It's money over muscle in latest NFL tug of war

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/sullivan/20080521-9999-1s21sullivan.html

UNION-TRIBUNE

May 21, 2008

The mistake is to moralize. Collective bargaining is not about who's right and who's wrong, but about how much muscle each party brings to the table.

Though no labor union on the planet can bench press more pounds per capita than the National Football League Players Association, the real leverage usually lies with the owners.

Yesterday's announcement that NFL management has voted unanimously to invoke the opt-out clause of its current contract with the players means that the owners think they deserve a bigger piece of the pie and, moreover, that they can get it.

Everything else is posturing. Everything else is designed to persuade spectators that the price of labor peace has grown prohibitive; that current conditions threaten ownership's “incentive to invest” in a business where the average franchise was valued at $957 million as recently as October's Forbes magazine.

The owners have some legitimate issues, notably the disproportionate compensation paid to rookies and the inability to recoup bonuses paid to players who violate their contracts (see Vick, Michael). Yet neither of these matters is so pressing as to justify the risks involved in shortening the collective bargaining agreement by two years (from 2012 to 2010). Since opting out could also mean a 2010 season with no salary cap, the potential cost and chaos is tough to calculate.

Yet rest assured that NFL owners have made those calculations, and that the numbers tell them their gamble carries favorable odds. With Baltimore kicker Matt Stover spearheading a campaign to unseat NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw, the owners have apparently chosen to strike while their adversaries are divided.

FULL story at link.