No New CBA Without an 18-Game Season?
 

https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/07/23/nf...18-game-season

By ANDREW BRANDT July 23, 2019
Before getting to the column, a note about how I spend my birthday last Friday: sitting for the NFLPA agent exam to gain certification to represent NFL players. As part of my partnership with Gary Vaynerchuk and Vayner Sports, I agreed to become certified. And the room of wannabe agents was full of “my people,” many commenting that they studied for the exam in part by reading this space and listening to my podcasts (all the more pressure for me to pass with flying colors). There were about 220 aspiring agents attempting to join the current registered group of roughly 800. My sense is that the pass rate will be low, perhaps under 50%, as the NFLPA would like to cull the herd. Regardless, there will be more agents (including me).

On to the column …

CBA? Only if 18 games
My wish that the NFL and NFLPA move on CBA negotiations appears to have been answered. Reports indicate that talks are happening, even with some momentum. Parallel reports have the NFL raising the issue of a potential 18-game season, with predictable pushback from the union. While the 18-game season will draw much debate, I don’t know see how a CBA is negotiated without it.

Negotiations, by necessity, require concessions by both sides, and each party’s strategy of having “gives” in their arsenal to achieve “gets.” The NFLPA ’s wish list for “gets” would include, but is not be limited to:

(1) Improved revenue split from approximately 47% of league revenues (after having roughly 50% in the prior CBA);|
(2) Improved minimum team spending thresholds and timing windows, above the current 89% threshold, which is only inspected every four years;
(3) Shortened rookie contracts: from five years to four for first-round players; four years to three for other picks, to allow earlier free agency gains;
(4) The end of or limitations on the franchise tag;
(5) The end of or limitations on the commissioner’s power over personal conduct;
(6) The end of or limitations on discipline for marijuana use;
(7) The meaningful sharing of new revenues associated with legalized gambling.

This wish list is great, but raises the question: What, exactly, is the NFLPA going to offer the NFL to achieve any of these desired outcomes? I can’t think of a single thing, except … 18 games. With the NFLPA giving up many concessions in 2011, this is the only paved path to a new CBA.

What if, say, the NFLPA agrees to an 18-game season in return for the players’ revenue share going up two percentage points, from 47% to 49%? These two points would not only, over the life of the deal, move billions of dollars from the owners’ side to the players’ side, but also give the players 49% (not 47%) of the incremental revenue from two extra games per season. There is no other “give” the NFLPA has that is nearly as valuable.

I always say two things about a multi-issue negotiation such as this: (1) Everything’s negotiable, and (2) Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. This CBA negotiation will definitely be complicated, as the NFL is still looking for even more “gets”—such as further stadium credits—even after extracting what it did in 2011. But for the NFLPA to get any meaningful wins from the league in this CBA negotiation, the 18-game season is their paramount “give.”

Sure, there’s NFLPA pushback (we don’t expect them to say “Sure!”). And yes, adding two meaningful games flies in the face of the league’s stated priority of making the game safer. However, the business of sports always wins.

Melvin Gordon’s uphill climb
As an advocate for players being properly valued for their services, I feel for Melvin Gordon (and all NFL running backs) in his pursuit of an upgraded contract and his consequent holdout threat. But he is fighting a losing battle.

NFL running backs are stuck in a system that, because of the position’s short shelf life, works against them. Prime earning years for running backs are before and during their undervalued rookie contracts. All of those unpaid carries that Gordon had at Wisconsin, or that Ezekiel Elliott had at Ohio State, worked well in getting those players drafted high, but will lead to diminishing returns on future income. For what other position do we discuss “tread on the tire”? Query this: Does production early in a running back’s career actually help his drive for a new contract or hurt it?

Gordon and his agent are trying to get that one big contract of his career—and running backs only get one, if that—now, as opposed to waiting for an uncertain marketplace after this season. The past year Le’Veon Bell was able to negotiate with all NFL teams and only found one, the Jets, bidding for his services, and the league’s highest-paid running back, Todd Gurley, was seamlessly replaced by journeyman C.J. Anderson down the stretch for the Rams. Some NFL teams are not only reluctant to reward a productive running back with a third contract, but even hesitant to hand out a second one!

Although it would never happen, the NFL draft eligibility rule that requires players to be three years removed from high school should really be amended to exclude running back. Those players need their own union; their plight is that much different from other positions.

Melvin Gordon may have very good reasons to have his contract upgraded. He just plays the wrong position to have any leverage to do so.

Tyreek Hill and the limited shelf life of outrage
The NFL’s decision not to discipline Tyreek Hill is a case study for the changing nature of the league’s personal conduct policy and how the luxury of time can tame the social media mob.

