But it unfortunately has. It took 16 bargaining sessions over the last several weeks to get here, and it now will take months to get back to football. There will be no draft day trades, no minicamps and no offseason workout programs. The players are now on their own to pay their own health insurance, to get treatment for injuries, and to get in shape for whenever there actually is a season.
Which could be a while.
The negotiations came down to money, and trust.
The union did not trust the owners' contention that in the future revenues could not keep up with mounting player costs. That is why the union called for "financial transparency." At 4:45 p.m. on Friday, union head DeMaurice Smith said that they would grant the NFL an extension only if the league handed over the last 10 years of financials. Fifteen minutes later, when it didn't get what it wanted, the union decertified.
The owners did not trust the union with that sensitive information. What if one owner paid his wife $10 million to "work" for the team, or another had an exorbitant entertainment budget. Quite simply, the owners did not want their business made public or shared with other owners, with whom they compete.
What the union was banking on was that the owners would sacrifice potentially hundreds of millions of dollars for their financial privacy. Initially in negotiations, the owners wanted $1 billion of revenue for stadium construction and upkeep on top the $1 billion they already get, thus reducing the amount of money available to the players.
Earlier in the week, the owners reportedly asked for $750 million to $800 million instead of $1 billion, and on Friday the league offered to split the difference, which probably amounted to around $375 million.
