NFLPA royalties funds being diverted to prepare for potential work stoppage

The NFL Players Association is doing the prudent thing in advance of the possibility of lost wages after the current collective bargaining agreement with the NFL expires.

It’s the epitome of saving for a rainy day. NFLPA royalties funds are being put aside in the millions in case there is a lockout or strike in 2021.

The royalties that the NFLPA collects come from the sale of merchandise which bears player images/names. All members get an equal annual disbursement, and certain players get extra payments based on the performance of merchandise bearing their own image and/or name. According to Tom Pelissero of USA Today Sports, that won’t change this fall. Over the next few years, however, it will.

The current CBA expires after the 2020-21 season, barring any extensions agreed to between now and then. That seems unlikely, as there are many aspects to the CBA which would be in the players’ best interest to alter. Workman’s comp issues along with the power of the league commissioner are two examples of areas that the players would like to address in negotiations.

That’s why the royalties won’t be dispersed annually to players starting in the fall of 2018, but rather put into savings. At current interest rates and considering sales projections, that could mean more than $90 million added to the player safety net.

The NFLPA needs every dollar it can get. The only real leverage that the players have to force the owners to acquiesce to their demands is to stop working. Like the players, owners make their money off NFL games. If there are no games being played, that’s lost revenue and wasted expenses. Obviously, games need players.

It’s also possible that the owners could vote to lock out the players, as they did in 2011. Either way, a work stoppage is possible and the longer the players can hold out, the better of a deal they could get. One key to sticking to their guns is to have money to live off of while the checks from the teams aren’t coming in.

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While an additional $90 million on top of other funds the NFLPA could use for this purpose would be life-changing for most NFL fans, it’s not as significant for an industry in which the minimum annual salary is nearly half a million dollars. Add to that the fact that the NFLPA has hundreds of members and a large staff of full-time employees. That’s why players like Ramon Foster of the Pittsburgh Steelers have advocated for individual players to save part of their income in anticipation of a work stoppage. For a player to expect the NFLPA to replace his game checks from the team in their entirety and in perpetuity would be presumptuous.

Fans should understand that this move by the NFLPA doesn’t mean that they are necessarily counting on a strike, nor that they have been convinced a lockout is imminent. At this point, it’s simply doing everything prudent to put the NFLPA in the best possible position to negotiate. The owners’ knowledge that the NFLPA has reserves to draw upon could be all the leverage the NFLPA needs to force some change, and a work stoppage would hurt both sides.

In battles between billionaires and maybe-millionaires, the former usually eventually wins out over the latter. Saving every dollar possible could even the odds in the NFLPA’s favor.