NFL Owners Want New Deal

Reopener Vote Unanimous; Labor Peace After 2010 in Doubt

ATLANTA, May 20 -- A little more than two years after ratifying a settlement with the players' union that preserved the NFL's longstanding labor peace, team owners voted unanimously Tuesday to end that deal two years early.

The vote, taken near the beginning of a one-day owners' meeting at an Atlanta hotel, does not immediately threaten to disrupt the relatively harmonious coexistence between owners and players that has been a major ingredient in the league's financial success. The labor deal, approved overwhelmingly by owners in March 2006, still runs through the 2010 season.

But the owners' decision to exercise a reopener clause in the agreement does put a possible labor confrontation back on the horizon. The 2009 season now becomes the final one in the deal with a salary cap and Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association, has said repeatedly in recent weeks that he expects the owners to consider a lockout of players in 2011.

"I think it's a very clear signal that the ownership doesn't believe that this deal is working," Commissioner Roger Goodell said during a news conference here. "It's important for us all to sit down at the table and try to address the matters that aren't working for the ownership. I think there's a very strong opinion in the ownership and I think the vote reflects that."

Upshaw said he expected the owners to vote as they did Tuesday, even though the labor deal gave either side until Nov. 8 to exercise the reopener clause. Upshaw said that when he was informed by Goodell via e-mail of the owners' vote, he sent a reply that said: "Thanks. What a surprise."

Owners have described the deal, which gives the players an average of 59.5 percent of league revenue under the salary cap, as overly favorable to the union.

"We were fully prepared for this," Upshaw said in a conference call with reporters. "We expected it. We started talking to the players last fall. All this means is that we will have football now until 2010 and not until 2012. With that being said, we'll just move ahead. This just starts the clock ticking and we will have some deadlines that are out there, and if we can't reach an agreement by 2010 then we go to no man's land which is 2011 and there are no rules. That's where we are."

Upshaw reiterated that if the league plays a season without a salary cap, it's highly unlikely that the players would allow one to return in the future. A year without a salary cap would give the owners additional mechanisms to limit players' salaries -- players would need six instead of four seasons of NFL experience to be eligible for unrestricted free agency, for instance, and each team would have an additional franchise or transition player tag -- but Upshaw said he's convinced the players would receive closer to 70 percent of the revenue in an uncapped season in which owners could spend as they saw fit.

The union's deadline for a new deal, Upshaw said, is before the beginning of the league year in the spring of 2010, when players would begin signing contracts in anticipation of a season without a salary cap. If there's no deal and the players are in jeopardy of being locked out by owners in 2011, Upshaw said, the players would decertify the union in a bid to avert a lockout, a move that potentially would expose the owners to an antitrust lawsuit by the players.

"We have already started talking to the players about what we will do if there's no agreement reached by 2010. . . . We're not going to strike," Upshaw said. "We know that. But we're not going to be here as a union either."

The two sides have had at least one bargaining session. Upshaw said the owners have not told the union what percentage of revenue they believe should go to the players. Upshaw said the union will not agree to any givebacks in the next labor deal.

In the previous set of negotiations, Upshaw managed to expand the pool of revenue from which the players are paid under the salary cap. He was adamant throughout those negotiations that the players would not take less than 60 percent of the expanded revenue pool. The agreement paid the players an average of 59.5 percent of revenue, being phased in at 59 percent for two seasons, 59.5 percent for two seasons and 60 percent for two seasons.