Labor and American Football

The development of labor relations in American football has been marked by two periods in its century of existence.  During its beginning labor organizations were weakened by the fractured nature of the football league itself.  Various upstart leagues consistently threatened and weakened the original league, the National Football League (NFL) and at times put in danger the growth of the sport in the America.

Yet, since the league consolidated in the second half of the century we have seen a new period in labor relations come to the forefront.  And while it was once held that players would probably never unionize, the player strikes in 1982 and 1987 and their results have proven past analysts predictions to be wrong.  The football of the 1980s and 90s was fraught with player/manager blowouts and the increasingly assertive nature of player’s organizations or player’s unions as they are now referred to came to the forefront.

A Brief History of Football

The big money problems facing the American football league today find its roots in the development of the sport and its growth in popularity as a notable aspect of American culture.  The incredible money making potential of professional football developed on principles of “rugby football´´ being played at universities in Eastern Canada and the United States.

Professional American football can be said to have its starting point when William “Pudge´´ Heffelfinger was paid $500 by a club in Pittsburgh to play for them in a game.[1]  Towards the twentieth century the game would begin to accumulate loyal spectators across the country, though college football was the most popular form of spectator football.  Along with football’s growing popularity would come entrepreneurs eager to cash-in on the sport’s growth.

The most significant signal of the sports growth was the forming of the National Football League (NFL) in 1920.  The NFL’s first official name was the American Professional Football Association and it was made up of five professional teams who’s main goal in uniting was to stop the stealing of team members from within their ranks.[2]  The cost of franchise was $25 and the teams met whenever it was determined that they could make money.[3]  In 1921 the group formally changed its name to the National Football league.

It wasn’t long before the league was outshining college football and attendance at games went up radically.  Small-town teams got swallowed up by big-city teams and football and annual championships began in 1933.  The 1930s were extremely important in the development of the league.

Gould and Staudohar state that, “Significant rules changes were introduced, most notably legalizing the forward pass from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage. Goal posts were put on the goal lines. And the league was divided into two divisions, leading to a championship playoff under regularized conditions at the end of the season.”[4]

By the 1950s professional football was beating out college teams in the fight for spectators.  In addition, a new element had been added to the sport, television.  Television participation and attendance levels at games were constantly on the rise.  Fans turned on the tube and poured into stadiums to catch a glimpse of rising football stars such as Bobby Layne and Johnny Unitas.  In 1955 NBC paid $100,000, a 40 percent increase over the previous year, to televise the title game.[5]

Since then football’s growth has been unstoppable and largely predominated by the NFL.  Currently the league is made up of thirty-two teams, which are divided into two conferences and then four sub-divisions.  At the nd of each year the league holds a twelve team tournament that eliminates the teams down to two teams which will play in the league’s most anticipated game of the year, the Super Bowl.

Currently the NFL is “one of the most popular sports leagues in the United States, and has the highest per-game attendance of any domestic professional sports league in the world, drawing over 67,000 spectators per game for its most recently completed season in 2006.”[6]

The Era of League Splits

The rise of professional football and the revenues that came along with it would be accompanied by numerous attempts of upstart leagues to wrestle viewership from NFL games.  The first attempts were made under the auspice of a parallel group of teams titled the American Football Leagues (AFL).  Before 1941 there were three such attempts made by the AFL to upstage the NFL, none of which were successful.

The last of these attempts was particularly unsuccessful and Gould and Staudohar claim that, “The new league was woefully undercapitalized and almost from its first games exhibited dire financial trouble. Missed payrolls became routine. Not surprisingly, the league folded early in its second season.”[7]  The most successful of these leagues was the All-American Football Conference which appeared at the close of the Second World War, when there was an influx of interest in spectator sports.  The league lasted for four years and at its close three of its teams joined the NFL and were moderately successful within that league.

