Caleb Harris
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell floated the idea of an 18-game regular season during a recent appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show.” He envisioned a reduction to two pre-season games across the three exhibition competitions NFL teams currently plays, a second week off during the regular season and the Super Bowl being held on Presidents Day weekend.
Playing 18 regular season games has always been a goal of the NFL. Owners pushed for 18 games during negotiations for the 2011 NFL collective bargaining agreement before finally relenting. The current CBA gave the NFL the power to increase the number of regular season games from 16 to 17, which it did in 2021. There is a provision that prevents the addition of an 18th game until the current CBA expires, which is at the end of the League Year 2030 (March 2031).
The only way the NFL can get an extra regular season game before then is through a deal with the players’ union, the NFL Players Association. According to Mike Jones of The Athletic, there have been no discussions between the owners and the NFLPA about expanding the schedule.
The NFLPA has received criticism for not getting enough from owners for agreeing to a 17th game in the current CBA. It was a divisive issue, as stakeholders ratified the existing CBA by a narrow margin in March 2020.
An early involvement with the NFL in the 18th game could be the first big test for union executive director Lloyd Howell, who takes office in June 2023. It needs to pay off for players for an expanded regular season to happen before the CBA expires.
Additional inventory of real games through an expanded regular season schedule is the best path for the NFL to achieve an unprecedented boost from the latest media rights or television deals reportedly valued at $113 billion over 11 years. The NFL certainly took note of the less popular NBA media rights deals are about to go from $24 billion over nine years to $76 billion over 11 years.
Expect the NFL to exercise the right to cancel current TV deals four years before 2029, given the rise of NBA packages. Ideally, the NFL would like the 18th game issue to be resolved before the next deal negotiations. This could give the NFLPA an advantage to extract significant concessions from owners that would not normally be possible.
Improve revenue sharing
The first area of focus for players should be better revenue sharing with owners. The current CBA has increased players’ share of league revenue from an average of 47% during the term of the previous employment contract to a low of 48% and a high of 48.8%.
On the other hand, NBA players earn between 49% and 51% of basketball-related income. Player revenue share was 51% recently.
NFL players must be adamant about earning at least 50% of the league’s revenue. This was essentially the split in the 2006 CBA that led to the owners’ lockout in 2011. The current CBA has a “media pushback” that is putting player participation at 48.5% because the NFL has reached the required increase threshold 60% on the latest TV rights offers. A 120% increase would have triggered the maximum of 48.8%. The “media kicker” concept could be maintained so that players have the opportunity to increase the newly agreed revenue floor.
Lifetime healthcare
Wanting an 18th regular season game demonstrates that the league and owners are hypocritical and disingenuous in caring about the health and safety of players. Intuitively, the risk of injury and long-term adverse health consequences will be greater with additional play. It wouldn’t be surprising for the NFL to start citing some studies that contradict this notion, as well as its pushback against all stadiums having grass fields.
The NFLPA could advocate for the NFL to put its money into player well-being by providing lifetime health insurance for acquired players. Generally, the insurance expires at the start of the next regular season when a player is released or retires.
It is best for players considered invested. To be acquired, the player must have at least three credited seasons. A credited season is earned with three or more regular season or postseason games on a 53-man roster, injured reserve or physically unable to play list in a league year.
Acquired players receive insurance for another five years. Once the five years have elapsed, acquired players can access a health care reimbursement account, a collectively negotiated benefit in which eligible health care expenses are reimbursed. There is a specific dollar value assigned to the year in which the credited season was won. For example, players who won a credited season in 2023 received $40,000 in their accounts.
The longer a player’s career, the more money goes into his account. The maximum is $450,000 for these accounts. An alternative to whole life insurance would be to modify health reimbursement accounts where the $450,000 limit is removed.
Additional game check
A major hurdle for players with 17th games was the extra game pay for contracts signed in the 16-game regular season. Only after the owners agreed to this demand did the players become more receptive to the 17th game. It should be noted that the concept would apply to an 18th game.
For players earning more than their applicable minimum salary, who were under contract on February 26, 2020 and remained after the 17th game came into effect, received a bonus of 1/17 of their base salary if they were still on the team’s roster. team on the 17th. game was played.
This continues as long as the contract is in effect and also applies to players who are traded. A simple restructuring of the contract for salary cap purposes, where the money is converted into a signing bonus and prorated, did not affect the receipt of the additional check from the game.
A renegotiation where a player’s salary increase extinguished the additional game check. It is up to the player’s agent to account for this in the renegotiation. For example, Lions quarterback Jared Goff’s scheduled 2024 base salary was $22,300,064 before he signed his four-year, $212 million contract extension to make him the second-highest-earning player. paid from the NFL, at $53 million per year. A total of $1,311,768 was added to Goff’s new deal so he would not lose the additional game check for 2024, as his previous contract was signed in 2019.
Elimination of financing rules
Dialogue about an 18th game could create an opportunity for the NFLPA to push for the elimination of rules regarding financing contract guarantees. Contrary to popular belief, guaranteed contracts in MLB and the NBA are not collectively bargained. Guaranteed contracts became common in these sports as individual players exploited leverage in contract negotiations.
The advantage of having multiple teams willing to trade for Deshaun Watson was how the quarterback got a five-year, fully guaranteed $230 million contract with the Cleveland Browns in March 2022 when he was acquired from the Houston Texans. No one else has been able to capitalize on Watson’s fully guaranteed deal.
The NFLPA criticized the lack of guaranteed contracts by filing a complaint alleging collusion among NFL owners during late 2022. Quarterback Lamar Jackson fought hard for a fully guaranteed contract before signing a conventional five-year contract worth U.S. $260 million last spring to remain with the Baltimore Ravens.
The CBA virtually requires a team to put into an escrow account the value of any guarantees beyond the first year of the contract, except those for injury only. The archaic requirement for collateral financing in future contractual years made sense in a different time, when there were legitimate concerns about owners not being able to meet financial obligations. It hasn’t been like that for a long time.
Teams use funding rules as a convenient excuse to explain why something can’t be done in player contract negotiations. I’ve heard this many times as an agent when negotiating contracts on behalf of clients. Now that I’m no longer an agent, some of the team’s negotiators have told me that their owners have encouraged them to use the financing issue whenever it suits them.
Eliminating the financing requirement may not open the floodgates for collateral contracts in the NFL. It could, firstly, lead to an increase in guarantees in the last years of the contract. There would be one less impediment to any of these things, as owners would not be tying up money that could be used for other uses.
Final thoughts
An 18th regular season game seems inevitable. If the expanded regular season schedule doesn’t happen before the current CBA expires, it will certainly be a non-negotiable item for owners in the next labor agreement. If the past is any indication, the owners will do whatever is necessary for extra games, including instituting a work stoppage. It would be a shame if the NFLPA approached any negotiations for the early inclusion of an 18th game with this as a primary consideration, where the main thing players have to show for the expanded schedule is an extra week off.
