On March 12, 2011, the National Football League declared a lockout of its players. For about a year now players and coaches have been discussing contract situations. This has marked a low point in the NFL and the union was forced to get involved.
According to the Union, players were told on March 12 that they could not return to team facilities for the 2011 season. The Union announced its decision to place a lockout on the players. The Union members said, “we believe that in two, five, or ten years players, coaches, and owners will look back and agree that a lockout is the best decision.” Many fans and supporters disagreed with this decision and wanted to support their team. This decision forced NFL players to find other activities to do during the empty season. Some went to professional soccer, others to try boxing and other sports. This actually could have been a good thing to bring these players back to earth. They were discovering other ways to have fun and make money.
As soon as the players were adapting to their new roles, a judge in Florida turned things around. They had another hearing on April 26 and Judge Susan Nelson dropped the lockout. This court decision puts the ruling in immediate and full force. This does not mean that NFL will return back to its normal routine right away. The teams are still not able to make trades other than the draft trades, but all the team members are allowed to return to their practice facilities. Also, team owners cannot refuse to work out deals with players any longer and if they do they are subject to be in contempt with the court. This is a big step towards the playing of a regular season this year. Also, the NFL draft began last night and that is pushing the union to try to make some sort of a collective decision between owners and players.
I believe that these players and coaches are being totally ridiculous. They have more money circulating through those organizations than the total world population, and that is in just one club. These organizations have around nine billion dollars to split up between fifty-three people. I want to know what is okay about that. These clubs need to work out some agreement so that the players can do what they do without being paid ten times as much as they work for. There is really no reason why they shouldn’t be able to come to a reasonable conclusion on the matter and have everyone walk away happy.
After the suspension on Monday night, hopefully these owners will be able to find a way around the lockout. I don’t think that a lockout is the answer, because an agreement is going to be reached one way or another and it seems like the lockout would be the hardest possibility.
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