- Jim Slater
National Football League owners and players union leaders are gearing up for a possible 2011 shutdown even as they negotiate over how to divide riches of $8 billion in total revenues last year, it emerged Thursday.
"On a scale of one to 10 it's a 14," NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith said about the chances for a lockout by owners in March next year when the current labor deal expires.
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Talks continue behind the backdrop of Sunday's Super Bowl 44 between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts but owners want players to take an 18 per cent salary cut, adding nearly $1 billion to the owners' take.
"I'm sure the reason we're not closer is I haven't said yes to 18 per cent," Smith said.
"We know revenues. I've asked when someone can tell me how much the NFL has lost. I'm still waiting to look at both sides of the ledger sheet."
Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti cited some rivals spending at team salary minimums to keep clubs profitable and others struggling to sell tickets in a sluggish economy.
"I've got partners out there whose teams are making less money than their linebackers," he said. "We've got an acute problem with general profitability of teams.
"It's a bad deal that puts us in the unenviable position of this thing ending in a lockout."
Smith's reaction to Bisciotti saying teams are "bleeding" was, "Fine. Show us what bleeding means."
Owners plead poverty despite huge television ratings and club values that jumped more than 500 per cent over 15 years to more than a billion dollars each.
Forbes magazine says 30 of 32 NFL teams made money in 2008 with average profits of $31 million.
Public information about the small-market Green Bay Packers' finances showed their profit shrank last year, but Smith scoffed, saying, "Only in the NFL can you move from $34 million to $20 million and it's a crisis.
"It makes it very difficult to come to players to say they each need to take a $340,000 pay cut."
At the moment, owners receive $1 million in revenue for stadium improvement and upkeep, then players receive 59 per cent of remaining income. Owners want the players' cut trimmed to 41 per cent.
That's why the NFL might lock out players rather than continue beyond next season, which will be played without a salary cap or minimum unless a new deal is done this month after owners opted in 2008 to end the current deal in 2011.
"I think it's virtually impossible to go back to a cap system if we go through an uncapped year," Smith said.
The NFL last had a labor shutdown in 1987 when games were played with "scab" replacements for three weeks until striking players returned.
"We've informed our players to prepare for a lockout in 2011," said NFLPA president Kevin Mawae, a center for the Tennessee Titans.
"We hope things don't get to that point. We have to prepare for every worst-case scenario.
"I believe we will get a deal done. There has to be some give and take, not just take. It would be such a shame not to have football in 2011 because we can't get this thing figured out."
Even those in the Super Bowl have the dispute in the back of their mind.
"I have concerns. You don't want to kill the golden goose," Colts center Jeff Saturday said.
"Fans can go a lot of other places with their money and their interest and that's the last thing we want. We have a great game. Owners and the players do not need to be the ones to screw it up."
New NFL television contracts through 2013 that ensure payment even if games are not played are "lockout insurance" to Smith.
"When you have in a contract almost five billion dollars to not play, what else can you consider it?" he said.
Smith also noted the NFL's 2008 hiring of lawyer Bob Batterman, who represented the National Hockey League during a labor feud that wiped out an entire
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