Keith Strudler: More Money, More Problems

With all the talk right now of sports teams having to play less because of certain health crisis, there’s one professional sports league that’s currently debating playing more. That’s the NFL, which obviously is in their offseason. So they’re not talking about playing right now, but they are debating the merits of playing more next year, when they’d taking their 16 game current regular season to a 17 game spread, both pushing back the Super Bowl and adding more opportunities to fill stadiums and sell television commercials. That is but one of the pillars of a new collective bargaining agreement on the table for the NFL players association, a bill that has the seal of approval of the owners.

Among the other items in the agreement are more playoff teams, a potential increase in minimum salaries, and a few less days of practice in pads. But in the end, all of that is fairly benign compared to athletes agreeing to play more games in a sport that’s routinely lambasted for its cruel brutality. One more game means one more chance to break down physically, one more chance to tear an ACL, and that much more wear and tear in a sport where the average career runs south of three years. It’s also one more chance for repeated hits to the head and potential concussions, which we all know are distinctly linked to risks for CTE and all the effects that come with it.

Now, for that, the players will get one thing – money. Without going too far into the weeds, the agreement allows for extra dollars for that extra game, a slightly larger share of the revenue split with owners – although not up to the mystic 50/50 split – and more playoff money, which is an especially nice bonus for the vast majority of athletes that don’t have anything nearing superstar contracts.

There’s a lot of reasons the NFL wants to make this work in the immediate. Right now, the world of American media is quickly and forever converting to an on-demand ecosphere, where people watch what they want when they want. Which makes it much harder for networks to force anyone into their longstanding business model, one that a lot of us previously analogized to a form of extortion. But for now, the NFL is still must watch, live TV, where huge groups of people stop what they’re doing to spend three to four hours watching teams play and advertisers sell product. And for that, networks and companies are willing to pay a premium, perhaps even more than the NFL is worth. Especially when they’re offering a value proposition, a 17^th game to keep fans watching longer and places like CBS and FOX still relevant to an aging American sports public. Think of it as a loss leader, like having a storefront on Madison Avenue. Now how long will that last? That’s the multi-billion dollar question. Which is why the NFL would like to get this done much sooner than later, when any number of economic and demographic shifts could make the sport less relevant.

So with that, the League has made its offer to the players, who now have to decide whether they want more money, more games, and as they say, perhaps more problems. What they’ll decide is still up for debate – established stars seem to be against it, since they’re getting rich either way. And the underclass is more supportive, since it puts more money in their pocket. I suppose it’s like football’s version of American politics – the people against the 1%.

I’m not going declare whether I think this is a good deal or not, since I’m not much of a labor lawyer, although I did take economics in college. But what I will say is this. Players have been saying for some time they are uncomfortable with the undue injury risk of the sport, up to and including the tragic endgames of too many former players who suffered multiple concussions. The only way to change that – other than playing flag football –  is by less contact and fewer dangerous hits. That absolutely cannot happen in a landscape of more games, not less. Which means that if they players ratify this deal, they’ve lost credibility in the war against CTE and the argument against greedy owners who couldn’t care less about their welfare.

Now, is it fair that players may have to be the adults in the room? Probably not, since the owners should know better than to put their talent in an increasingly dangerous situation and use money as a vice. And they should offer them a deal that’s more safe, not less. Fewer games, not more. Which, right about now, is the word for everyone in sports.

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