I’m starting a theme based set of entries with this post. This is the first entry in a series of posts on one topic. Heart. This week’s post will apply heart to the NFL and the failed labor negotiations. Because there has been so much news reported on this topic for the past week the post will be broken into sections. This is Part 1 of Heart: The NFL Lockout.
Whenever I think of the concept of heart in regards to sports I am reminded of a scene from The Replacements, a movie whose plot is based on, ironically, the last time the NFL had a work stoppage. In this particular scene, the Sentinels, a team made of scab players, are losing at halftime 17-0. A reporter asks Head Coach McGinty (played by the remarkable Gene Hackman) what his team will need to win the game. He replies, “miles and miles of heart” in reference to the scab quarterback, Shane Falco (played by the unremarkable Keanu Reeves). Falco shows up at halftime, replaces the team’s superstar quarterback who had just crossed the picket line and takes the field with his team amidst thunderous applause from the fans. Falco heroically leads the makeshift team to victory, relying on the relationships he has formed with his teammates, a newfound self-confidence, and most importantly, a tremendous amount of want, desire, and heart. In light of the recent lockout and union decertification, let’s take a look at how just a little heart from the owners, the NFL and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) could have mediated these negotiations much better than George Cohen ever could have.
While the public may just now be realizing the owners transplanted their hearts with greed, Operation Heart Transplant began years ago. Testimony from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell reveals the owners began “the proper planning” to gain the “required financing” for a 2011 lockout in May 2008. Following the lead of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, the other owners began to “realistically assume…a lockout for 2011” with the goal of forming a CBA that “worked for them”1. a.k.a. made them more money. This coming from someone who valued profit and setting a new attendance record at this year’s Super Bowl over providing fan’s the actual seats he sold them. It’s hard to expect a lot of compassion coming from this man but you’d think after publicly embarrassing himself with such an epic failure at hosting the most prestigious sporting event in the nation, a little humility would have formed.
Alas, Jones’ humility never appeared during negotiations nor did the NFL’s for that matter. The NFLPA sued the NFL for the actions taken in conjunction with the owners proper planning. A few days before the first CBA lockout deadline, a judge ruled in favor of the PA, publicly and legally calling out the shady dealings of the NFL. U.S. District Judge David Doty upheld the PA’s claim that the NFL had unfairly and illegally secured TV network revenue over the past 2 years in order to increase leverage during CBA negotiations. The NFL broke their legal agreement to form deals that benefit both the league and the players by failing to secure the maximum revenue possible from restructured broadcast contracts in 2009 and 2010. Doty deemed the deals were designed to create a slush fund of near $4 billion, guaranteeing owners enough money to survive a lockout while leaving the players without a safety net. See the details of the TV contracts here: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6172379 Basically, the NFL gave the networks benefits like more broadcast games during the ’09 and ’10 seasons if the networks agreed to extend the time the NFL had to refund them for lost games. This agreement gave networks short-term benefits and the NFL long-term financial security while also giving the owners more incentive for a lockout. Doty ruled these contracts were not in “good faith” towards the players. He defined good faith actions as those “motivated by proper motive” and ones, which “encompass…an honest belief, the absence of malice, and the absence of a design to defraud or to seek unconscionable advantage.”2. Doty ruled the NFL’s abuse of their “enormous market power” to “harm the players” was not an act in good faith. I rule it an act without heart.
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