With a joint press conference,the NFL lockout is officially over; we will finally have football.  The press conference came about an hour ago with owners, the commissioner and NFL players union all speaking in front of media in a very calm cordial manner.  It is evident that these men know the impact football has and the urgency in which this needed to get done.

The players agreed to a 10 year CBA deal which is the longest in the history of the NFL.

The details that ended the NFL lockout are still coming out at this point, but it is important to know that tomorrow the everyday business of the NFL will officially be in motion.  Owners like Robert Kraft is said to have played a large role in the deal being done and the pace at which this was accomplished. Free agency can now begin and players will now know where they will play and although deals can’t be signed, the parameters of deals can take shape.

The deal itself specifically is generous for owners and a good deal for players already in the league.  Rookie pay scale has been reduced while the minimum pay for NFL players will increase and continue to do so every year.  The deal involves less contact during off season or preseason and more benefits for veterans and injured players as well.

The salary cap will increase to $120 million for all teams and more importantly the team rosters will increase by 10 to allow teams to go up to 80 players; very important for coaches and players.

This was a battle between millionaires that needs to be settled and surprisingly, it was settled pretty quickly.  Maybe our political leaders can do the same for the greater good. They realized what was at stake and it took some posturing and savvy public relations, but it is over.

More details on how the NFL lockout ended will come throughout the week but as of right now, all that matters is the gates to stadiums around the league will now be open and remain open for 10 years.  Winners and losers aside, NFL football is back and we are all winners for it.

Walter G Arce / Shutterstock.com

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The world will in fact be coming to an end if this fall is without football or basketball…what will happen if I wake up the first Sunday in September with no football or the first week of November without games being played in the NBA.

What will we have left? It brings tears just thinking about that sad day…yes tears, real manly tears of course.

Ray Lewis spoke of increased violence if football is not played, obviously an exaggeration- but speaking of myself, I might literally harm someone; I apologize in advance.  I mean really though, what will I do, what will I talk about with friends?

Maybe we will do some shopping and bond over our newly improved wardrobes. Or talk more about the same famous movie stars which we will never have…but how long will that last…our pop culture references will surely improve though.   On Sundays, maybe church will occupy those hours which were reserved for the nfl.  On second thought, that’s not likely to happen- service on Sundays will only remind me of where I should be and what team I should be praying for; I know I’m not the only one.

I know what I’ll do, this could serve as a perfect opportunity to catch up on some illegal movie downloads and exhaust my appreciation for Netflix.

Oh how depressing you may be saying to yourself, but what choice do I have. Do you expect me to spend my Sundays watching the last round of an irrelevant golf tournament without tiger woods? Do you see me or any self respecting fan to watch the Canadian league? No sir,I won’t do neither.

I’ll just watch some soccer hoping America develops a striker good enough to lead us somewhere down the line…while taking breaks between a DVD set of the wire from starting from season 1…please Don’t judge me fellow spots fans.

Oh yeah I forgot about our pastime, baseball…the problem is, that gets old real quick and sadly enough, won’t last forever; I know I just confused some of you, but that last line makes sense if you read it from the mind of a scared confused sports fan.

Most importantly, I won’t get a chance to redeem myself from last year’s beat down in my fantasy league.  I had great team by the way, injuries just did me in…but it doesn’t matter now does it.  I had a perfect name in mind for my team this year that I won’t get to unveil; it’s a shame if you ask me.

It’s sad to say but I’ll probably watch NFL network on Sundays, pretending I haven’t seen that particular game before.  Next I’ll flip to NBA TV, watch the replay of Lebron chocking in the finals while wondering as did Dwight Howard, where his hair line will be by next year.

What else can I do? What would you do in a world without that one thing that occupies a large portion of your thoughts and ideas? That one thing that causes arguments between brothers and sisters, sometimes resulting in blood lost; at the same time causes men to gamble away the rent.

This is my take on the importance of such sports in our society; of course in an exaggerated manner, but to some, football is their religion and basketball is a soap opera that we can’t turn away from.  So ask yourself what your Sundays will look like in the winter…can you feel the chill?

Cold isn’t it?

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What a mess!  This sums up nicely the almost two months since the most-watched Super Bowl as well as the most-watched program of any kind in American television history was held. This past Super Bowl being played in the new Dallas Cowboys stadium between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the previous record of 106.5 million viewers which was the record for last year’s Super Bowl.

