Last year, in the midst of the lockout, a report emerged that the NFLPA had purchased “lockout insurance.”
It seemed far-fetched at the time, and few with knowledge of the insurance industry believed that the union could have found someone to underwrite a policy that would have paid out, as it turned out, $200,000 per player in the event the full 2011 season were scrapped.
In the aftermath of the lockout, we reported that the lockout insurance cost nearly $50 million. Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal reports that the union’s tax return for the period ending March 31, 2011 reveals an expenditure of $44 million for lockout insurance.
The premiums took the union from a profit of more than $20 million to a loss of more than $20 million for the fiscal year.
Also, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith earned $2.38 million, far less than the amounts the late Gene Upshaw received in the final years of his tenure. Also, more than $6 million was paid to outside lawyers.