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The NFL Lockout


WaterMan
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Hard to equate what I have done with the complexities of NFL contracts that are for up to $100 million and that get torn up and rewritten or thrown away all the time. NFL players have an extremely short shelf life too which has to be considered. Players hold out all the time and players get cut all the time. Contracts get rewritten. It always seems rather fluid to me.

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I honestly dont understand how players can hold out. They sign a contract saying they will play for a certian amount of money. If they dont have to honor that contract then whats the point of signing one because they dont mean crap to begin with. You dont see this stuff happen in any other sport.

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I don't think we'll see work stoppage, as both sides realize that they have a golden goose, and a mis-step with a lockout/strike could damage that.

 

Also, I've read that every team that has had a vote to de-certify the NFLPA if it came to that, has voted to do so. If the NFLPA decides to de-certify by law the Owners couldn't lockout the players...

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I don't think we'll see work stoppage, as both sides realize that they have a golden goose, and a mis-step with a lockout/strike could damage that.

 

Also, I've read that every team that has had a vote to de-certify the NFLPA if it came to that, has voted to do so. If the NFLPA decides to de-certify by law the Owners couldn't lockout the players...

 

The players would quickly learn what it's like without a union, good luck with that.

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I don't understand other people's understanding of player contracts. So many people get indignant at owners. "How can they just cut players? How can they make them take a pay cut? They signed a contract!" And others get indignant at players. "How can they hold out? How can they demand more money? They signed a contract!"

 

Both parties signed a contract. Contracts are broken by both sides of these agreements all the time.

 

Contracts can get renegotiated. When you feel your contract should be renegotiated, but the other side is not open to renegotiation, you sometimes have no choice but to break the contract. In the NFL, when a player gets deemed too expensive, they are asked to renegotiate their contract. If an agreement can't be reached, they are cut. End of contract. When a player feels they are not making enough money, they ask to renegotiate their contract. When an agreement can't be reached, they hold out. Often, end of contract.

 

Punishment for breach of contract varies, but NFL contracts are not guaranteed. The punishment in non-guaranteed contracts is you do not get the thing the other party was providing. So players hold out & they don't get paid. Teams cut players & they don't pay them anymore, nor do they receive the player's services. What you don't see is a player playing in games & the team not paying them. I've never heard a story of this happening. When the player's services are rendered, they are paid.

 

Contract law is a very large subsection of The Law & player contracts are not just a piece of paper that says "5-years, $14million, $2million guaranteed" with two lines for signatures. When you're talking about many millions of dollars and upwards of 7 years, contracts have to take on a much more malleable form. Contracts are not cut-and-dried agreements. Or I should say, they frequently are cut-and-dried, but they don't exist in a vacuum.

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If your employer signed a contract with you to pay you a salary, but then he says there's not enough money to pay you. What would you do?

If you're saying I signed a non-guaranteed contract with an employer for $X. And they said their company was losing money, and going forward they had to pay me $Y instead, it is my option to reject that offer & go find a better one. All else being equal, that's probably what I'd do.

 

Or are you saying we had a contract for me to be paid $X, I worked for, say, two weeks, and then my employer told me he couldn't pay me for that work?

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I honestly dont understand how players can hold out. They sign a contract saying they will play for a certian amount of money. If they dont have to honor that contract then whats the point of signing one because they dont mean crap to begin with. You dont see this stuff happen in any other sport.

 

They holdout because their contracts are not guaranteed and they have a very very short work life to make money. If they seriously outplay the value of their contract, the only leverage they have is a hold out. Ownership can and regularly does cut contracts in half, downgrade them, and straight out drop players with the same contracts we're talking about.... again, because they are not guaranteed they have the leverage to do this. The only thing a player can do is hold out.

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