NFL labor woes weigh on Goodell's mind

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A day after NFL players association chief DeMaurice Smith put the chances of a 2011 work-stoppage at 14 on a scale of 1 to 10, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said he would prefer less rhetoric and more productivity in the bargaining talks.

"I sure hope he's wrong, and I sure hope it doesn't become a self-fulfilling prophecy,'' Goodell said yesterday during his annual Super Bowl-week news conference.

"Right now, we don't need a lot of focus on [the chances of a work stoppage]. We need to take advantage of the opportunities we have now to structure an agreement and sit down and negotiate. That's how this is going to get done. We will have an agreement. It's just a matter of when.''

Representatives from the league and the union have held 11 bargaining sessions thus far, with no real progress. Both sides have pretty much accepted the fact they won't have a deal by March 5, which means the league will operate without a salary cap in 2010. The current collective bargaining agreement expires in March 2011. If there isn't a new deal in place by then, the league will be staring at its first work stoppage since 1987.

On Thursday, Smith said the owners already are preparing for a lockout in 2011, pointing out that the contract extensions they negotiated last year with their television partners guarantees that they will receive $5 billion in TV revenue next year even if the entire 2011 season is cancelled.

Goodell denied yesterday that the owners want a work stoppage.

"The idea that ownership would be anxious for a work stoppage is absolutely false,'' he said. "You don't make money by shutting down your business. That's a bad scenario for everybody.''

Goodell also disputed Smith's claim that the owners have asked for an 18 percent rollback on the players' share of the league's revenue. The players currently get a little less than 60 percent of the total football revenue.

"What we've asked for is 18 percent cost recognition,'' the commissioner said. "So that when investments are made to grow the game and generate new revenue, they're given recognition. And that will encourage further investment that will hopefully grow that pie.''

Under Smith's predecessor, Gene Upshaw, who died of cancer in 2008, the union invested in the construction of several new stadiums across the league, including Lincoln Financial Field, through cost credits, which allowed the owners to use a percentage of the players' share of the league's revenue toward stadium construction.

The idea behind it was that the new stadiums would generate more revenue, which would result in more money for the players, which has been the case.

But the owners now want the players to substantially increase their investment in not only stadium construction, but renovation and repairs. Smith has balked at that.

"The cost of building stadiums is almost entirely on ownership,'' Goodell said. "That is a big burden, particularly in this kind of environment. But it's exactly the kind of investment that, if we work together between the players association and the clubs, we can develop a relationship that will allow us to invest in those kind of facilities that will generate new revenue and allow the game to grow so that we can all benefit.

"What's important for them to understand, and we've shared with them the basic economic data, is that the [current] system isn't working. Since the 2006 agreement was struck, we have generated $3.6 billion in additional revenue, and $2.6 billion of that has gone to the players. The owners are actually $200 million worse off than they were in '06. So the system is not working for at least one side of the equation. And that's the point. You've got to have a system that works for everybody.''

Smith said that if the owners are indeed "bleeding'' money, as Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti recently claimed, that they need to open their books to the union and prove it to the players if they expect them to agree to any kind of reduction in their share of the league's revenues.

The players are privy to the league's revenue figures because they're used to determine the salary-cap number each year. What they haven't been given access to are ownership costs, such as the debt service on stadiums.

"How many people would make an investment decision by [only] knowing how much money goes into something without knowing how much money comes out or whether it's profitable?'' Smith said.

"How many people here would buy a restaurant without knowing what the profit margin is? How many people would invest in a hedge fund [where you ask] how much money do you have, [and they say] well, a lot. [Then you ask] what's your rate of return, [and they say] that's none of your business? My guess is nobody in this room would make that investment. Well, you know what? Neither will I.''

Goodell said he is "all for transparency'' and said the players already have "a tremendous amount'' of economic data related to ownership costs. But he said opening all of their financial records to the union would not necessarily guarantee a deal. He pointed to the NHL and NBA, who both had lengthy lockouts despite the owners' opening their books to the players.

"Unfortunately, it's not the Holy Grail,'' he said. "It doesn't mean they're not going to dispute how much you're spending on marketing and how much you're spending on coaches' salaries, which has been raised with us before. That we're spending too much on coaches' salaries.''

Goodell admitted the owners made a major mistake when they agreed, by a 30-2 vote, to the terms of the current CBA in '06.

"There are things we agreed to that we shouldn't have,'' he said. "We need to go back and get that fixed. The economics really aren't working." *