After 100 days, optimism begins to creep into NFL labor negotiations

After a seemingly unending wave of harsh rhetoric, broken promises and mounting legal fees, it finally seems like there may be some light at the end of the tunnel in the case of the NFL’s labor dispute. Though both sides have remained relatively quiet about their ongoing negotiations, a few key details have leaked out, and the biggest hurdle to overcome, the sharing of the league’s $9.3B of revenue, may have already been bridged.

In the previous CBA, the owners and players split all revenues 40-60, minus a $1B off-the-top credit that the owners received for things like stadium expenses. In the latest negotiations, it seems both sides have seemed to settle on a split which would give players $.48 on every dollar, while simultaneously eliminating the $1B credit for the owners. This way, both sides will be able to participate in the performance of the league’s revenues, which is expected to surpass $10B in the next few years, and both will have incentives to continue to grow the game.

While the toughest part may have already been figured out, a number of issues still remain. An 18-game regular season schedule, opposed by the players, seems to be a negotiable matter, while both sides are trying to figure out the components of a rookie wage scale, which would greatly decrease the enormous, guaranteed salaries given to unproven rookies at the top of the draft.

Another subject that has been brought up is the expansion on the NFL’s Thursday night game line-up. Currently, the league broadcasts Thursday night games starting on Thanksgiving, through the end of the regular season, which means they aren’t directly competing with college football. Because of television contracts that are already in place, it may be tougher for the league to implement a full season of Thursday night games until 2014, but with ESPN poised to pay $2B annually for the rights to broadcast Monday Night Football, one could assume a full slate of Thursday night games would bring in an another $1B in revenues. The biggest obstacle to overcoming this in the near-future would be the reluctance of CBS and Fox, the NFL’s Sunday television partners, to give up one game per week that could be played on Thursdays.

The fact that both sides are thought to be coming closer to a deal means good things, not just for the players and owners, but also for the fans, and especially those employed by teams in different capacities – from the front office, which handles day to day operations, to the game-day concession workers and gate attendants. Remember, there were more than a few teams that used this labor dispute to cut pay, or place non-essential personnel on furloughs, even though the league’s revenues for 2011 were roughly the same as the Gross Domestic Product of Macedonia.

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