There was no video of Hill (as there was with Ray Rice, who was suspended indefinitely, and Hill’s former teammate Kareem Hunt, who was given an eight-game suspension), but there were reports of disturbing audio. Once those reports surfaced, the Twitter crowd mobilized, demanding Hill’s release and speculating that, like Rice, he would never play football again. Both the NFL and the Chiefs resisted the urge to act, and the outrage, even from Twitter, was unsustainable.

Now, the reaction to HIll’s non-discipline is muted compared to the pitchforks that came out when the audio comments were reported. It is a lesson for all businesses, especially the NFL: Outrage is inevitable, but so is that outrage being replaced by outrage over something else. (This, of course, is something the Tweeter-In-Chief knows very well).

Ultimately, the problem with commissioner discipline regarding domestic violence is not that it is too harsh (post-video Rice, Hunt, Ezekiel Elliott); nor is it that it is too soft (pre-video Rice, Hill). Rather, it is too arbitrary.

Transparency breeds trust; if the NFL had clear and public criteria for discipline—or lack thereof—it would be much better served in the court of public opinion.



What I want to add to this is if you really think about it, 18 games paves the way for them to expand to 36 teams. More games and expansion are really the only viable ways left for them to increase profit.

Jesus, the league needs to lose a couple teams, NOT expand. talent pool is limited already.

They're going to expand.....international expansion is something they want badly.

They are going to squander the golden goose.

Thus proving Mark Cuban right. The NFL will implode and it will be their own greed that causes it.

I don't know who this guy is, but that's a really good article...weird that it comes from SI...

He use to work for Green Bay in their finance department so he has knowledge of what he wrote about.

Perhaps Mac N. Cheese can cover the Tijuana Chingadas ...

FAX

misleading headline.

I ****ing hate an 18 game season. HATE IT.

Eh it's his opinion which honestly makes sense, how do the players get any of the things they want without conceding something?

yippie. More thursday night sucky games. More injuries.

Not a fan.

Oh just wait....they're going to want to expand before long also...I've read some things about this and some people think they may push all the way to 40 teams within the next 20 years.

You're looking at a longer season...more byes...more teams and more playoff teams.

Hence adding 6-8 weeks to the season and drastically increasing revenue.

I'd support:
(5) The end of or limitations on the commissioner’s power over personal conduct;
(6) The end of or limitations on discipline for marijuana use;
(7) The meaningful sharing of new revenues associated with legalized gambling.

The real discussion here is the 18 game season and how players will be compensated for it. Adding 2% to the players fund just doesn't cut it. If they want to have the 18 game season, they have to cut 2 preseason games, add an additional bye week, and expand rosters to 57.

Adding new teams, especially with the expansion of rosters further dilutes the talent pool.

It does but to the owners that is a ton more money and to players it's more jobs...

Expansion probably isn't the best idea but everyone should probably prepare that it is going to happen. Other leagues are getting ready to add more teams.

Praying this never happens. You are right. The talent pool is limited.
18 game schedule, more playoff games--to me that means more injuries.

The one thing I like about Football is the season is short compared to NBA, NHL, MLB.

Hockey and basketball should not be having games in June. and Baseball should be done in October, not november. Cant wait for a World Series game to be cancelled because of snow in Minneapolis in November.

They see dollar signs...

I can name at least 4 markets the NFL would love to put teams in..probably 6 and it's not hard to get to 8 to be honest.

Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, Milbank South Dakota.....

Austin Texas is probably the first one that comes to mind for the US...but don't think they don't want teams in places like Toronto and England they see tons of cash there.

I forgot about other countries.

What an absolute crock of shit. How many more bad ideas can Rodger and his buddies come up with?

If you thought it would net the league a billion more in revenue, you'd propose it too.....it's his job to "grow" the game and under his watch they have gone from a 5 billion dollar industry to 15....

They've basically exhausted all of the normal revenue increasing ideas so now we are to more games and more teams.

The biggest point of all of this is, if the players expect any of their demands to be met they are going to have to concede this because it's their only bargaining chip.

If 18 games happens, at some point a contender is going to lose their QB in Week 17 or later. It’ll happen eventually.

Patrick Mahomes should receive 100% of all NFL revenue

They can’t even fill stadiums with a ton of teams they have now.

Chargers, Buccaneers, 49ers, Raiders, Dolphins, Jaguars. Nobody goes to see those teams.

What a disaster this would be

Bengals, too!

It's where they are....there are markets without teams that would draw.

So, if more games means more injuries, perhaps they should only play 10 games a year. There, I fixed it.

