Should have sent this already, but didn’t think of it. No more posts/comments, incl. alias.

Obviously, without a union, the players are free to sue and attack these rules as they are currently doing at this moment.

Sure the Supreme Court has allowed limited collusion, and might even allow the NFL to collude with a draft, league rules, drug testing, scheduling, marketing, etc…

But instead of taking the legal challenge all the way to the Supreme Court sometime next year to hash out every one of these details, I’d rather the players and owners negotiate a new CBA and play some ball.

So in this case, a Player’s Union could not only provide a quick return to stability and maintain a competitive system for NFL football to operate in, but a Player’s Union is also a nice check on some of the rules and efforts by the owners. After all, when attempting to negotiate with the players, the owners caved on an 18-game season, made concessions on appeals of suspensions, and a few other things that were welcome.

Making major structural changes in a product that has grown into a 9 billion dollar industry, and outpaced any other professional league, is simply unwise. As they say, if it ain’t broke…don’t break it.

Except this article misses some key points from Silver’s original article. The first being that Upshaw did not want to reform the union. The owners wanted the union reformed, and refused to finalize a deal without the players agreeing to do so. Even then, Upshaw initially refused because he fear an erosion of the players’ rights under anti-trust laws. It was only after the owners agreed to add language agreeing to give up any right to fight a future decertification if the players deemed it necessary that Upshaw and the players finally agreed to reform the union. But, as Smith pointed out in the interview, here we are with the owners trying to find a loophole based on the timing of the decertification (an issue of hours literally) and filing a complaint with the NLRB making that very claim. As Smith went on to say in the interview, given these facts, why should the players feel safe walking away from those anti-trust protections again? Silver’s article brings up a number of obstacles that could prevent a new effective CBA from being reached without an agreement to reform the union, but the tone of the article does not leave the impression that this is simply a sham on the part of the players or Smith. It seems more like they’d prefer to not be a union, but possible future legal issues (such as challenges to the draft by future prospects) might force an agreement like we saw in 1993.
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I disagree. The players can decertify 6 months after the expiration of the CBA with no challenge from the owners. Period. That’s the language. It’s not the owners trying to find a loophole, it’s Smith. The nuclear decert option was supposed to be available after failed negotiation, not instead of negotiation which is what D. Smith is trying to do.

Smith knows he’s going to have to have to compromise without more leverage and he is incapable of admiting it. If he wants to decertify, he just needs to do it as specified in the CBA, 6 months after the expiration.

No player should be scared of losing the right to decertify because they are the ones not following the rules, not the owners.

The Supreme Court pointed out such collusion is by not an anti-trust issue just because of the fact of collusion itself.

As I’ve pointed out before, many competing companies cooperate (collude) on a whole host of things without any thought that anti-trust laws are being broken.

For example, if Microsoft hadn’t worked with IBM (two implacable enemies) on a set of rules for computers & software to work together, this blog would not exist.

The folks that want a players union the most are Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, Richardson, Mara, Blank and the rest of the bandit NFL owners.

If they want a union so much they should start one and see how many players join.

Pro-pwner shills got dis sheeezit marked.

Good Times.

Have fun paying off that bajilllion dollar stadium Jerry.

Much props to you three. You guys get it. Unfortunately the majority of the posters defending the owners have no clue what the issue is about.

1. Who is striking right now? It’s the effin owners, who negotiated a TV deal to be paid regardless of any stoppage.

2. The owners want to pocket the rookie salary, ask the players to work 2 extra games and take less money. How can anyone accept to take a paycut when their employer is making record profits? Would any of us do it right now with our employer?

3. De-Union is not a ploy. It is actually a good route to go for the players and they tried to go there in 1993. I fully expect them to go this route if the judge rules against them.

4. Good luck trying to get Al Davis to share his company control with the other owners of the league. Aint ever going to happen.

It’s the owners that don’t get it. They had an agreement that provided all of those things, and chose to opt out of it.
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You realize all those things didn’t exist in a vacuum, right?

Right.

Is it because they are less certain of their beliefs, or, are they inherently less intelligent and capable of defending of explaining their viewpoint.

Glad you’re above insulting those that disagree with you.

