NFL and NFLPA declare victory in lockout insurance case
The Players Association presented its arguments on Tuesday before the Special Master, Stephen B. Burbank, who was given the authority to resolve certain disputes between the union and the National Football League.
After hearing both sides of the argument, Burbank ruled in favour of the Players Association. He found the league to be in direct violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. According to the CBA signed between the two sides,
the NFL is obligated to maximize revenue, which the players and the owners share.
Currently, the players get around 60% of the revenue. The owners are not happy with the arrangement and want to renegotiate the agreement. They have also threatened to lockout the players unless that new deal is inked before the
current CBA expires in March.
The players union also raised legal challenges against the league. The NFL signed multibillion-dollar TV deals with broadcasters for the 2011 season. The Players Association argued that those deals were negotiated in bad faith.
It said that instead of maximizing revenue, the NFL asked for more guaranteed money to sustain itself through a lockout year.
The players union demanded that the money from those deals should be held in escrow until the union and the league reach a new labour agreement.
However, the four-billion dollar amount that the NFL had to receive from various TV networks, including CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and DirecTV, will not be held in escrow. Burbank ruled that the NFL must pay almost seven million dollars
in damages to the Players Association.
The players union was seeking a much larger settlement, almost worth 60 million dollars. The union has decided to appeal the decision in a federal court. “Now for the good news: The NFL, until the appeal in Minnesota, has $4 billion
to not play football next year,” Atallah tweeted sarcastically after the decision was announced. “Victory!”
Victory indeed and the NFL has been rubbing it in. League spokesman Greg Aiello noted that the players union spent twice as much on litigation than it was awarded in damages. He further pointed out that the amount awarded to the
union was a very small fraction of what the TV deals were worth.
“As we have said all along, a new CBA has to be hammered out at the negotiating table, not in the courtroom,” the NFL said in a written statement. The statement further stated that if the union had invested as much time and energy
into negotiations as it did into litigation, the two sides could have already come to an agreement.
Prior to the verdict, the NFL threatened of a lockout, warned of the economic costs to players in event of a disagreement and even used the threat of an end to health care, for players without the new labour deal.
For its part, the Players Association had been appealing to fans to put pressure on the league. It had warned lawmakers and other government officials of the financial impact of a year without football and it is even preparing
for decertification in the event of a lockout.
Now, the players union has filed a collusion case with the Special Master. The union argued that NFL owners improperly conspired to control salaries in 2010 - the year without a salary cap. The CBA prohibits agreements in any form,
which seek to restrict or limit contract negotiations.
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