While the NFL Lockout just began on March 11, this Lockout has been in the making for over two years, going back to 2008 when the NFL opted out of renewing the now recently expired collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association.  Owners claimed the reason for not renewing their agreement was because costs were too high and the owners would need givebacks of some monetary amount from their players in order to make it worth there wild and to keep operating under what is now the former Collective Bargaining Agreement. Besides this small story in the news, we haven’t really seen the impact over the years until now.

A lot of major events have happened since the Super Bowl which have shaped the heated and messy landscape that the owners, players, and fans have been exposed too and endured this New Year. A time line of events hopefully will help to clarify the current state of the NFL as we see it today.

Before the Super Bowl on January 18, the NFL Players Association, here after called the Union, filed a collusion claim against owners regarding lack of movement of restricted free agents.  On February 6, the day before the Super Bowl, both sides met for a brief negotiations session where nothing was accomplished.  Then, Happy Valentine’s Day to you too sweetheart, the NFL filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board on February 14th for not bargaining in good faith because the Union had plans of decertifying for a long time now.  Soon after on February 18^th, renowned federal mediator George Cohen began working with the two sides in Washington to see if some type of agreement or extension could be reached.

Cohen actually fared better than most experts thought, given an almost impossible task; he was able to keep the two sides at the negotiations table for over two weeks. An impressive feat for how far apart the sides were at the start and considering how much they distrusted each other.  Then on March 1^st, U.S. District Judge David Doty, who was a major player in the Labor disputes between the NFL and NFLPA before in 1993, ruled against the NFL, claiming they violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement when they sought for a 4 billion dollar TV revenue profit guarantee even if no games were played in the 2011 season due to a lockout.

This was considered “Lockout Insurance” to Doty who implied in his judicial opinion that if there was indeed a lockout and the players brought an Anti-Trust suit claim against the owners, that he would rule in the favor of the NFLPA once again.  This ruling was seen as a huge victory to the players and blow to the negotiation strategy of the owners.  Then, potentially because of this ruling, the two parties on March 3^rd, just before the official Collective Bargaining Agreement would expire, decided to extend the deadline one more day to continue talks.

The following day, the two sides then agreed on March 4^th to extend the deadline for an entire week, in order to continue negotiations.  Sadly, to football fans across America, the following Friday, after rejecting the owner’s proposal, the NFLPA decertified giving up its right to represent the players.  Later that night, at approximately midnight, the NFL led by Commissioner Roger Goodell imposed a lockout of the players once the Collective Bargaining Agreement expired.

Now having proceeded to what can be described as an ugly divorce, headed by Demaurice Smith as the Union leader and Commissioner Roger Goodell for the NFL and its owners, 10 players filed an antitrust lawsuit and injunctive request in the federal court in St. Paul, Minnesota on March 11th.  This is the same court that Judge David Doty resides.

To try to clarify, an antitrust case is a legal action brought against a party or parties who are being charged with limiting free competition in the marketplace.  The players are essentially claiming that the league and its owners by locking out the players from all football activities have limited the players’ ability to market their services to any employer of their choice, which includes price fixing of the amounts that would be paid to the players.

In this proceeding, the alleged anti-competitive actions that have generally taken place include a lockout to prevent free-agency and by boycotting rookie players through efforts to force their salaries to be lower then what they actually would be in a free market.  This claim is seen through the proposal to implement a rookie wage scale and cap to how much rookies can make.  The suit, which seeks to end the lockout against the players, names Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees as its lead plaintiffs along with other current NFL players

In addition to current players, the league in its effort to show uniformity included one of the incoming top rookie prospects, Von Miller of Texas A&M.  Then, surprising to the union, it is U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson and not Judge Doty who has scheduled a hearing for April 6^th.  Additionally, while some people have expressed curiosity as to why such a high profile case, would take almost a month to have a hearing, this month turnaround is actually fairly quick for cases in the legal world.

While this waiting period has been going on, a lot of interesting events have still taken place, either feeding football fans appetite for news on their beloved sport, or just angering them.  With the lockout taking place, all football operations and activities are suspended.  Essentially current NFL players are “locked out” of the facilities and are unable to communicate with coaches and other personnel.  So even though there is not scheduled to be any OTAs, minicamps, or even film study sessions at team facilities at this time with the players, one event is guaranteed to happen, the 2011 NFL Draft held in New York City.

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