So let me re-phrase your whole article -

The decertification was a sham ploy to get leverage and the NFLPA has every intention of reforming once a CBA is worked out and they are just biding their time to see if the this tactic will produce any appreciative leverage.
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Except this article misses some key points from Silver’s original article. The first being that Upshaw did not want to reform the union. The owners wanted the union reformed, and refused to finalize a deal without the players agreeing to do so. Even then, Upshaw initially refused because he fear an erosion of the players’ rights under anti-trust laws. It was only after the owners agreed to add language agreeing to give up any right to fight a future decertification if the players deemed it necessary that Upshaw and the players finally agreed to reform the union. But, as Smith pointed out in the interview, here we are with the owners trying to find a loophole based on the timing of the decertification (an issue of hours literally) and filing a complaint with the NLRB making that very claim. As Smith went on to say in the interview, given these facts, why should the players feel safe walking away from those anti-trust protections again? Silver’s article brings up a number of obstacles that could prevent a new effective CBA from being reached without an agreement to reform the union, but the tone of the article does not leave the impression that this is simply a sham on the part of the players or Smith. It seems more like they’d prefer to not be a union, but possible future legal issues (such as challenges to the draft by future prospects) might force an agreement like we saw in 1993.

If you can intelligently and logically present and refute points, without resulting to denigrating behavior and statements, please feel free to do that. Most people posting here have that ability, if given the chance.

thank you

SHL

the current players “nuclear” option was “disclaimer of interest.”
The future players “nuclear” option is lawsuits.

The owners “nuclear” option is to disband the NFL and re-form as a single business, thence avoiding anti trust action.

or

Convert the NFL, inc (similar to USOC or NCAA) to a simple sanctioning authority with the ability to only regulate sanctioned events with whatever rules they decide are applicable, perhaps:

limits on total salary outlays on game day rosters??
No NFL insurance for players?
draconian sanctions/procedures for drug testing/failures?
scheduling 40 game seasons, with teams having the option whether to play or not?

The end result of the players litigation strategy could really blow up in their faces, making working conditions ten times worse than they think they have now. How about each team having different workplace rules? Say some of them decide on 52 wk, two a day, full contact drills? That would suck for the players. And don’t think there are not some owners who would do it for the possible competitive advantage they might gain
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NEVER. GOING. TO. HAPPEN. There is no way that the owners “disband” the NFL, and certainly not to reform as a single business. Why?

1. The median value of NFL franchises exceeds $1 billion. No businessman is going to simply let an asset like that disappear.

2. The owners are not the kind of people willing to trade absolute control over their own team for a piece of the league. More than one owner has given up real value for no other reason than to let everyone know that they are in charge. Do you think that these individuals will let themselves be marginalized by becoming nothing more than one voice in 32? Besides, if you thought some owners didn’t trust some others now, wait until all of the power plays for control of the league started…and it wouldn’t take long.

3. What would prevent third parties from applying for copyright or trademark rights to names and slogans that used to belong to the NFL? Once they disbanded, they’d be up for grabs. Imagine an expansion Canadian Football League team named the N.Y. Giants or the Green Bay Packers.

4. Speaking of the Packers, they are a publicly owned team. They couldn’t simply disband without the approval of the shareholders. Even if they could, who would represent these shareholders in the new ownership of the NFL?

5. Even if they succeeded in carrying out the process, they’d simply be transitioning from being 32 teams in collusion to being one monopoly. That doesn’t really leave them any better off, and certainly isn’t worth all of the risk involved in disbanding and reforming.

6. Disbanding and reforming is not the way to go if you want to avoid lawsuits. The NFL has contracts with networks/cable stations, advertisers, sponsors, suppliers, players, and more groups that don’t come to mind right now. Each of these groups could sue for breach of contract, or use the disbanding as an opportunity to get out from under a contract they don’t like. The fact that the league would be reforming immediately could easily be viewed as a poorly disguised effort to defraud those they had contracts with. Oh, yeah, and then there are all those stadiums built in part with government money. If the NFL disbanded, those state governments could make a move to seize them.

For these, and so many other reasons, this is simply an absurd idea. You can fantasize about storming off the field and threatening to take your ball with you all you want, but billionaires don’t become (and certainly don’t remain) billionaires by destroying their own billion dollar assets.

