Breaking... NFLPA ups the lockout ante

[Omaha Steve]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=munson/100609

Union's action Wednesday looks shrewd and serious, and should give the owners pause

By Lester Munson
ESPN.com

In a legal action filed on Wednesday, the NFL Players Association attacked the NFL's $4 billion in guaranteed television contracts that will pay owners for the 2011 season whether or not any games are played. The union and its attorneys claim that league owners are using the agreements as leverage against the players and to finance a lockout when the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) ends in March 2011. They assert that instead of working to increase the TV revenue they share with the players, the owners made deals that are designed to enhance their bargaining leverage with the union as the CBA expires. The players' legal filing action and the threat of a lockout raise legal questions. Here are some of the questions and their answers:

How important is the players' legal action?

This is the most significant public action that DeMaurice Smith has taken since he became the leader of the union, and it demonstrates that the players understand the serious nature of the lockout possibility and are willing to fight the owners on the most significant of issues: money. The owners have been preparing for a lockout for many months. They made TV deals that guarantee income to the owners even without games to broadcast. They hired Robert Batterman, the attorney who led NHL owners through a season-long lockout. They have included lockout clauses in contracts with coaches. They hired Troy Vincent, the former president of the players' union, as an owner emissary to players, which many on the labor side view as an obvious attempt to divide and to break the union. They attempted to obtain a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in the American Needle case that would have significantly reduced player bargaining leverage, a maneuver that failed in a 9-0 opinion from the high court but is indicative of the owners' aggressive lockout strategy.


AP Photo/Charles DharapakDeMaurice Smith's legal maneuver on Wednesday strikes straight at the NFL's lockout blueprint.

Now, in this action, the players have counterattacked. Their attack is aimed at the heart of the owners' lockout strategy. If the players are successful in this action, the owners will lose the $4 billion safety net they thought they had created for the duration of their planned lockout.

How can players question deals that owners make with television networks? Aren't these contracts solely the prerogative of the owners?

The players and their lead attorney, Jeffrey Kessler, are relying on a court-approved settlement that Kessler engineered 17 years ago in an antitrust free-agency lawsuit involving Reggie White. The governing documents of the settlement include a requirement that the owners must maximize revenue during the term of the agreement. It was a part of the original deal and was written in 1993 to "protect the players against what is happening now," Kessler said on Wednesday. The players are entitled to a specific percentage of revenue, and Kessler and the late Gene Upshaw included the contractual provision to make sure that their share of revenue was the best that it could be. In addition to the owners' duty to obtain maximum revenues, the agreement prohibits any "transactions that circumvent" the duty to obtain maximum income, Kessler said. It was prescient work by the brilliant Kessler and is now the basis for a legal action that could change the topography of player-owner negotiations.

FULL story at link.

[Auggie]

1. Good for the NFLPA. I hope it works out.

[rurallib]

2. Any other business and their jobs would be headed overseas