ABSTRACT
The primary objective of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive overview of collective bargaining within the National Football League (NFL). The first section of this chapter summarizes the current NFL business model at the team and league levels. This initial chapter section also explains how the NFL’s current lucrative national media rights agreements, along with recent team profitability and increased franchise valuations, impact the probability of both players and team owners seeking negotiation leverage during future collective bargaining discussions. The next section of this chapter examines the extremely contentious collective bargaining process between NFL team owners and players throughout 2010 and 2011 and also highlights some of the key business issues negotiated in the 2011 NFL collective bargaining agreement. This section includes an analysis of how both the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) and NFL team owners resorted to the United States legal system in order to boost overall negotiation leverage during the collective bargaining process in 2010 and 2011. The final part of this chapter contains a discussion of select key provisions within the 2011 NFL collective bargaining agreement.
