It's hard to talk about anything in the NFL these days without mentioning the current Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations going on between the league and the NFL Player's Association. The deal expires on March 4 so the clock is ticking to get something done.
I was excited to hear earlier this week that the league and union had scheduled two days of negotiating sessions this week -- Wednesday and Thursday -- and just as disappointed to hear that they canceled the second set of meetings. With less than a month until the current deal expires, it can't be considered a good thing when they're canceling meetings, right?
ESPN's Chris Mortensen reported that the two sides disagreed over how the revenue would be split. Putting this into way too simple terms here's a quick summary:
*Currently, there are $9 billion in gross revenues. The NFL takes $1 billion in credits off the top and the union gets 60 percent of the remaining money. Of the $9 billion, they get about half.
*The NFL now wants $2 billion off the top before splitting. The union wants a 50/50 split of the $9 billion (which is basically what they're getting now).
Mortensen reported that Wednesday's meeting started "badly" and the disagreement stemmed over this revenue split. His report said that it was the NFL that walked away from the negotiating table and the league has apparently taken issue with that posting a statement on NFLLabor.com:
"Despite the inaccurate characterizations of yesterday's meeting, out of respect to the collective bargaining process and our negotiating partner, we are going to continue to conduct negotiations with the union in private and not engage in a point-counterpoint on the specifics of either side's proposals or the meeting process. Instead, we will work as hard as possible to reach a fair agreement by March 4. We are fully focused on that goal."
Everyone keeps saying they're focused on getting a deal done but with just a few weeks remaining it certainly doesn't feel like they are.