Then move teams that can’t provide money to those locations. FFS Cali, NY and Florida all have at least 3 teams. No state needs 3 ****ing teams

I get that but it's all about eye balls and ad revenue. Additional games and weeks ads a ton of money.

4.5 hour games

Yeah the title needs to be changed to reflect that this is an opinion piece and an opinion piece only

two half times.. fr tho move jacksonville, tampa, the chargers, to currently unused makets. the same number of teams in markets who give a shit is better for the league than watered down markets with less talent.

The Chargers are in LA till like 2040...

Do you think Oklahoma City would be a good enough market? They've supported an NBA team well.

But I do not think they can support an NBA and NFL team.
Try putting another team in GB and see what happens.

As I read this, it sounds snarky, it does not mean to be.

Green Bay is tiny, that isn't a good example.

For example, Austin Texas has a lot of the same optics that Nashville has, it's growing at a huge rate, that would be a good place.

But other than that there are several other good sized markets, Portland is the 22nd market and has 1 team.

ROFL

This should end well...

i think okc would be a good market its got tulsa 1.5 hours or so away to help. i live outside tulsa and know alot of people who drive 2 plus hours for thunder games regularly. an okc franchise would simply have to draft an ou qb or similar stud and an oklahoma state player and these simpletons im surrounded by would flock to the stadium.

The Players' Association has other "gives" to offer the league.

How about a nice season-long strike?

FAX

What would that mean? Giving teams back to St. Louis, Oakland and San Diego?

Yeah, great. "Giving" teams to those places.

"Congratulations! You get an NFL team! Also, your asses are paying for this nice new billion-dollar stadium!!!! You won!"

Portland Poopgas

Austin Assholes

Toronto Toe-suckers

Orlando Oral Sex

The Raiders will draw once they move to Lost Wages. That, in turn, will help the 40-Whiners. The Bucs and Jax have siphoned off a lot support for the Fins. Move either Jax or the Bucs. I'm pretty sure the Cowboys and Texans would fight any move into Texas. St. Louis doesn't deserve a team.

Unfortunately, most of the players can't deal with that, if dudes that have made 50+ million are kinda broke what do you think about the lowly paid guys?

Probably but the Texas population is huge, Houston and Dallas are both in the top 10 with the Austin market coming in in the 20s and San Antonio being right around 40 I believe.

Austin used to be a Cowboys town, but that easy drive into the DFW area from there has turned into a nightmare. I think SA would have a better chance since it would draw a lot of Mexico..

The San Antonio Dreamers

I am just hoping we have leverage to keep Mahomes under the new CBA. (Franchise Tag and things like that)

San Antonio Sandy Vaginas

Do you seriously believe KC needs any kind of CBA tools other than a lot of money to keep Mahomes in town? Seems to me that as long as he gets paid and the organization is well-run, he's pretty ****ing happy here. Green Bay never used the tag on Rodgers, and that's 300x the shithole that Kansas City is. Why the **** would Mahomes bolt? We're not exactly holding him here at ****ing gunpoint.

This isn't the ****ing NBA, idiot.

Although the players want it to be like the NBA.

Whoa.. little harsh on 58... I think as long as Andy is here we’ll be a contender and Patrick will get a brinks truck full of money every pay day... If Andy leaves then I might worry a little bit but by then we should have 2 or 3 Super Bowls...

On point 7, I know nothing about gambling. I've never participated in it. But how are the teams gaining revenue from it? I don't know of any teams that are running bookie businesses. The gambling industry is a separate entity from the NFL, right? Just because they take bets on NFL teams wouldn't mean that the NFL benefits from them, so where are these gambling revenues coming from?

Jerry would fight any new teams in Texas hard as he did when the Raiders were looking at San Antonio. He has enough power in the NFL that I would be surprised if we see another Texas NFL team.

Also, with a new MLS team set to start here in Austin next year I don't think we are in a position to add an NFL team.

I wondered that myself and look forward to an answer.

People blame the owners and they're part of this mess too. But Roger is Mr. Shiny Object. Other commissioners have had more backbone and a lot of terrible ideas seem to be his brainchild. I just hope he doesn't do too much damage before we get locked into permanently dumb decisions like overseas home teams.

What is with the hostility, you fat ****? This is not the NBA because... are you waiting... of the CBA!!!

He's happy now... but that could change over time.

https://www.playusa.com/nfl-legal-sp...tting-revenue/
Mostly gambling creates interest. Gamblers watch a lot of games and they have to obsess over it to be good enough to make money. It also opens up tons of ad and sponsorship revenue streams

I'm not sure how I feel about an 18 game season. It would be nice, on one hand, to have more football to watch. It would probably add 3 more weeks of football because they would have to add another bye week. But the added risk of injury to key players would be bad. I agree with the notion of expanding rosters to accommodate for that. Also, if they had 2 bye weeks, then they should also only schedule teams to play Thursday night games following their bye weeks. If they did that, I think I would be in favor of it.

