George Atallah is the assistant executive director of external affairs for the N.F.L. Players Association, which means that he and his boss, DeMaurice Smith, are the top representatives for perhaps the most prominent labor union in history: NFL players.
If you care even a little bit about the NFL — and this week, many people do — you know that there’s a potential lockout looming on March 4, when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement between the league and the players expires.
There are many issues behind the standoff between league and union, most of them economic (revenue share, guaranteed payments, etc.) but also psychic — i.e., this standoff has more the feel of a classic labor war than the typical pro-sport standoff, in part because of the tone with which Smith and Atallah have made their case to the public. Here, for instance, is Atallah writing at ESPN.com:
According to the NFL and team owners, however, the “economic model in the NFL doesn’t work.” What’s more, they have prepared for and are openly threatening a lockout if it’s not “fixed.” What is their proposal to fix it? They’ve asked the players for more than a $1 billion reduction in the players’ portion of revenues in the first year alone of a future CBA. By the way, in a league with no guaranteed contracts, revealed dangers of the game and injury concerns at their peak, they want players to play two extra regular-season games.
The players maintain that one fundamental question needs to be answered in earnest if there is to be an agreement before a lockout: Why is the current deal so bad? If owners had decided to make this a direct business transaction between partners, the players are confident a deal would’ve been struck a long time ago. Business partners get together, sign confidentiality agreements, exchange financials and negotiate. Our repeated requests for detailed financial information that would help us answer the quintessential question have been denied.
As a result, players and fans have to go by what we do know. I recently sent a letter to all sports editors to set the record straight on the economics and revenue breakdown between players and owners because the phrase most frequently seen is that “players get 60 percent of revenues.” This is not an accurate depiction. Players receive approximately 50 percent of all revenues in the NFL. Or, players receive approximately 60 percent of total revenue in the NFL after the owners take a number of expense credits that add up to more than $1 billion a year.
So here’s your chance to ask questions directly to Atallah. Please leave them in the comments section below. He did a Q&A on this blog last year as well, but I’m guessing that with a potential lockout around the corner, your questions will be of a different intensity. As always, we’ll post his answers in short course. We are trying to line up someone prominent from the league side to take a Q&A next week, so we’ll post that as well if it works out.
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What are your thoughts on non-guaranteed contracts? Three year average careers? Competitive balance in the league? Franchise tag? Large guaranteed contracts to the top ten draft picks?
How can fans get involved to ensure we save next season?
It’s pretty clear that the owners are out of line. What can we do as fans to support the players?
If there is no season next year, will there still be a 2012 NFL draft? Now will the order be determined? Will it be the same as this years?
Given how vehement the players seem to be about no 18-game seasons, and how indifferent the fans are, do you think it’s possible that Goodell and the owners are playing it up in order to make it a “major concession” later down the line, so it appears they are operating in good faith? From what I’ve heard, preseason games are serious revenue generators for teams, because they get to control the local broadcast rights, force season-ticket holders to but tickets at face value, and get more in concessions. Combine this with all the talk of concussions, pre-concussive hits, “holes in the brain”, and the failure to take care of retirees, I can’t imagine the NFL actually thinks an 18-game season would be anything but a money loser and PR disaster.
one measure of the worsening stratification in our country is the growing disparity between ceo pay and average worker pay, which presently is @ 350-to-1 (in the 60s it was @ 40-to-1)- i would love to see an owner-to-average-NFL salary ratio to further unmask this myth about owner ‘fixing’- also, does your $1billion in ‘expense credits’ the owners take count all of the fan/taxpayer subsidies for stadiums that the owners also pocket?
Why doesn’t a lockout invalidate player contracts, since they aren’t getting paid?
Will a significant number of players drafted late, say round 5 and later, and rookie free agents, prefer a modest salary from the UFL over the unknown nature of the NFL in 2011?
So as I understand it, owners claim that the current deal does not give them an incentive to develop revenue streams.
I imagine a solution to the core revenue-sharing issue in the current CBA negotiations where players continue to receive their current percentage of total revenue up to a cap level which is above their current pay level. The cap could represent a fixed-dollar maximum for their share of revenue, or after the cap they could continue getting a smaller percentage of total revenue.
Such an agreement could give ownership the incentive that they claim they need, while still giving a pay raise to players.
If ownership can find ways to increase TR without imposing unreasonable burdens on players, perhaps a deal acceptable to both sides could be reached.
I think there is a lot that could be done to increase TR through creative solutions.
Could something like this work, at least for the upcoming season?