As the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL players union and the owners weakens, the time until the 2011 season will rapidly run out. Unless a new labor agreement is reached, players will not have access to their team’s training facilities.
This alone would harm teams, especially the less-established ones, and rookies; neither would get enough practice until preseason. These teams couldn’t build a strong foundation. The rookies wouldn’t get a good taste of pro football by the time their careers kick off. Therefore, the league commission must recreate the contract.
A new labor agreement would eliminate the problems initiated by the unstable contract. Owners want $1 billion discharged from the shared income, but players don’t want their fraction of the revenue reduced. They want to know where these savings would end up. Players want access to teams’ financial records to prove whether financial difficulties actually exist, but the league thinks the players already have enough financial info. Owners want two games added to the regular season and two subtracted from the preseason. The NFLPA wants better post-career health care in return.
Being a football fan myself, this greatly concerns me; however, many football fans are unaware of these problems. But we all agree on these things: We want to witness back-and-forth Monday Night games, intense division rivalry match-ups, impressive players setting unbeatable records, and, of course, our favorite team winning it all.
Until now, the NFL was just a league where some of the country’s best athletes competed in America’s game. How can we be sure that this will continue as we head into the future of football? Football, the most-watched TV program of all time, could possibly not even have another season.
Jake Garrett
7th grade
Snohomish
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