Do You Think There Will Be a Lockout in the NFL in 2011?

Vikings and Saints players kicked off the NFL season with a statement on Thursday night.

The teams came onto the field together, and each player raised one finger into the air. They weren’t declaring supremacy. Instead, they were expressing their solidarity as members of the NFLPA, the league’s players union.

“We’re all one voice,” Drew Brees told USA Today.

The potential impending lockout in 2011 has received a fair amount of publicity of late, but even so, well less than half of football fans are aware of it. If it comes to pass, everyone will surely notice.

The saga of the conflict begins in 2006, when NFLPA head Gene Upshaw managed to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with then Commisioner Paul Tagliabue that had terms quite favorable to the players.

The NFL is a very profitable league, both for players and owners, but owners are not happy with the 2006 CBA that grants players 60 percent of revenues. In 2008, the owners voted overwhelmingly to not extend the current CBA past the 2010 season.

One of the principal problems with the CBA barely particularly pertains to the players at all. The current NFL revenue sharing plan doesn’t account for teams that have invested in new stadiums like the football Mecca created by Jerry Jones. Relatively small-market franchises like Arizona and Cincinnati receive bountiful sums in revenue sharing, but actually have no stadium overhead. Many in the league find that unfair.

The players, though, are peripherally involved in this problem. The owners, who invest huge sums of money in their franchises, receive a credit of approximately $1 billion off the top of the $9 billion or so that are divided amongst the players and owners. The owners are looking to up that credit to $2.4 billion to reflect their vast investments. They would keep the 60 percent revenue breakdown the same, but drastically shrink the pie of revenues being allocated.

Other minor issues, such as a rookie wage scale and 18-game schedule, also are points of disagreement between the two parties.

The players aren’t exactly open to this notion, and negotiations haven’t gone very far. Still, there is time to reach an agreement before next season.

Members of the media are divided about where sympathies should lie. Regarding the gesture by the Vikings and Saints, Mike Golic said that “all it did was anger fans” and “they don’t care.” Marcellus Wiley responded, “They should care.” Golic, though, probably most saliently captured the fans perspective.

“You know what they care about? Sunday at one o’clock that players, whether it’s you me or whoever else throws a helmet on, shows up on the field,” he said.

The reality, though, is that the owners are angry, and NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith has said that he expects a lockout.

So, what do you think?

Do you think there will be a lockout in the NFL in 2011?online surveys