the crux of the matter. If its a simple matter of percentages, and it was a decade long spread of 50-52%, then that argument doesn't hold up league-wide. However, it might very well for specific teams.

The other thing we do not know is the line of comparison for those published percentages. If years 2006-2009 were 50-52% Total Revenue+Expense Credits then that number is substantially different from 2000-2005's 50-52% Adjusted Gross Revenue+Cost Credits.

If that numerator is ALL REVENUE for the entire decade, then as a percentage, player costs weren't going up league wide.

Yeah. Without citing specific figures for team revs over time, I don't think there is any question that the problem lies with supporting the low rev teams whose revenue growth hasn't kept pace with the high rev teams and player costs. I think it's in everyone's long-term best interests to see that teams don't fold, but it's also understandable that high-rev owners have some limits as far as what they'll accept with regard to the revenue sharing structure.

[Patler]

Whether you want to characterize the owners' ploy as bargaining in bad faith, or just hard bargaining, I think they were foolish to risk alienating their partners.

Alienating? Pfft! No such thing. It's not like the players are going to walk away and do a deal with a different league, or something. If they get their nose out of joint over relatively trivial details, who cares???

[pbmax]

If anyone dares, Mort has gotten his hands on the document reviewed by players on Wednesday.

http://es.pn/nNutZK

[vince]

http://www.packers.com/news-and-events/article_ketchman/article-1/This-CBA-fixes-flaws-in-06-deal/0e2dc0ec-2aa6-431f-aabc-c60677b7b8f4

This CBA fixes flaws in '06 deal

The whole problem centered on a model that didn’t work. That’s what the owners were saying when the lockout began, that the TFR (Total Football Revenue) model for distributing revenue to the players and to which the owners agreed in 2006, and from which they opted out just two years later, was a failed business model.

In some cases, it only took a few months after agreeing to the ’06 CBA for owners to know they had made a major mistake. In effect, what they had done is to have agreed to pay 100 percent of the costs with 40 percent of the gross.

This lockout, which is nearing five months in length, is all about undoing what was hurriedly and ill-advisedly put into place five years ago. Retracing their steps, however, was not completely possible, so the owners did the next-best thing: They addressed the issue of those costs.

Here’s the plan for doing that, a plan that is the result of long and exhaustive negotiations between the two sides. As Packers President Mark Murphy told reporters in a conference call on Thursday, “We’ve put our pens down.” Murphy, a former player, was expressing satisfaction for the performance of both sides.

• Beginning in 2012, revenue will fall into three categories and it’ll be distributed to the players at three different amounts. Players will receive 55 percent of the national TV revenue, 45 percent of NFL ventures (NFL Network, licensing, etc.) revenue, and 40 percent of local team revenue.

That final category, “local team revenue,” was the sticking point and possibly the lynchpin in this CBA proposal. If this gets done, the 40 percent provision for “local team revenue” might be what made it happen.

Local team revenue is, by and large, ticket sales. It is the most costly of the three revenues to generate and service, inasmuch as teams have to employ ticket departments and all costs associated with marketing and distributing tickets, which can include substantial credit card charges. In the previous CBA, the players received a flat 60 percent of the ticket revenue gross.

In effect, this agreement flips the ’06 CBA, at least as it pertains to local team revenue. The owners are, in effect, getting a 20 percent cost reduction. It was something they absolutely had to have, just as it would seem the players were equally adamant on not playing an 18-game schedule.

Compromise is a wonderful thing. Each side gets the one thing it absolutely had to have. In this case, compromise on these two major issues helped stimulate agreement on other sticking points, such as a rookie wage scale, where both sides realized gains.

This is a good deal because it’s good for both sides and, just as importantly, it’s good for the game and its fans. The players didn’t need to subject themselves to another two weeks of abuse and, frankly, there had been no public outcry from fans for two more regular-season games, just for two fewer preseason games. Hey, you can’t have everything, can you?

The previous TFR model was a formula for contraction. Slowly but surely the teams at the bottom of the league’s revenue rankings would’ve run into a financial wall. In that business model, the salary cap system could not have survived because those low-ranking revenue teams could not conscionably have been forced to spend to a cap minimum that would’ve eventually put them into the red. The great fear was that without a salary cap to level the playing field, the low-revenue teams would become uncompetitive.

How bad was the old model? Well, it was so bad that a lot of front office people lost their jobs because they worked in departments that couldn’t produce the profit margin necessary to overcome such a lopsided split of the revenue.

Though players will continue to share in all revenue, as opposed to the defined-revenue system employed prior to ’06, the allowance for costs, combined with a continuation of revenue-sharing for low-ranking revenue teams, will give this system a chance to succeed.

This is a proposal worthy of the players’ ratification. It will grow the game and it will grow player salaries.

[vince]

Details are sketchy, and we've heard this before, but it sounds like a deal in principle has been struck. Jason LaCanfora is reporting on NFLN that NFLPA sources are telling him that the new league year can in fact start on Wednesday and practices will open as early as Friday.

This depends of the timing of the judge signing off on the global settlement, the owners approving some new language and the players voting on Tuesday.

According to this new schedule, free agency would start in conjunction with training camps.

[vince]

http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Major-progress-reported-on-labor-front-today-impasse-expected-to-end-soon.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The labor impasse could be about to end.

The NFL and the decertified NFL Players Association have reportedly agreed to a schedule where the NFLPA executive committee would recommend voting to ratify the proposed collective bargaining agreement, according to ESPN.

That would also include a plan for the NFLPA to formally recertify as a union after decertifying and operating as a trade association during the NFL lockout.

