Column: Lockout troubles NFL

NFL owners and the NFL Players Association have time to get things sorted out, but for now, nothing has been done and the league is in lockout mode.

Training camp doesn’t begin until the end of July, and the league and fans would like something to get done before then.

This lockout seems to be about greed and selfishness on the owners’ side, as the Player’s Association is fine with the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The fan base will hurt if nothing is accomplished in the next couple of months.

I hope there will be a compromise between the two parties before the start of training camp or else there might not be an NFL season, similar to the 2004-05 NHL Lockout.
Welcome to NFL Lockout 101. Here are the topics being debated:

—The owners want a $1 billion reduction in the first year of the players’ portion of revenues. They want to receive $2.4 of the $9 billion in revenue instead of the normal $1 billion. The players would be losing a lot of money, which wouldn’t agree with them. This cuts the players’ share of the revenue by 18 percent.

—The second topic of the debate is the players wanting a 50-50 split of the total revenue instead of the owners wanting a 51-49 split in their favor.

—The owners also want two extra games, which will make more revenue for them. The owners would take out two of the four preseason games from each of their schedules. The players would face greater risk of injury with two additional games, especially since there have been medical problems with some retired players, as recently shown in Dave Duerson’s suicide.

When looking at what these owners are looking for, most of it deals with money and how much profit they are making.

A lot of the money will go to renovating their stadiums and other team expenses.
But the owners are saying they need more money because of the current economic situation.

The owners won’t be affected in the lockout as much as the players due to currently making money from their TV deals.

Other leagues have had to go through similar situations.

The 2004-05 NHL Lockout led to the termination of the entire season because no agreement was made.

It’s tough to determine who has the advantage because the players and owners both need each other to make the league work.

Debates will continue, but a compromise will most likely happen because in the long run, they don’t want to lose any of their fan base.

The business side of football needs to be taken care of as soon as possible so the league can move away from this turbulence.

­— amsiegal@indiana.edu