Collective Bargaining Agreement for Dummies

Players are willing to keep the status quo
Owners want to change

Owners now take $1B off the top of gross income for operating expenses before they share money with the players.
Owners want to take off $2B. This would take away 1/3 of the money available to players.

This would be a lockout, not a strike. Therefore the owners are prohibited by Federal labor laws from hiring scabs. So there would be no "replacement games".

Owners are crying poverty, but refuse to open their books for examination.

This is an attempt by the owners to 1)get more money, but just as important, 2) bust the union.

Who you think is right is up to you.

Some of the underlying "issues" are playing 18 games, which the owners want and the players do not, and player injuries, and a rookie wage scale that offers a cap on rookie contracts to avoid problems like jamarcus russel, giving way to more money for vets. when it boils down to it it's all about the money. as for me, I back the players, they seem to be the less greedy party.

that's a good capsule Kaf even if there are a lot of potential complicating issues

PFT has been on the issues pretty good, for anyone who wants to cover it they had a great ten point article-

Read It Here

My general good/bad take is that is simply greed by the owners. They ransom cities to fund their stadiums and want to squeeze more out of the players.

What I see as the worst point is that it only takes 51% of the players to okay a new deal. With the owners they need 75%. That means only nine bull headed "to hell with them" owners can drive the league into the ground if they desire. I think there are that many egomanics among them to accomplish that. There's great dissension from the big buck heavy hitting owners to the smaller market teams. My opinion is that Jerry Jones or Dan Snyder would gladly sacrifice a season if they could come out being the Steinbrenner of football.

balanced commentary worth a read HERE

Being that its a private club with 32 members its hard to know what they are thinking and willing to risk.
Some of their proposals have to be bargining chips.
I pray the 18 game season is one.
How many of the owners can handle loss of revenue from a season long lock-out?
The rookie cap will be one proposal that WILL happen if nothing else. The incoming rookies have no one to speak and bargin for them. Everyone has seen the 'Jamarcus effect'.
I believe a bigger share will go to the owners along with the rookie cap. The players will get better health care and coverage for injuries and retirement packages and keep a 16 game season.

I refuse to believe that they think the quality of the game would improve with only 2 pre season games. The quality of play was noticeably poor around the league in the first couple of weeks this year.

The union will decertify when the lock out occurs.

I would be absolutly shocked if the owners self-destruct the most powerful, popular and best money making sports franchise in the world.

But any thing can happen in the world of football as we all know.

I hope for zero games next season. Screw the greedy owners.

That's a decent example but I think this can be broken down even further to help the layman understand because when you're spouting figures like 2 Billion, it becomes fictitious. Not something you can relate to.

As a working man, my natural instinct is to side with the players. Basically, think about going to work and your boss coming and and saying we're no longer working until further notice.

All past, present, and future benefits need to be renegotiated before we can continue work. This involves healthcare, profit sharing such as your 401K (revenue sharing for the NFL), salary limits, etc. There are about 200 existential issues on top of the few big ones that are being blown up.

Another sticking point is the Players Union is trying to better negotiate benefits for past players and future retirees. The Owners don't really want to front additional cost but think it should be divided from the PU remaining share. In other words, Players are responsible for player benefits. It's like running an internal Social Security/Medicare agency for former players to offset health and living expenses.

There are lots of issues but the overriding one is the profit sharing as Kafka mentioned. Owners want a top cut then profit share the rest out. Well, the Players Union fears it would not be able to support or expand current and future benefits based upon that current deals being offered.

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I hope for zero games next season. Screw the greedy owners.

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They're still getting paid by the networks AND won't have to pay anyone in their organization in the event of a lockout. So basically, they make money either way.

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The public honestly doesn't care about the specifics and will be mad at both sides.

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I'm not too sure about that. It seems like in the past, whichever side lost the public PR battle was the party that caved.

The networks have said they'll pay them since the payments are guaranteed. However, the league would have to reimburse them for the games that aren't played. The league doesn't get to profit from a contract if the games aren't played.