Per the report, players would be allowed to report as soon as Wednesday and then vote on recertification by Friday at the soonest.

Plus, there was reportedly progress as both sides got close to settling the $4 billion TV lockout insurance case.

A meeting from the NFLPA executive committee is expected to be held Monday in Washington, D.C.

In order to pass as far as the terms of the CBA recertify, the NFLPA needs a 50-percent plus one majority vote.

It's still possible that free agency might not start until July 30

[vince]

Here's PFT's report

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/07/23/report-nflpa-expected-to-meet-monday-recommend-ratification-of-deal/

Report: NFLPA* expected to meet Monday, recommend ratification of deal

Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on July 23, 2011, 6:24 PM EDT


We’ve been so “close” to the end of the lockout for so long that we hesitate to get too excited about any report.

With that disclaimer out of the way, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen has news that should make football fans smile from coast to coast.

After “significant progress” was made Saturday, Mort reports the NFLPA* executive committee is expected to meet in Washington D.C. Monday to recommend the ratification of the next Collective Bargaining agreement.

“De Smith and Roger Goodell have worked directly to assure that nothing goes off path,” Mortensen writes. “Expect a presser Monday.”

It’s uncertain how the hanging details were settled and whether there will be a seven-year opt out for the ten-year deal. After the union reconstitutes, the two sides will still have to collectively bargain issues like player discipline.

DeMaurice Smith has reportedly assured Goodell that those issues would be handled in time for he first full week of the preseason to go on schedule. The NFL’s labor committee had a conference call Saturday that helped push the ball forward.

NFL Network’s Albert Breer is a little less certain in his timeline. He reports talks are ongoing and the NFLPA* executive committee is on “standby” for Monday.

We’ve learned to that a deal isn’t done until it’s done, so we’re tempering our optimism slightly.

But folks that had July 25th in their office lockout pool should be feeling pretty good at the moment.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Alienating? Pfft! No such thing. It's not like the players are going to walk away and do a deal with a different league, or something. If they get their nose out of joint over relatively trivial details, who cares???

all things being equal, there is no advantage in angering your negotiating partner. In this instance, you may be right that the substance was small, but the owners misrepresented the state of negotiations to the public in an attempt to grab a little leverage.

The owners paychecks start with the preseason games. The players paychecks start with the regular season. The players have a modest bargaining edge during the coming weeks, so I expect the owners were trying to accelerate a deal.

I'm not screaming bloody murder over what the owners did. However, I don't think the maneuver worked.

[vince]

Greg Aiello, NFL PR man, said on Twitter,

More nonsense. Players get full share of preseason revenue. RT @RonBorges: Tired hearing doom if lose preseason games.

so it seems that everyone loses out if any preseason games are missed, which it appears they won't.

[vince]

According to Mike Florio, the NFLPA will recommend ratification of the exact deal that the owners have already adopted, including the no opt-out clause.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Greg Aiello, NFL PR man, said on Twitter, More nonsense. Players get full share of preseason revenue.
so it seems that everyone loses out if any preseason games are missed, which it appears they won't.

this may be true in an indirect sense, the salary cap level reflects preseason revenues. But the individual players get 1/16 of their salary each regular season game.
I expect the owners have a more immediate stake in the preseason revenues.

[pbmax]

It seems like good news is headed our way.

But this quote from the packers.com site posted in the previous page:

In some cases, it only took a few months after agreeing to the ’06 CBA for owners to know they had made a major mistake. In effect, what they had done is to have agreed to pay 100 percent of the costs with 40 percent of the gross.

is an outright falsehood. It fails to mention the nearly $1 billion in credits off the top. So I think the rest of their info on the splits in this article may be dubious as well. In fact, if I am not mistaken, its the same storyline initially pushed by League sites when this all began and started the first public fight. It was after that squabble that the $1 billion dollar figure was thrown out.

[pbmax]

According to Mike Florio, the NFLPA will recommend ratification of the exact deal that the owners have already adopted, including the no opt-out clause.

Elsewhere on the site (and from other sources) they have mentioned that there is new language. I think Florio is trying to turn a phrase here, not meaning a literal exact same package.

Example from Mortenson of ESPN:

Owners tentatively agreed Saturday to a players-recommended plan for the NFL Players Association to bring players into team facilities starting as early as Wednesday to physically vote on whether to recertify the current trade association as a union, a source said. Progress in other talks with the owners has put the players' 11-member executive committee in a position to have a vote Monday to recommend accepting the 10-year collective bargaining agreement.

[vince]

Elsewhere on the site (and from other sources) they have mentioned that there is new language. I think Florio is trying to turn a phrase here, not meaning a literal exact same package.

Example from Mortenson of ESPN:

Owners tentatively agreed Saturday to a players-recommended plan for the NFL Players Association to bring players into team facilities starting as early as Wednesday to physically vote on whether to recertify the current trade association as a union, a source said. Progress in other talks with the owners has put the players' 11-member executive committee in a position to have a vote Monday to recommend accepting the 10-year collective bargaining agreement.

I haven't seen anywhere that indicates any new language in the agreement. That quote doesn't indicate such. Although vague, it implies that there is no new language. We'll likely find out more details on Monday, but we know the 7-year opt-out the players were supposedly holding out for is not included. There is no indication that I've seen that indicates the owners need to vote on any changes to the agreement they've ratified. Pending new details, it appears that, other than the 7-year opt-out, which isn't included, all the items the NFLPA was holding up the CBA for fall outside the realm of the CBA itself.