Collegiate Times

Earlier this week, NFL players and owners finally agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement.

Surprised? Neither was I.

After four long months and half of SportsCenter being taken over by the faces and quotes of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith, the lockout finally came to an end.

Most fans, myself included, have felt that ever since the lockout began back in early March, that there would, undoubtedly, be a season. 

That there was no way that the players and owners would allow a few million dollars to prevent so many Americans from actually having to do yard work on Sundays this fall.

Fortunately, we were right. They did reach an agreement and there will be a season, and a Super Bowl on the first Sunday in February 2012.

But, as happy as football fans are that the lockout has ended, it doesn’t make up for the fact that we just had to sit through four months of listening to sports broadcasters talk about absolutely nothing.

I’m not ashamed to admit that every single time I was watching ESPN and started hearing about money and greed and legal terms I don’t understand, I immediately changed the channel.

Does that make me a bad sports reporter? Maybe. Does that make me a bad sports fan? Absolutely not.

The majority of the fans of America’s most popular sport are made up of 30k-60k/year, hard-working, middle-class people; people who have no interest in listening to greedy multi-millionaires whine about missing out on a small portion of their already gigantic salaries.

When NFL fans turn on SportsCenter, they don’t do it to hear about money. 

They do it to hear about trade rumors, injuries, and free agent signings, as well as position battles, and why Terrell Owens showed up late for training camp again.  

I’m sure I’m not the first writer to point this out over the last four months, but without fans, there is no NFL. 

No ticket sales, no merchandise sales, no NFL Sunday Ticket royalties from DirecTV, etc. There is no money to be whined over in the first place.

But, just so everyone reading is clear on the subject, I’d like to take a moment to share with you my understanding of what the NFL lockout was really all about, and how the geniuses in charge of all of it decided to settle everything.

The last NFL collective bargaining agreement expired after last season, leaving disgruntled team owners and players the job of creating a new one. The NFL is currently a 9.3 billion dollar industry, and the biggest argument was over revenue distribution between said owners and players.

The previous CBA allowed owners 47 percent of the revenues. The players felt they should be getting less. The owners felt they should be getting more.

Of course there was a little bit more to it than just that; there were salary cap disagreements, the idea of the owners pushing an 18-game season, rather than the current 16-game season, the notion of putting restrictions on rookie contracts, and several other issues.

But, more than anything else it was about money, and, more important than money, greed.

So who got the best end of this deal? Pretty much everyone who was actually involved in the debate, and by that I mean the players and the owners.

The owners will now receive 52 percent of the revenue distribution, along with a $120 million dollar salary cap to manage their respective teams.

The players also benefited, because minimum salaries will now increase, and training camp will be five weeks shorter than before, lightening their workload.

And so it would appear that everyone is happy. That is, except for the millions of fans who are now all of the sudden expected to just be thankful that we’re actually going to get a season this year.

As if getting to listen to virtually no off-season discussions about anything relevant to what actually takes place on the field was not bad enough, we now have all of two weeks to cram almost a half a year’s worth of information into our heads before the preseason starts. 

Not to mention fantasy drafts are right around the corner.

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A version of this article appeared in the Jul 28 issue of the Collegiate Times.