The CBA runs it course in a month with no sign of compromise from the players and the owners, 2010 will be an uncapped year with the total CBA expiring in March of 2011. we should be worried that the sport we all so enjoy will become baseball, hockey and basketball where many of the top players migrate towards the bigger cities with a higher revenue base. this obviously hurts teams like the Bills, Packers, Bengals, Steelers, Jags etc.
The players will be in for a rude awakening if they think they are going to get a pot of gold. with the expiration brings restricted revenue sharing, restricted free agency, no cap and most importantly no floor for the cap! currently all teams abide by the salary cap but also have to spend at least $108 million on players. we all worry about the Cowboys, and Skins trying to buy all the top players but which teams will just unload players, stock a team with rookies & 2nd tier players and pocket the savings. Without the cap teams can dump players without worrying about the pro rated bonuses being applied to the current payroll.
As for player movement currently a player with 3 years of experience with an expired contract can become a restricted free agent and if signed by another team there would be compensation. with 4 years of experience the player could become an unrestricted FA with no compensation. In the restricted cases a team can tender an offer which guarantee’s a team can match the offer. Or with the unrestricted a team can use the franchise tag which guarantee’s the player to be paid the average of the top 10 salaries at that position.
Player movement will change drastically; a player won’t become an unrestricted FA until he has 6 years in then the team can still tender him an offer which prevents him from leaving. Starting with this years final 8 playoff teams in 2010 will not be allowed to sign a unrestricted FA unless they lost one a case of an eye for an eye! this eliminates 25% of the teams that the players could possibly move too. this is a kick in the ass for the players, less teams to drive up the bidding and having to wait 6 years until becoming unrestricted (average career is 3 years).
Revenue sharing is the lifeblood of the NFL and what separates it from all other leagues, quite simply teams share the gate with 40% going to the visiting teams, share equally on TV $$$’s and share equally on NFL merchandise. The catch is teams don’t share with $$$’s generated through luxury boxes, PSL’s and their local advertising revenues. now the players want a cut of that revenue as expected the owners are bulking. The big market teams want to discontinue the dollar pool that was created to help the smaller market teams compete for players which helps the league and the players in the long run. more money to the big and mighty teams—hell with the competitive balance. It’s the sharks eating their own!!!
Back in “06” the majority of owners pushed thru the extension of the CBA against the advice of Ralph Wilson and Mike Brown of the Bengals who realized that giving the players 60% of the gross revenues was a bad idea. they were both ridiculed and branded out of touch. they were proven correct and now the owners want the players to take a significant pay cut by cutting up to 18% off the gross revenue guarantee—good luck with that one!
Add to the fact with the passing of Gene Upshaw and the hiring of DeMaurice Smith the divide between owners and players will surely widen. Upshaw was a stabilizing force and kept peace with the NFL while the players continued to earn more and more money. with his passing the owners will now test Smith and Smith will have to prove himself by being an extremely tough negotiator—what will suffer is compromise.
As fans of our beloved Bills not only do we have to worry about what will happen when Ralph passes but now we have the ultimate worry that the big boys of the NFL will try their best to model the NFL like MLB where the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, Mets swallow up the stars and leave the crumbs to the smaller market teams.
One final note of interest—The NFL has petitioned the Supreme Court for a blanket exemption from anti-trust laws based on the NFL’s contention that they are a single business competing for the public’s entertainment $$$’s with other industries and not 32 teams competing against each other. It seems to me the NFL is trying to have it both ways; they want to be considered 1 entity but are battling internally to stop revenue sharing—HUH!!!