ProFootballTalk reports a "breakthrough" in lockout negotiations

[DeadWombat]

Report: “Breakthrough” in talks | ProFootballTalk


Posted by Mike Florio on May 16, 2011, 6:51 PM EDT
AP

And so when it appeared that no progress would be or could be made in mediation with both sides aiming for leverage in lieu of compromise — indeed, Steelers Art Rooney, II, said so on his way into Monday’s talks — it’s fitting in this crazy up-and-down, back-and-forth process that on a day when no one expected progress to be made, progress apparently has been made.


Sal Paolantonio of ESPN reports, citing Hall of Fame defensive end Carl Eller, that a breakthrough has occurred in the negotiations. Eller, who is one of the named plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by former players and consolidated with the Tom Brady antitrust case, said that U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan asked the owners at the outset of the day to make a new proposal, and the owners have agreed to do so.
Currently, the proposal is being formulated. Per Paolantonio, the players are very encouraged by the developments, and we think they should be. Given that the players never responded to the league’s March 11 offer, the NFL easily could have balked at the request to make a new offer as an invitation to bid against itself. By agreeing to make a new offer, the NFL has shown good faith, which possibly has helped to thaw the relationship between the two sides, at least a little.


The mediation will continue on Monday night until 9:00 p.m. CT, and Paolantonio said the overall mood is improving. The session is scheduled to continue tomorrow only. If real progress is being made, here’s hoping that gets extended.


Whether at this unlikeliest of junctures in the labor dispute a deal can be reached hinges largely on the quality of the offer that the owners make. In many non-economic respects, the offer extended on March 11 was well within the appropriate ballpark, including player-friendly terms like a tabling of the 18-game season for at least two years and the use of third-party arbitration in drug and steroids cases. The key will be, and has been, the money; if the NFL is willing to make firm guarantees on a per-team salary cap with a tight floor and a fair split on the so-called “true up” (i.e., any money earned over and above the league’s revenue projection), a deal could be struck.


There’s still a long way to go, especially since both sides as of this morning seemed to be intent on letting it ride through the Eighth Circuit’s ruling on the lifting of the lockout. Also, the progress came before the ruling on the motion to stay the ruling lifting the lockout; at this point, the impact of that ruling isn’t known. Still, the only way to get a deal that both sides truly deem to be satisfactory comes from leveraging the uncertainty into a compromise, and abandoning the quest for the kind of leverage that necessarily will require the side without it to do a bad deal, which would put us right back in this same mess before too long.
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After a long time of nothing but bad news, and even rumors of the NFL dissolving, this is great to hear. Bottom line is: Players and owners will begin negotiations again. Lets keep our fingers crossed.

[Brown Warrior]

Wow. Heard about the stay being upheld and figured we would see the first game in early November, like Collinsworth predicted. Let's hope this good news is also real.

[Brown Warrior]

The lifting of the lockout is going to be overturned on or after June 3rd, based on the obvious language of the 14-page document upholding the "stay." The players lost all of their leverage today and the owners know it.

The owners were directed to make a new proposal and now they have. The players are considering it. Unless the players decide to start burning oil wells out of spite, this thing looks to be about over.

If they do start burning, Collinsworth's scenario is right: The Not the NFLPA will buckle under pressure from unemployed players with huge mortgages and car payments... after about eight weeks of missing checks. They'll take the offer they could've had in the first place.

The truth is, the NFL isn't going away, so a divorce isn't really on the table. The billionaire owners have other businesses and can hold out longer than the multimillionaire players, who in almost every case are incapable of doing much of anything else to make a living.

[Solon16]

I'd like an investigation into those 3 judges in st. louis...Check the recent deposits...they fucking bought them some judges!

[Brown Warrior]

I guess they're known to be Conservative (8th Circuit). I'm kinda Liberal-Moderate... but you can't actually run pro sports like the real world. Ask baseball. What a fucking mess. The Royals "amazing farm system" is great... until you realize the Royals themselves are a farm team for the Yankees, Red Sox, etc.

If players really had their way, they'd abolish the draft and salary caps... and that just won't work.

[OconRecon]

I read somewhere the word on the street from the NHL owners to the NFL owners is to hold out and miss a season if you have to, and you'll get everything you want. They claim missing 2004's season was well worth it.

[Brown Warrior]

Players can't live without checks, minus the relatively small number of players sitting on tens of millions of bonus bucks. The vast majority spend before they get, leverage out the anus, and it's all shits and giggles until paychecks are missed.

The guy on ESPN was saying they split their checks up per game week. They don't get paid in the offseason. So all the players are missing now is OTAs, which they hate. If a lockout holds up, and it looks like it almost certainly will, the owners have all the leverage.

[OconRecon]

Originally Posted by Brown Warrior

So all the players are missing now is OTAs, which they hate.

So all the players are thinking to themselves that that Favre character had some good ideas.

[Sez.EJ]

The owners will not put forth their best deal. The advantage just swung in their favor. This think will go on into the summer IMO.


I saw this article. You gotta love the Colts owner JIM IRSAY.. This guy just loves football. I highlighted the part about him.... You gotta love this guy's attitude..