SKOAL VIKINGS! 2011 SUPER BOWL CHAMPS!

My guess is that the NCAA would require the players to sign something prohibiting them from signing with an NFL team until the completion of the collegiate season to make them eligible.

Brian, I get it. And you get it.

It’s the owners that don’t get it. They had an agreement that provided all of those things, and chose to opt out of it.

My stance througout this is that the owners took all of the things you listed and more for granted, and chose to take a path where they could lose it all.

Unmerited?!?!? Too funny. This whole predicament is DeMoron’s fault. If the players had chosen someone with ties to the players who had an interest in seeing this resolved instead of choosing this sawed off, low life loser, a deal would be done. But DeMoron has no vested interest in getting a deal done, because then he doesn’t get to make a name for himself and advance his own self serving look at me agenda.

To compare the NFL with other businesses is disingenuous at best.

The league actually played from 1989 to 1993 without a union or CBA

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This isn’t true. For almost jobs you must be 14 years of age. I believe for all factories type jobs you must be 18. All the congress and president have age limits as well. I would imagine plenty of jobs have age minimums.

Something you really missed in your list is without governing rules. Andrew Luck for example could just sign with a pro team anytime he wants. Its not so much that he can pick where, its that he can also pick when that is the problem. He could bail on Stanford say before the title game and sign with the Cowboys. See how the fans and NCAA like them apples.

Unlike the DeMaurice shills, or shrills, most of us understand that any sports league benefits from some amount of “collusion,” working together with shared rules, coordinated scheduling, coordinated marketing, sharing of revenue, and the like. Especially the sharing of rules which include drug testing, rules of the draft, roster sizes, plus the rules used on the field of play.

These things are not necessary or good for Wal-Mart and Target and Sears because they are marketing competing products. Each would be perfectly happy to run the others out of business.

The NFL product is the competition itself between each team. They are selling something that can only be produced together. Some amout of working together thus becomes necessary. Fans get this.

Ideologues obviously not so much.

1. They hate unions, as unions are for liberals and commies.

2. They want the players to have a union.

3. The 32 owners act as a union, and they like that union.

4. They don’t like a free market system. That’s also for liberals and commies.

5. Trying to gain leverage via the courts is morally bad.

6. Trying to gain leverage via the lockout is TERRIFIC!

7. They want the owners to bring in replacement players, despite it being illegal for the owners to do so during a lockout.

It’s a wonderful set of ignorance and contradictions when you think about it.

None, nada, zero. A complete vacuum.

Just a mismash of chicken little nonsense that football will be ruined by not having a players union. Plus the usual totally unmerited abuse of DeMaurice Smith.

There are thousands and thousands of businesses in this country including the most successful, that do not have unions.

The most successful sport in the whole planet gets tens times the revenue that the NFL receives, its players are paid more, and GUESS WHAT?

No unions.

And their games are 100 times cheaper to watch in person than the Jerry Jones greedfest NFL.

Yet the owner shills here say the NFL players MUST reform a union.

Because it makes an easier target for the owners illegal 2 by 4 that they’re using to beat the players into taking less money.

To the owners, a players union MUST be reformed for them to get a bigger share of revenue.

The owners LOVE unions.

The players, not so much.

I am really pissed at myself. I have to agree with your response to mightygiants and to his statement.

I know the “rapture” or armeggedon is here because I agree with you for once.

Can I somehow gargle my mind to get that thought out of it?:)

After reading more about his personal legal history and now reading that he has to have “leverage”, it appears to me that he is simply the wrong person in the wrong position and that it is hurting players and football.

Hell, the players and De should “mutually part ways” and just replace him with David Cornwell!!!!

At least Cornwell has worked with players and the NFL (Roger Goodell included) and doesn’t talk out of his rear end on NFL Network, ESPN, or PFT Live unlike De!!!

How do you think Dan Snyder, Jerry Jones, and the owners of other popular and financially strong franchises feel about a salary cap? You don’t think they would jump at the chance to spend two or three times the amount of the Kansas Chiefs if it gave them a better shot at making it to the Super Bowl every year?

They could tear up their revenue sharing agreement, and wouldn’t have to subsidize owners, like Mike Brown, who are incapable of running a franchise in a profitable manner.