Continued growth in televised games and stadium attendance would result in the most significant attempts by alternate leagues to break in on the action in the mid-60s and later in the 80s.  Lamar Hunt created another version of the AFL, after his attempt to purchase an NFL franchise to bring to Texas backfired.  Hunt set out on an aggressive campaign to win spectator interest by introducing gimmicks such as “wider-open passing offenses, players’ names on their jerseys, and an official clock visible to fans so that they knew the time remaining in a period (the NFL kept time by a game referee’s watch, and only periodically announced the actual time).”[8]

But it was the bidding war for players that almost brought the whole of American football on its knees.  Fortunately, and as a result of the expansion and costly players, the leagues merged in 1966.  By 1970 the teams from both leagues had formed to make up the NFL’s American Football Conference.  The AFL-NFL championship game became the Super Bowl.  The only other league to be created after that was the United States Football League that, despite heavy financing, important players and a television contract, went under within three years due to low revenues.

Meanwhile the NFL, along with the Super Bowl and Monday Night Football became an important aspect of American life.  It was thought that a new era of co-operation between labor and football was on the rise but there were more problems to come.

Part 2  The Era of the Player/Management Split

For most of football’s beginning years the idea that sports professionals would form into unions was inconceivable to many.  Today it is clear that Unions are highly important to professional football and baseball players alike.  The forming of unions in so many walks of American life and their increasing power in society brought football players to the same conclusion millions of other working Americans came to: unions strengthened a worker’s rights and provided a buffer against the rampant financial interests of owners, whether they be factories or baseball franchises.

Currently NFL players are members of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA).  The main duty of this organization is to help construct the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which sets the minimum contract for NFL players.  The association also helps to negotiate individual player contracts.  The association has been up and working since 1993 and has been integral in the player’s negotiations with team management.  It is also important to note that since its creation there has not been a full-out strike since the 1987 season, “which is much longer than Major League Baseball, the NBA or the NHL.”[9]

With such a track record it is safe to say that unions are here to stay although it did not always look as though that would be the case.  Despite the positive outlook, after the NFL’s consolidation, some analysts predicted that there would be growing trouble between the franchises and their players.  Their predictions largely proved to be correct.  Gould and Staudohar claim that “This view was myopic”, and that in fact, “The mid- 1970s saw the emergence of arm’s-length bargaining and the resulting collective bargaining agreements in the major sports.  []  Despite progress toward resolving some long-standing disputes, the true character of player/ management splits was just being revealed.”[10]

Before the seventies there had been little leeway made in player negotiations on issues such as pension funds and insurance coverage.  The first league wide strike would occur in 1968 and would be formed on these very issues.  As the situation reached never-before-seen levels of intensity, the players refused to show up for pre-season practices.  Managers responded with a lockout.  Eventually the players came back to the field after having gained almost nothing.  Yet this strike would set the stage for those to come in 1974, 1982 and 1987.

For the last forty years changes in areas such as free agency rules and salary levels have largely been fought using anti-trust law.  Some analysts claim that, in fact, there are more anti-trust issues within professional sports cases than in many other industries.[11]  Scremin claims that, “As a result of antitrust litigation, professional sport leagues and teams had to abandon or at least modify rules and policies governing their businesses. This is a trend with no signs of slowing down.”[12]  Yet, despite headway made in various cases involving anti-trust measures, the 1977 and 1982 NFL collective bargaining agreements are “two of the least effective agreements in professional sports on the issue of player mobility.”[13]

It was during the 1982 strike that players gained the greatest ground in their battle with owners.  After a 57 day strike and a nine game season the Players Association won big concessions including a considerable raise in pay and the right to copies of individual contracts.[14]  Yet, issues such as free agency, pensions and severance pay remained on the bargaining table.

The 1987 strike was a continuation of the demands of 1982 but this time around the player’s union was badly organized and many were reluctant to go on strike in the first place.[15]  The end result was that the players lost their check off privelege, in addition to be replaced by aspiring NFL players for a time.  Staudohar claims that, “By striking when so many players preferred not to, the union may have harmed itself.”[16]

The strike of 1987 would be the beginning of a bitter relationship between the NFL Players Association and the NFL Commission.  The end result was that playing went on for six years without a labor deal and with considerable distrust between Gene Upshaw, head of the Players Association and Paul Tagliabue, Commissioner for the NFL.[17]

By 1993 both sides were ready to talk and the end result was the granting of unrestricted free-agency rights for the players and a salary cap for the owners.  Fisher claims that, “The trade gave each side a key concession it had sought for years, but also tied them together at the hip. Veteran players finally could take full charge of their careers and maximize their incomes, but only within the overall limits set by the salary cap, which in turn reflects league revenues.”[18]