NFL, locked-out players resume mediation

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - NFL owners and their locked-out players are talking again.
The two sides in the bitter fight over the future of the $9 billion business resumed court-ordered mediation behind closed doors Monday. It was the fifth day of talks in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan, but the first since April 20.
Significant steps toward a new collective bargaining agreement or guarantees of a full 2011 season seemed unlikely, not with the ongoing court fight and a big hearing on the legality of the lockout set for early next month before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"We'd like to make progress, but it'll be hard to do. We have to wait to see what happens June 3," Pittsburgh Steelers president Art Rooney II said on his way into the federal courthouse here.
The two sides also met for 16 days earlier this year before talks fell apart March 11 and the lockout began. Boylan presided over four days of mediation last month with no signs of progress and is scheduled to host the two sides again Tuesday.
With training camps just two months away and the regular season opener only 115 days from now, there is restlessness around the league to go with all the uncertainty.
Players have organized their own workouts to keep in touch and stay in shape, though most of the drafted rookies don't have playbooks and the college free agents who've normally signed contracts by now have no idea where or when they'll go to camp.
Minnesota Vikings free safety Mistral Raymond, a sixth-round draft pick, tweeted Monday that the lockout has left him with "too much free time," so he's decided to go back to school and "get closer" to his degree at South Florida.
Indianapolis defensive end Robert Mathis recently tweeted that he thought NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has "totally lost his players during this whole process."
The man who signs his checks, Colts owner Jim Irsay, also sounded discouraged in a stream of posts on his Twitter page Monday. Irsay complained about the arguing and the spin, and claimed he and Colts center Jeff Saturday, one of the leading advocates for the players, could get an agreement on cocktail napkins over a long lunch.
Irsay suggested that players and owners fine themselves every week after July 15 there is no new CBA.
"Get out of the courts!" Irsay tweeted.
A lot has happened since the last set of court-ordered talks, none of it encouraging to football fans.
U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson lifted the lockout on April 25, leading to two somewhat awkward days where players were allowed to return to their teams before the 8th Circuit put her order on hold right in the middle of the NFL draft.
The appellate court has not ruled on the NFL's request to make the stay permanent and most attention has instead shifted to the June 3 hearing on the legality of the lockout.
At the same time, U.S. District Judge David Doty is determining the fate of some $4 billion in broadcast revenue he previously ruled was unfairly secured by the NFL in the last round of contract extensions with the networks to use as leverage in the form of lockout insurance. The players have asked Doty to put that money in escrow and for more than $707 million in damages, too.
Goodell, executive vice president Jeff Pash and four team owners - Rooney, Mike Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals, John Mara of the New York Giants and Jerry Richardson of the Carolina Panthers - were on hand with their legal team for Monday's session with Boylan.
The head of the NFL Players Association, DeMaurice Smith, and three other lawyers for the players were present for their side. Linebacker Ben Leber, one of the players listed as a plaintiff in the still-pending federal antitrust lawsuit against the league, also attended. Hall of Famer Carl Eller and attorneys were there representing the retired players.
Bob Berliner, a Chicago attorney who runs the Berliner Group mediation service, called the uncertainty "currency" at the mediator's disposal.
"It should make people more likely to want to come to an agreement, but my guess is it's made them less," he said.
Eller, meanwhile, said he helped organize a meeting of 10 fellow retirees over the weekend and another meeting is scheduled for next week in Chicago with former Bears coach Mike Ditka. Retired players have already joined the antitrust lawsuit against the NFL and the meetings were portrayed as an effort to unify.
"This galvanizes all the different groups, puts aside whatever differences there may have been and concentrates on the commonalities of the issues and shortcomings of the present system," said Michael Hausfeld, an attorney who represents the retired players.
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[Flugel]

Originally Posted by OconRecon

I read somewhere the word on the street from the NHL owners to the NFL owners is to hold out and miss a season if you have to, and you'll get everything you want. They claim missing 2004's season was well worth it.

Interesting. Just out of curiosity - I wonder how many sports fans here could tell us who is left in the NHL semi-finals right now. I say this because when it seemed the sport was getting more interest nationally as teams were surfacing in Carolina, Arizona and San Jose - they JAMMED up some potential TV network contracts that would have generated way more exposure. They've been in the post season for about 1 month and how many of these games are televised? I'm actually finding college lacrosse on television more than I'm runnign across NHL playoffs for whatever that's worth.

You CANNOT chop off the hand that feeds you. Today that is the fans and the networks feeding the fans what they want. What happens when you alienate yourself from both? Major League Baseball. The NFL needs to be careful because they have some major television/media networks competing to cover them today because there's a fanbase with an insatiable appetitie. Don't give it food poisoning because it won't be nearly the same appetite again. I USED to be a big fan of Major League Baseball until they had a series of strikes. Today, I change the station when they show highlights of that sport. The SCARY thing is once one side sees a financial reward for doing this - there's danger of a sequel. Again, Major League Baseball. I let them shit in my face the first time. When they did it again - See ya!

We're here EVERY day assuring and re-assuring ourselves that our commitment and loyalty to this NFL franchise is gonna be well worth it in the end. We've persevered through the NFL ALLOWING the move and the inevitable consequences of a novice ownership that took 10 years to find it's first competant front office. In a day and age where MANY of us count on this hobby for an escape from the pressures and grinde of today's economy - I'm really hoping this ends the way it should.

[Enigmatic Evil]

I was watching some Wrastling last night and on the sports ticker there was something about a Judge ruling in favor of the owners and that the Lockout would "continue"...

Any news on that or is that an extension of this here?

[grumpy_dinosaur]

Originally Posted by Enigmatic Evil

I was watching some Wrastling last night and on the sports ticker there was something about a Judge ruling in favor of the owners and that the Lockout would "continue"...

Any news on that or is that an extension of this here?

No that is true. The stay was granted pending appeal. However, on that note, the owners did put forth a new offer in mediation and so the ball is now in the players court in that respect, hopefully they'll counter offer and actually deal now that their probability of winning in the court room has diminished, rather than brushing it off like the previous offer.