The National Football League and the Players Association are practically at war. Both sides want the game of football to be played their way and neither side is willing to budge. The NFLPA knows that it is at a disadvantage in
the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations. In the event of a lockout the owners won’t be as adversely affected as the players and eventually the players would have to cave in to the League’s demands.
The NFL has the upper hand but to level the playing field the NFLPA has launched an aggressive public relations campaign with the singular purpose of painting the League as the villain in the CBA negotiations. To that end almost
weekly statements from the Players Association executives have been issued criticizing the League and the owners. The NFLPA has, somewhat successfully, tried to highlight the negative economic impact of a lockout on everyone involved in the game.
The players association commissioned a study on the impact and has been publicizing the results and conclusions. The NFL disputes those numbers, going so far as to call the study an ‘economic fairytale.’
The study looked back at the economic impact on 10 cities which built or tried to build an NFL stadium. Feasibility studies from the time had been used to chalk out the numbers that the NFLPA has been presenting to the public and
government officials. The studies in question were ‘commissioned to justify a start, increase or continuation of public funding for NFL Stadiums.’
The league and team owners themselves used the positive economic impact of hosting NFL games, such as additional spending, employment and tax revenue to push their case through and convince communities and governments of the benefits
of the NFL. The NFLPA now is using those same studies against the league. Jesse David of Edgeworth Economics, the firm commissioned to conduct the study, research approved by the League boasted of anywhere between $12 to $40 million dollars per game in different
cities. That means economic activity of around $20 million on average for each city which translates to around $160 million for 8 home games each season. It goes without saying that about between 30 to 50 percent of that total would be player salaries.
The study also showed that each community that hosted an NFL franchise witnessed increased employment by around 3,739 jobs. For 31 such communities the total number of people directly associated with the NFL is around 115,000.
The study found that the majority of the people would be left unemployed if the regular season is cancelled. The study warned that in the current economic atmosphere with unemployment expected to stay at the 9% level for the foreseeable future, affected communities
would not be able to bear the burden.
“We want to raise public consciousness of the effect [on communities] if the owners’ lockout the players,” Spokesman for the Players Association, George Atallah said. The right way to describe it would be that the NFLPA wants a
public outcry against the League and use it to its advantage in the labour talks.
The NFL’s response? Nothing more articulate than ‘no.’ “It is a series of numbers pulled from thin air in a misguided attempt to inject politics into the collective-bargaining process,” NFL Spokesman Greg Aiello said. There is
plenty of politics involved. In an e-mail, Aiello said that it was unfortunate that the NFLPA was circulating unattributed research about the possible impact of a lockout adding that it was clear that there was no credible research on the subject.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell effectively threatened players and the NFLPA to come to the negotiating table if they want to continue to receive health care. The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act means that NFL players
would continue to receive coverage but the league would no longer pay for it. “They'll continue to get medical care,” Goodell said. “It's just that the burden of paying for that will no longer be on the clubs, it would be on the individuals or on the union.”
The Union has been trying to gain sympathy and has accused to League of trying to strip the players and their families of health care.
As the time runs out the NFLPA and the League seem to be getting ever more aggressive. The Lockout is starting to look like the most likely outcome unless something drastic happens.
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