Since then the contract has been re-signed with ease four times since 1993.  Currently the CBA covers areas such as the minimum salary for the league, the salary cap, the annual collegiate draft, and free agency rules.[19]  In May of 2006 the CBA was negotiated again with a salary cap of 94.5 million, 56.5% of football revenue to the players association and free agency for the players.  The talks were complicated by the talks around revenue-sharing policies of the owners.[20]

Conclusion

Labor relations within American football was largely put on hold for the first half of the century.  Struggles between the NFL and various aspiring football leagues such as the AFL took precedence over the creation of player’s unions.  It wasn’t until the second half of the century that the NFL would have to come face to face with player demands backed by an ever-strong NFLPA.  While the union suffered a set back in the 1987 strike by 1993 it had negotiated an essential issue for its players, free-agency.  Throughout the past forty years player’s unions have consistently fought against anti-trust measures and have to a great extent come out on top.  We can only wait to see what the future holds for them.

Works Cited

“Collective Bargaining Agreement Between the NFL Management Council and the NFL Player’s Association.”  March 8. 2006,  nflpa.org

Fisher, Eric.  “MLB Can Learn from the NFL: The Game Would Benefit If Owners/players Emulated Their Football Counterparts.”  Insight on the News  January 7. 2002,  32-34.

Forbes, Gordon.  “82 strike changed salary dealings forever.”  USA Today  August 6. 2001,  http://www.usatoday.com/sports/comment/forbes/2001-06-08-forbes.htm

Gould, William, B and Staudohar, Paul, D.  Labor Relations in Professional Sports.  Dover: Auburn House,  1986.

“NFL sets paid attendance record.”  NFL News  April 13. 2007,  http://www.nfl.com/news/story/9908132

Scremin, Glaucio.  “Impact of Antitrust Laws on American Professional Team Sports.”

United States Sports Academy: The Sports Journal  2005, http://www.thesportjournal.org/2005Journal/Vol8-No1/SCJ_04_antitrust.asp

Staudohar, Paul, D.  “The Football Strike of 1987: A Question of Free Agency.”  Monthly Labor Review  111 (1988):  26-35.

Weisman, Larry.  “NFL labor talks stall, free agency postponed again.”  USA TODAY  May 3.  2006,    http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2006-03-05-labor-talks_x.htm

[1] Gould, William, B and Staudohar, Paul, D.  Labor Relations in Professional Sports.  Dover: Auburn House,  1986: 88.

[2] Gould and Staudohar, 89
[3] Gould and Staudohar, 89
[4] 91
[5] Gould and Staudohar, 92
[6] “NFL sets paid attendance record.”  NFL News  April 13. 2007,  http://www.nfl.com/news/story/9908132
[7] Gould and Staudohar, 93
[8] Gould and Staudohar, 94.
[9] “NFL sets paid attendance record.”  NFL News  April 13. 2007,  http://www.nfl.com/news/story/9908132
[10] Gould and Staudahar, 2.
[11] Scremin, Glaucio.  “Impact of Antitrust Laws on American Professional Team Sports.”

United States Sports Academy: The Sports Journal  2005
[12] Scremin.
[13] Gould and Staudohar, 109.
[14] Forbes, Gordon.  “82 strike changed salary dealings forever.”  USA Today  Aug 6. 2001,  http://www.usatoday.com/sports/comment/forbes/2001-06-08-forbes.htm
[15] Staudohar, Paul, D.  “The Football Strike of 1987: A Question of Free Agency.”  Monthly Labor Review  111 (1988): 26
[16] Staudohar, 26
[17] Fisher, Eric.  “MLB Can Learn from the NFL: The Game Would Benefit If Owners/players Emulated Their Football Counterparts.”  Insight on the News  Jan 7. 2002: 33
[18] Fisher, 34
[19] “Collective Bargaining Agreement Between the NFL Management Council and the NFL Player’s Association.”  March 8. 2006,  nflpa.org
[20] Weisman, Larry.  “NFL labor talks stall, free agency postponed again.”  USA TODAY  May 3.  2006,    http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2006-03-05-labor-talks_x.htm