Ten players, including MVP quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton
Manning, sued the owners in federal court in Minneapolis. Then, at midnight,
the owners locked out the players — signaling the NFL's first work stoppage
since 1987.
“We are locked out,” union president and former player Kevin
Mawae said in a text message to The Associated Press.
“We were informed today that players are no longer welcome
at team facilities.” Despite two extensions to the collective bargaining
agreement during 16 days of talks overseen by a federal mediator - and previous
months of stop-and-start negotiating — the sides could not agree on a new deal.
Now they will be adversaries in court: The players already requested an
injunction to block a lockout, even before one was in place.
As was clear all along, the dispute came down to money. In
the end, it appeared the sides were about $185 million apart on how much owners
should get up front each season for certain operating expenses before splitting
the rest of the revenues with players — a far cry from the $1 billion that
separated the sides for so long.
But the NFL Players Association refused to budge any further
without getting detailed financial information for each team.
“I would dare any one of you to pull out any economic
indicator that would suggest that the National Football League is falling on
hard times,” NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said. “The last 14 days,
the National Football League has said, 'Trust us.' But when it came time for
verification, they told us it was none of our business.” By dissolving and
announcing it no longer represents the players in collective bargaining, the
union cleared the way for class-action lawsuits against the NFL, which opted
out of the CBA in 2008. The antitrust suit — forever to be known as Brady et al
vs. National Football League et al — attacked the league's policies on the
draft, salary cap and free-agent restrictions such as franchise-player tags.
Invoking the Sherman Act, a federal antitrust statute from
1890 that limits monopolies and restrictions on commerce, the players are
seeking triple the amount of damages they've incurred. That means the stakes
here could be in the hundreds of millions.
It could take a month for there to be a ruling on the union's
injunction request, and antitrust judgments should take longer.
The court fights eventually could threaten the 2011 season
for a league whose past two Super Bowls rank as the two most-watched programs
in US television history. The last time NFL games were lost to a work stoppage
came when the players struck 24 years ago, leading to games with replacement
players.
A lockout is a right management has to shut down a business
when a CBA expires. It means there can be no communication between the teams and
current NFL players; no players — including those drafted in April — can be
signed; teams won't pay health insurance for players; players are not allowed
in team facilities.
If the lockout lasts long enough, it would lead to the cancelation
of games.
Even though the NFL is early in its offseason — and the
regular season is six months away — this is hardly a complete downtime. Free
agency usually begins in March, and there are hundreds of free agents now in
limbo. Also this month, under a regular schedule, team-organized offseason
workouts would start. The lockout grinds all such activity to a halt.
March and early April are when many sponsors and corporate
partners renew their deals with the NFL, part of why the league says hundreds
of millions of dollars in revenue are going to be lost now.
“This obviously is a very disappointing day for all of us.
I've been here for the better part of two weeks now, and essentially ... the
union's position on the core economic issues has not changed one iota,” New
York Giants owner John Mara said. “One thing that became painfully apparent to
me during this period was that their objective was to go the litigation route.”
The NFLPA also decertified in 1989. Antitrust lawsuits by players led to a new
CBA in 1993 that included free agency, and the union formed again that year.
The sides met from 10 a.m. until about 4 p.m. Friday,
discussing a new proposal by the owners. When the possibility of a third
extension to the CBA was raised, the union said it first wanted assurances it
would get 10 years of audited financial information.
“I will tell you this: Any business where two partners don't
trust each other, any business where one party says, 'You need to do X, Y and Z
because I told you,' is a business that is not only not run well, it is a
business that can never be as successful as it can be,” Smith said.
