The war has begun

Sunday, February 06 2011

Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco circumvented negotiation protocols Friday by sneaking into NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s state of the union address. Then, to general amusement, someone handed him a microphone. This article was written by Cathal Kelly and appeared in The Toronto Star.

“We want to know one thing. Seriously, I don’t want the politically correct answer … do you know how far we are from getting a deal done?” Ochocinco said, an unfamiliar wheedling tone in his voice.

Goodell laughed along. He has one of those convincing, Clintonian phony laughs. Then he gave Ochocinco the same neither-here-nor-there bafflegab he’s been handing out for months on the issue of the upcoming NFL lockout.

“When you can answer a question without really answering what was asked takes superb skill and poise, there’s got to be n art in it (sad face emoticon),” Ochocinco Tweeted shortly thereafter.

Grudging respect, you’d call it. The NFL’s owners and its players have been in a state of undeclared war for many months now. But you do get the sense this week that the players feel they are already losing.

The NFL is the most successful sports league that has ever existed. It’s enjoying its most successful season yet, in terms of revenue and viewership. The league will likely take in $9 billion (U.S.) this year. Under a soon-to-expire 2006 collective bargaining agreement, the owners claw back the first billion on that pile. The players take 59.5 per cent of what remains.

Everybody involved in the NFL is getting rich. Nobody thinks they’re getting rich enough. A March 4th lockout now seems like a certainty.

The frustrating truth lying in the midst of all the talk about 18-game seasons and rookie wage scales and Congressional intervention is that this fight makes no sense.

Regardless of what side you took, the NHL’s last lockout had a logical framework. The league had become financially unviable in many of its markets, and somebody had to pay to save it.

Generally speaking, employees do the paying in situations like that. The NFLPA might take notice.

With negotiations on indefinite hiatus, the two sides on the NFL divide are reduced to potshots — direct and oblique — in the press.

DeMaurice Smith, the slick, bullet-headed boss of the NFLPA made his case in the cadence of a minister on Thursday. In between, he peevishly clashed with questioners. However, he did do them the favour of giving a relatively straight answer to a straight question.

Bottom line — the players will not take the billion dollar haircut that owners are requesting; nor will they acquiesce on the issue that might bridge that gap — an 18-game season.

Speaking in the adjacent ballroom a day later, Goodell suggested that he hadn’t bothered to read any of Smith’s statements of the day before. Obviously not true, but just the sort of thing that will drive Smith to distraction.

While Smith is charismatic and confrontational, Goodell is bland and ingratiating. Everything about his approach suggests that he knows he’s winning. That being the case, he offered precisely no specifics about what he’s doing or willing to do. He said there are no deal breakers. His unwillingness to engage the issues as the deadline approaches leaves the union punching at air.

“I am not worried about legacies,” Goodell said. “This isn’t about the next three months. It’s about the next ten years.”

Of course, his legacy will be hobbling the players’ union.

An NFL player cannot afford to think in terms of decades. According to the NFLPA, his career, on average, lasts a little less than three-and-a-half years. His earning window is just a little wider than his shoulders.

The NFL’s growth curve has some suggesting that revenue could top out at $20 or $25 billion per annum. The biggest laugh line in Smith’s presser came when someone suggested that the NFL may be at its financial peak.

“Do you think that’s true?” Smith sneered. “If you had a chance, would you invest your money in the NFL?”

Point taken.

A lockout will not seriously impact the NFL’s business, and certainly not in the medium term. Goodell spoke darkly of a “fan backlash,” and even managed to sound sincere.

What are fans going to do? Stay home? Watch hockey? The NFL is a little like seasonal fruit — when it’s gone, you wait for it to return. You don’t switch to turnips.

The biggest clue of where things are going was Ochocinco’s pleading question. Seriously, how close are we? He’s already set for life, and he doesn’t want to lose a year.

Regardless of whether there is a lockout or how long it lasts, the players are beginning to suspect that they’ve already lost this fight.