Yeah, the nfl owners refused to show them the books, suggesting the owners make much more than they let on.

C ould they lose their trust status? I hope so, I want to play other football games then madden.

MLB is the only league with anti-trust exemption. The other leagues have attempted to gain it, but failed. Also, apparently the NFL was willing to show the NFLPA more numbers than even the teams themselves are privy to.

At first, I thought the NFL dropped the ball by acquiescing to the Players' Association's demands so soon, as it would've made DeMaurice Smith & co think "hey, if they were willing to give us what we wanted so quickly, we should have asked for more." So they decertified (dissolved) the union and went to the courts in an attempt to get more concessions from the league. However, I now believe this plays right into the owners' hands. All they have to do is go to the judge and say "look. The players asked for all this and we were willing to give it to them. However, they rejected the offer so they could file an anti-trust lawsuit and get more. This goes to show they were never negotiating in good faith and were planning to do this all along." Boom. Game over, owners win.

Yahoo has an article that explains the breakdown from the players' side of the story, which now makes the owners look bad again.

sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news

Posted by tdkienholz on 3/12/2011 11:09:00 AM (view original):
MLB is the only league with anti-trust exemption. The other leagues have attempted to gain it, but failed. Also, apparently the NFL was willing to show the NFLPA more numbers than even the teams themselves are privy to.

At first, I thought the NFL dropped the ball by acquiescing to the Players' Association's demands so soon, as it would've made DeMaurice Smith & co think "hey, if they were willing to give us what we wanted so quickly, we should have asked for more." So they decertified (dissolved) the union and went to the courts in an attempt to get more concessions from the league. However, I now believe this plays right into the owners' hands. All they have to do is go to the judge and say "look. The players asked for all this and we were willing to give it to them. However, they rejected the offer so they could file an anti-trust lawsuit and get more. This goes to show they were never negotiating in good faith and were planning to do this all along." Boom. Game over, owners win.

It's not that simple and the judge in the case has a history of siding with the players.  While it's true they don't have an anti-trust exemption, they are still going to get sued over anti-trust issues as the players will be suing using the Sherman Act in their litigation. 

The owners did not give the players all of the financial info they were looking for as well.  They offered more info than had ever been shown before, but not what the players were asking about.  They wanted to see the entire set of financials.

I think the owners are going to get drilled myself.

Yeah, it wasn't until after I posted that that I realized how much bullshit the NFL's press release truly was. Which was why I just posted that link to that article on Yahoo. It suddenly looks like the owners are the ones who are fucked.

The NFL owners should fold the League, start another one, then make sure none of the current greedy ba$tard$ players ever sees another nickel.  If they want to make owners' coin, then let them buy a team.  Until then, they're employees, just like us "common folk".  Maybe they should go talk to people in Detroit, or Wisconsin, or Ohio.   

I know I am always walking around wearing my Ziggy Wilf sport coat at games.... oh wait

Fans do not pay to see the players, they pay to see the teams.  Fans don't go to a Drew Blesoe or Peyton Manning game, they go to a Patriots or Colts game.  Players come and go all the time, but fans still go to teams' games. 

Wrong, they crapped all over the replacement players in the last strike.

TV was down 20% with replacment players.
Week 1 average attendance was 16,949.
4,074 people were in attendance for Bears @ Eagles
4,919 were at the Lions game in week 2.

You may disagree, but I think the fans would eventually adapt to the new players on the field and come back; especially given that those new players wouldn't want a fortune to play, so it might actually be possible to take a family to a game again.  Last time, people were waiting for the "regular" players to return.  If it was made clear that will never happen, people won't wait for it.