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OMINOUS DEVELOPMENT IN LOOMING CBA BATTLE
Posted by Mike Florio on March 10, 2008, 8:33 a.m.
With all signs pointing to trouble between the NFL and its players union regarding a Collective Bargaining Agreement that is poised to expire after the 2010 season, the league has made a move that might further set the stage for a work stoppage.
According to Liz Mullen and Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal, the league has hired Bob Batterman to participate in the negotiations with the NFL Players Association. Batterman represented hockey owners in connection with talks that resulted in a work stoppage that killed an entire season and, for many mainstream sports fans, removed the NHL from the ranks of the major sports leagues.
The problem apparently is that the same-old, same-old approach isn’t yielding results. Per SBJ, initial talks between the league and the union have gone nowhere.
“All they can agree on is the players are getting paid too much,” NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw said. “They can never tell you what they want.”
Actually, Batterman was quietly hired last March, roughly a year after the league agreed to the current CBA. He has not yet been introduced to the discussions, but he sounds curiously optimistic about the prospects. He told SBJ that a new deal could be worked out “in a matter of weeks if the parties are on a common wavelength.”
So, apparently, the NHL and its union had to scrap a full year of competitive hockey before they landed on a “common wavelength.”
Sorry, NFL, but we think that anyone connected with the NHL fiasco should be regarded as radioactive for purposes of avoiding pro football’s first work stoppage since 1987. And with football now the clearly dominant professional sport in America, the distractions created by labor unrest could be disastrous to its position.
Our take on this situation is that the league thinks that using Batterman will help to create the impression that the owners are going to play hardball. And it’s precisely that kind of posturing that backs folks into corners and fuels unnecessary fighting. Though many believe that the relationship between the league and the union was too cozy in the past, battling for the sake of battling isn’t going to create a long-term deal with which both sides can live, and from which everyone can continue to prosper.
Finally, are we the only ones troubled by the fact that Batterman’s firm, as stated in the SBJ article, “has been representing the other three major American sports leagues in labor relations for years”? Though the conflict of interest isn’t blatant, the idea that Batterman’s firm is beholden to the NBA, MLB, and NHL raises a red flag in our minds, given that those three leagues are surely hoping that the NFL find a way to shoot itself in the foot.
Posted by Mike Florio on March 10, 2008, 8:33 a.m.
With all signs pointing to trouble between the NFL and its players union regarding a Collective Bargaining Agreement that is poised to expire after the 2010 season, the league has made a move that might further set the stage for a work stoppage.
According to Liz Mullen and Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal, the league has hired Bob Batterman to participate in the negotiations with the NFL Players Association. Batterman represented hockey owners in connection with talks that resulted in a work stoppage that killed an entire season and, for many mainstream sports fans, removed the NHL from the ranks of the major sports leagues.
The problem apparently is that the same-old, same-old approach isn’t yielding results. Per SBJ, initial talks between the league and the union have gone nowhere.
“All they can agree on is the players are getting paid too much,” NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw said. “They can never tell you what they want.”
Actually, Batterman was quietly hired last March, roughly a year after the league agreed to the current CBA. He has not yet been introduced to the discussions, but he sounds curiously optimistic about the prospects. He told SBJ that a new deal could be worked out “in a matter of weeks if the parties are on a common wavelength.”
So, apparently, the NHL and its union had to scrap a full year of competitive hockey before they landed on a “common wavelength.”
Sorry, NFL, but we think that anyone connected with the NHL fiasco should be regarded as radioactive for purposes of avoiding pro football’s first work stoppage since 1987. And with football now the clearly dominant professional sport in America, the distractions created by labor unrest could be disastrous to its position.
Our take on this situation is that the league thinks that using Batterman will help to create the impression that the owners are going to play hardball. And it’s precisely that kind of posturing that backs folks into corners and fuels unnecessary fighting. Though many believe that the relationship between the league and the union was too cozy in the past, battling for the sake of battling isn’t going to create a long-term deal with which both sides can live, and from which everyone can continue to prosper.
Finally, are we the only ones troubled by the fact that Batterman’s firm, as stated in the SBJ article, “has been representing the other three major American sports leagues in labor relations for years”? Though the conflict of interest isn’t blatant, the idea that Batterman’s firm is beholden to the NBA, MLB, and NHL raises a red flag in our minds, given that those three leagues are surely hoping that the NFL find a way to shoot itself in the foot.
