NFL: What the NFLPA's Decertification Means for Labor Negotiations

To many it feels like ages since players from the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings went onto the field minutes before kickoff of the 2010 NFL season with one finger held into the air, a show of player solidarity against the owners.

The message: No matter how much we battle each other on the field, we will come together and fight as one for our rights against the owners.

Since then we have seen a full season of continuing Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) talks failing to get a deal done with neither side willing to budge. Many points of debate in the new CBA have been painfully agreed upon, leaving essentially one major issue on the table.

One bad apple spoiled the entire agreement, and that apple is the split of total revenue between the players and the owners.

The revenue in question is the $1 billion that the owners want to take off the top to cover what they call rising costs of NFL franchise ownership. The players have stood firm saying they will not concede that money unless the owners disclose all of their financial records to them. On Friday, when the owners reiterated they would not do so under any circumstances, the players walked out of CBA talks for the last time, and the league moved to lock out the 2011 NFL season.

At this point in this disturbing tale, the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) decertified, a move that effectively converted them from a union to a trade association. This move was necessary for them to file their now pending antitrust lawsuit against the league; under the expired CBA, they could not do so while acting as a union.

What this means now is that many high-profile players have filed a suit against the owners—officially now known as Brady v. NFL—claiming the owners have been acting as a monopoly, unfairly using their leverage as the largest and most successful football league in the world against the players.

If they win—which is likely since the judge in the case, Judge Doty from Minnesota, has ruled in the players' favor before—the league will not be allowed to lock out the players, and the 2011 season will continue with or without a new CBA. The league would then establish new rules to determine how and when free agency would take place, along with other operating procedures, and it would be business as usual.

However, until a new CBA is established, it would be like business as usual, but in a very awkward and quiet office building. No one in their cubicles would talk to the executives in the corner offices, even though they are both getting extremely wealthy from playing a game.

This bickering between the NFL and NFLPA boils down to two simple ideas. The players and owners are both saying back and forth, "You need us more than we need you," with neither side being able to agree that they are a packaged deal. The players cannot make the money they have been making in any of the other leagues, so they need the owners.

However, if the owners were to attempt to refill their rosters with unsigned players who are not part of the NFLPA—scabs, in labor strike terms—the entertainment value of their product would be greatly diminished since those players would not be able to provide the level of play fans of the NFL have become accustomed to.

Like him or not, I think all fans can agree that President Obama hit the nail on the head when he said that neither he nor Congress would step in to help resolve bickering between millionaires and billionaires.

In the end, who this hurts the most are the fans and the communities.

The cities NFL teams are located in stand to lose more than $150 million each in yearly revenue if the 2011 season is cancelled. True, the players would not get paid, but many of them have already earned more money being in the league a few years than many Americans will make in their lifetimes.

The owners though get the best end of the deal, as they stand to make $4.5 billion in revenue from TV contracts, even if not one snap of NFL football is played in 2011. When the $4.4 billion the owners would not have to pay in players' salaries is subtracted from their costs, the owners have little to lose in revenue.

In no way are the players blameless in this unfortunate circumstance, but when they stand firm in the belief that they are on the right side of the debate, they have everything to lose and not nearly as much to gain.

On the other hand, the owners knew the gamble they took when they didn't agree to a new deal on Friday. They knew it was likely the NFLPA would decertify, form a trade association and file the antitrust suit to force the owners to make the 2011 season happen.

The only problem is, when the owners made that gamble, they were doing the equivalent of gambling in their own casino with someone else's money.

Either way this plays out, the gamble will pay off, and they don't seem to care much which way. What then does it say about the owners' "love" or "passion" for the game they all claim to have so much of?

I guess we'll find out soon enough.