SAN JOSE – They run the world's most lucrative sports league, and some are so wealthy they wine, dine and otherwise woo top free agents aboard private jets.
But all 32 NFL owners on Tuesday decided they need a bigger slice of the multibillion-dollar pie and voted to opt out early from their collective bargaining agreement with the players.
The good news is the current contract won't end until after the 2010 season, meaning there will be three more uninterrupted seasons of football. After that, America's game – and all the tailgating, gambling and fantasy league fun that comes with it – faces the prospect of scab players, pickets and even a work stoppage. The contract was due to expire at the end of the 2013 season.
At a meeting in San Francisco over the weekend, NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw called the owners "greedy."
"In their eyes, a 'loss' means they're not making as much money as they thought they would," said Upshaw, who insisted the players will not settle for anything less than they're already making. "We're not going to retreat."
The key issue is the 59 percent of the league's total revenue that currently goes to the players, a rate that will rise to 60 percent in coming seasons.
That share is bigger than what baseball, basketball and hockey players get in their respective contracts. NFL owners will pay $4.5 billion in player salaries this year, and they say it is preventing them from reinvesting in the league.
Earlier this year, the league acknowledged that its teams are a collective $9 billion in debt, much of it wrapped up in stadium loans.
Unpredictable bond rates have left some teams that are currently building stadiums with rising debt. Other teams, such as the 49ers, have found it difficult to come up with the financing even to begin building.
"Clearly, the economics are not working for the owners," Commissioner Roger Goodell said during a televised news conference. "Clearly, we have been investing more in stadiums, and the cost of generating that revenue has become more significant. And it's no secret what we're going through from an economic standpoint."
Stadiums are becoming an increasingly critical – and problematic – economic engine in the NFL.
Though the league has flourished under its unique revenue-sharing arrangement, some of the money teams take in – such as that from luxury suites – isn't shared. That has created a bigger cash-flow divide between teams that have built new stadiums in recent years and those playing in older facilities.
The result is a stadium catch-22: Teams need new facilities to compete in revenue with the wealthiest franchises. But building a new stadium can send them deep into debt.
The 49ers, meanwhile, still are working out the details for their $916 million stadium, which they want to build in Santa Clara in time for the 2012 season. A team spokesman said Tuesday's vote will not affect the deal.
Another issue rankling the owners is rookie salaries, which continue to balloon every season. Owners – and some veteran players – complain that top draft picks shouldn't command a higher salary than proven players. On the same day Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank voted to get out of the collective bargaining agreement, for example, his team announced it signed first-round draft pick Matt Ryan to a six-year, $72 million contract.
The final roadblock has been an inability of owners to recoup the bonuses of players who have breached their contract or refuse to perform.
The most publicized example of this was a recent court decision that allowed Falcons quarterback Michael Vick to keep $16.5 million in bonus money, even though he is serving a 23-month sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to federal dogfighting charges.
Read Matthew Barrows' 49ers blog at www.sacbee.com/blogs.
