Why Owners Opted Out

By: Scott Rogers
Football Review Daily

As we all know by now, the NFL owners opted to terminate the collective bargaining agreement early with the players union, giving the potential for a lockout in 2011. Scary stuff? Please!

Right now, there is absolutely no reason to think this will not be resolved with a few concessions on both sides. Any other doomsday scenarios that you read are just posturing from one side. In effect, there were three main reasons Commissioner Roger Goodell listed as the main reasons for early termination.

1. High Labor Costs
2. Rookie Money Pool
3. Inability to recoup bonuses in contracts where players breach the contract of refuse to perform
   

The high labor costs will remain, if only because every industry from McDonald’s to the NFL has to spend a certain amount of money on salaries. Roughly 60% of league revenue goes toward player costs. Don’t expect to see this change too much. What I believe will change is the way rookie contracts are handed out. There will be some sort of cap, not as low as the NBA rookie salary structure, but a bit more manageable so we won’t see Matt Ryan with a bigger guaranteed bonus than Larry Fitzgerald.

The bonus issue is a big deal. The Michael Vick court ruling is a warning for all owners that when you guarantee money, you do not face good odds in getting it back. What will happen is some sort of guidelines will be drawn up for many scenarios showing how much money owners can recoup. Most likely all other issues will end up before independent arbitration.

So do not panic. The sky is not falling. Realistically, nothing will get accomplished for the rest of 2008. 2009 should be the jump off for real negotiations and if nothing has happened in two years, then we can hit the panic button.

Scott Rogers will report on the economic state of the NFL as well as the latest trends in performance training.