Goodell, Smith Meet To Set Up More CBA Talks
DALLAS (KDKA/AP) - After not meeting for a couple of months, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith met on Monday to set up more meetings for collective bargaining negotiation sessions.
In a joint statement after the meeting, the league and union said they discussed, "A range of issues related to a new collective bargaining agreement." However, they would not release details of the meetings.
The statement did reveal that both the union and league negotiating teams will meet on Saturday in Dallas. That's significant because there has not been a full group meeting since November.
Following the Super Bowl, both sides have about three-and-a-half weeks to work out a deal before the current collective bargaining agreement expires. At that point, the owners could lock-out the players.
The union would like to keep the current CBA in place, but the owners opted out back in 2008 and are looking for major concessions from the players.
The league would like to reduce the percentage of revenue sharing from 60 percent to below 50 percent between players and teams. They would also like to increase the number of regular season games from 16 to 18 and institute a rookie wage scale.
If a deal is not reached by the March 3 deadline, both sides will face the potential of losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
The league estimates there would be a cut in gross revenues of $120 million without a new agreement by early March and $350 million if there's no CBA by August. If no new contract is in place before September, that number will swell to $1 billion. If regular-season games are lost, the NFL figures the revenue losses would amount to about $400 million per week.
