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By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
With only two weeks remaining until the NFL begins a new fiscal year, league officials will meet Wednesday with NFL Players' Association representatives in an effort to forge some progress on an extension to the existing collective bargaining agreement.
The two sides have been negotiating the proposed deal, which would extend the labor accord from 2008 to at least 2011, for several months. Progress has been slow and, while the talks certainly have not taken on the animus that marked the labor strife of 15 years ago, commissioner Paul Tagliabue and NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw have both conceded that the bargaining has been tough.
One element that could provide momentum, however, is the NFL's seeming willingness now to share all local and national revenue with players. The current agreement defines the players' share as 64.75 percent of so-called "designated gross revenues," but does not account for all the monies brought in from local broadcast rights, luxury suites, stadium naming rights and sponsorships.
Those relatively new but lucrative revenue streams, Upshaw has charged, have exploded in recent years. And since they are not included in setting the salary cap, the NFLPA has contended that the amount of revenue in which the players currently don't share has risen from 30 percent to about 37 percent.
To this point, the NFL has remained steadfast in its stance that not all revenues should be shared with the players. Offering to do so would represent a major philosophical change.
Of course, if the NFL includes all revenues in the kitty for players, which would mark a monumental shift in the league's stance, it certainly will ask for concessions in return. Part of what the league would seek, it appears, is a mechanism to address the debt service many teams now carry, either from franchise purchase fees or stadium construction.
Upshaw and other union executives have suggested that league revenues are now in the $5 billion-$6 billion range. If the NFL agreed to share all monies, and changed nothing else in the system, the player pool could increase by nearly $400 million. But the NFL is likely to seek a reduction in the percentage of revenues in which the players share, if the overall pool is dramatically increased.
Some low-revenue and small-market teams, which have voiced their concerns over the increasing disparity in the so-called haves and "have-nots, might also ask for some subsidies from the higher-revenue franchises. Upshaw said at a league meeting near Detroit in October that there are eight franchises whose revenues far exceed those of the other 24 teams.
It is important that a new deal is in place a year before the current one expires. If not, the salary cap would disappear in the final year of the collective bargaining agreement and owners would be free to spend as much as they wanted on player costs. On the flip side, in an "uncapped" year, players would have to accrue six seasons, instead of four, to gain the right to unrestricted free agency.
Upshaw repeated during Super Bowl week that, if the salary cap ever disappears for even one season, the league will never be able to restore it. Most owners agree that, without a salary cap, competitive balance would be all but destroyed.
The league office has told owners to hold open the March 2 date for a possible meeting in Atlanta to discuss labor matters and ongoing television negotiations. March 2 marks the start of the free agency period and, essentially, the beginning of a new NFL fiscal year.
Upshaw long ago set the date as a target for competing an extension to the labor accord, since a deal would have to be in place by then to affect the 2005 season.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=pasquarelli_len&id=1992603
ESPN.com
With only two weeks remaining until the NFL begins a new fiscal year, league officials will meet Wednesday with NFL Players' Association representatives in an effort to forge some progress on an extension to the existing collective bargaining agreement.
The two sides have been negotiating the proposed deal, which would extend the labor accord from 2008 to at least 2011, for several months. Progress has been slow and, while the talks certainly have not taken on the animus that marked the labor strife of 15 years ago, commissioner Paul Tagliabue and NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw have both conceded that the bargaining has been tough.
One element that could provide momentum, however, is the NFL's seeming willingness now to share all local and national revenue with players. The current agreement defines the players' share as 64.75 percent of so-called "designated gross revenues," but does not account for all the monies brought in from local broadcast rights, luxury suites, stadium naming rights and sponsorships.
Those relatively new but lucrative revenue streams, Upshaw has charged, have exploded in recent years. And since they are not included in setting the salary cap, the NFLPA has contended that the amount of revenue in which the players currently don't share has risen from 30 percent to about 37 percent.
To this point, the NFL has remained steadfast in its stance that not all revenues should be shared with the players. Offering to do so would represent a major philosophical change.
Of course, if the NFL includes all revenues in the kitty for players, which would mark a monumental shift in the league's stance, it certainly will ask for concessions in return. Part of what the league would seek, it appears, is a mechanism to address the debt service many teams now carry, either from franchise purchase fees or stadium construction.
Upshaw and other union executives have suggested that league revenues are now in the $5 billion-$6 billion range. If the NFL agreed to share all monies, and changed nothing else in the system, the player pool could increase by nearly $400 million. But the NFL is likely to seek a reduction in the percentage of revenues in which the players share, if the overall pool is dramatically increased.
Some low-revenue and small-market teams, which have voiced their concerns over the increasing disparity in the so-called haves and "have-nots, might also ask for some subsidies from the higher-revenue franchises. Upshaw said at a league meeting near Detroit in October that there are eight franchises whose revenues far exceed those of the other 24 teams.
It is important that a new deal is in place a year before the current one expires. If not, the salary cap would disappear in the final year of the collective bargaining agreement and owners would be free to spend as much as they wanted on player costs. On the flip side, in an "uncapped" year, players would have to accrue six seasons, instead of four, to gain the right to unrestricted free agency.
Upshaw repeated during Super Bowl week that, if the salary cap ever disappears for even one season, the league will never be able to restore it. Most owners agree that, without a salary cap, competitive balance would be all but destroyed.
The league office has told owners to hold open the March 2 date for a possible meeting in Atlanta to discuss labor matters and ongoing television negotiations. March 2 marks the start of the free agency period and, essentially, the beginning of a new NFL fiscal year.
Upshaw long ago set the date as a target for competing an extension to the labor accord, since a deal would have to be in place by then to affect the 2005 season.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=pasquarelli_len&id=1992603