Day 107 of the Lockout

I was hoping that there would be good reports from talks between players and owners today from Minnesota.  Not to over react, but negotiations between the NFL owners and players seemed to have taken a serious setback today.  One thing I was optimistic about was that it looked like there had been an understanding that the revenue sharing issue was mostly agreed upon.   But today the owners proposed a deal that would bring almost half a billion additional dollars their way.

The 48 percent of overall league revenue that would go the players way made sense.  So,  I assumed that the biggest obstacle was overcome.  That does not seem to be the case as the owners CBA proposal after four straight days of negotiations asked for nealry 55% of the leagues revenues.  This would lead the players to settling for 45%, which would be significantly lower than the over 50 that has been in place during the last CBA.

In my oppinion, this sets talks back quite a ways.  It is clear that the owners mean business and seem willing to continue the lockout until they got numbers that meet their approval.  But, meanwhile the fans are the ones left wondering if there will be even be a season.  Many were hopeful that this weeks talks in Minneapolis would produce results (even a deal), but that doesn’t look like it will be the case.  Now the lockout will continue into July inching ever closer to the start of the preseason in August.