It’s not harsh at all. He made a dumb statement.

Even if it becomes like the NBA, do you think our adorably-awkward-around-the-camera, NASCAR-watching, jorts-wearing, beer-drinking, ketchup-eating, Texas-country-blooded franchise QB gives one singular **** about playing football in front of ungrateful fair weather LA fans? Do you think New York is a place he dreams about living in and that he’ll gladly sacrifice playing for shithole teams Giants or Jets so he can walk out his penthouse and buy Brittany some Gucci shit?

Mahomes probably wants money. We can give him that. He wants a competent organization that can win. Veach has demonstrated we’re going to be aggressive in pursuit of that goal. Why the hell would he move to another franchise that can only offer him the same shit and no more? I guess history, but once again, Mahomes isn’t NBA. He doesn’t want to be a part of a larger history. He wants to forge it. Imagine if he went to Dallas and getting old fart Hank Hill yokels saying, “Yeah Mahomes is pretty good but tell you what there was something just perfect about those Staubach years that I wouldn’t give up for anything in the world....”

Pat Sr. was 100% right. We ARE the perfect franchise for him. No contest.

Do fans want 18 games? I'm not sure I do. More chances to lose your great players.

I really don’t. I rarely go to Chiefs games as it is. When I do actually attend them, the fear of not seeing Mahomes because of some stupid sitting rule is a huge concern and will probably deter me from going to games in the future

They should have a bonus system for running back production like they do for lower round draft picks and UDFA that outperform their draft position.

Or have a separate salary cap for RBs.

I think Reid plays a big part too.

But maybe the biggest factor is his mom. She had a pre game interview last year where she started crying with sincere gratitude that he landed in Kansas city. Said she wanted him to be in a place he could call home. Saw her Twitter feed and it's not hard to see why she loves Kansas city. She seems like a texas gal with Midwest values.

That being said, I wonder how the new cba will address small markets. MLB sold out and juiced balls, so as expected, big market teams are soaring. The nba has basically become a big market cesspool. Thank God the NFL still has strong middle America roots, but that's not for a lack of the NFL going to great lengths to jam the coastal teams down everybody's throats.

Certainly a separate cap for QBs.

Yeah. That's additional revenues, but aren't those revenue streams part of what is already shared, so the players would also be getting their share of that money?

Get rid of Thursday and Saturday night games if they’re gonna push for 18 regular season games

Not a horrible idea to continue to water down the product and pump up the revenue. Younger fans don't know any better.

A question for the vastly knowledgeable here ...

Is the idea that they convert 2 pre-season games into actual games that count?

Shirley says they're not going to keep 4 pre-season games and add two more regular ones, right?

FAX

I expect 2 preseason games would go away. There used to be 6 preseason games and 14 regular season games most years before the 16 game regular season.

I think 1978 was 1st 16-game regular season.

This. It's bullshit.

If Mahomes wins 6 Super Bowls on an 18 game schedule, the league better gift two extra rings.

That's way ****ed up

I'm honestly considering dropping my season tickets after this year anyway. An 18 game season would pretty much solidify that decision.

My personal caveats for an 18 game season ( doesnt mean much but adding to the discussion)
No more publicly proclaiming player safety as a concern.
NO preseason games
NO team that made the playoffs in the last 3 seasons is subject to ANY out of the country games (unless of course they expand franchises to canada or mexico)
NO game limit BS
Expanded rosters, expanded practice squads
NO overtimes until playoffs in which you play half quarters until there is a win at end of clock
I wont touch the money percentages but obviously they would need to go up above the extrapolated rate of current contracts.
NO blackouts
NO Thursday Night Football
okay rant over

The NFL is perfect how it is set up now. Perfect.

And it’s all going to be squandered because 32 rich geriatrics want to add a few more millions to their bank accounts.

There isn’t a fan in America who wants to see a team in London or Mexico City. Or an 18 game season where the starters can’t play for two of them. Complete nonsense in a blatant and shameless cash grab.

Don’t kill the Golden Goose you ****ing morons.

Or put a question mark at the end of the title.

This is all the author's speculation and predictions about what might happen.

He has very little facts.

You're paying for them anyway, right? Might as well make them actually something...

Well, the revenue is shared between teams. The players' share of that revenue is capped by the old CBA so they're not getting a share of it. But I expect that to be a big talking point in 2020.

I don't think they'll actually do the guys can only play in 16 games thing.