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    Lamar Jackson’s Bold Play: A Contract Without an Agent

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    Jackson is leading his own negotiation for a contract extension with the Ravens, challenging the norms of executives’ relationships to N.F.L. players and raising questions about the efficacy of agents.By any argument, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson has had an exceptional career through his first three N.F.L. seasons.Drafted at the end of the first round in 2018, he quickly emerged as one of the league’s most dynamic players, winning six of his first seven regular season starts in his first year and the Most Valuable Player Award in his second. At 24, he is a face of the league and the undisputed centerpiece of the Ravens’ future.Those are among the facts that undoubtedly will be brought up as Jackson and Baltimore executives negotiate an extension of his rookie contract, the massive payday that is usually the largest salary bump in an N.F.L. player’s career and that will determine the market for other franchise quarterbacks nearing the end of their entry-level deals.His peers have already set the table. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott in March signed a four-year, $160 million contract extension (with $126 million in total guaranteed money). In August, Bills quarterback Josh Allen received a six-year, $258 million deal (with $150 million in total guaranteed money).But as Jackson haggles with his team over the size and conditions of a new deal, he stands out for handling the matter on his own, one of 17 N.F.L. players not represented by a traditional sports agent. Instead, Jackson has enlisted advisers, including his mother, Felicia Jones, to work out the clauses, exceptions and trade-offs.They have offered little insight into the process. He could follow the trend and ask for a four-year deal to increase his flexibility, or he could try to secure a longer and larger contract as Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes and Allen did. Jones did not respond to a request for comment.By proceeding without traditional representation, Jackson is challenging football orthodoxy, partly promoted by agents, that players can’t possibly understand complex contracts or negotiate one successfully. At the same time, Ravens team executives — who declined to speak for this story — can’t limit their relationship to only talking to Jackson about his labor. They also must tell him what they think his labor is worth.“The agents have told the whole world that the players can’t do anything without them,” said Russell Okung, who began representing himself halfway through his 12-year N.F.L. career as an offensive lineman. “By Lamar going out on his own, it’s scary to the agent world. If he figures it out, others will too.”The challenges stretch beyond dollar signs. “He’s also a Black quarterback and people are used to labor looking a certain way,” Okung added. “He’s pushing up against a myriad of narratives all at once.”Lamar Jackson posed with his mother, Felicia Jones, after winning the Heisman Trophy in 2016 while at the University of Louisville.Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via AP ImagesFor years, players have complained that agents don’t do enough to earn their fees, which can run as high as 3 percent of a contract’s value. Saving hundreds of thousands of dollars is largely what motivated Richard Sherman, Okung, DeAndre Hopkins and others in recent years to negotiate their own deals, some of which were panned in the media.While those players ditched their agents midcareer, Jackson has gone without an agent from the outset.Under the league’s peculiar economics, that’s understandable because rookie pay scales are tightly prescribed, leaving little room for negotiation. Teams operate under rigid salary caps, and often pick up the fifth-year option in star players’ contracts to keep them at a cheaper figure for an additional year before they become free agents, or in the Ravens’ case with Jackson, to allow for more time to negotiate an extension.Teams can also slap a “franchise tag” on players — a one-year designation of either the average salary of the top five players at the same position (over the past five seasons) or 120 percent of the player’s previous salary — to refrain from paying what the market will bear. To hang on to their star quarterbacks, whose salaries are growing far faster than those of players at other positions, teams can also fill the rest of their rosters with rookies and free agents willing to play for minimum salaries.Jackson’s decision to forgo traditional representation is inviting more scrutiny than other stars’ negotiations because he is in line for a mammoth contract extension that will help set the future market for franchise quarterbacks. Deciphering N.F.L. contracts is complicated because teams can include a host of clauses that when triggered can cost the player dearly. Getting injured away from the field might allow a team to withhold payment. So might an arrest, suspension or an unexcused absence from the club.A player’s yearly salary can be relatively small compared to signing bonuses, payments for making a team’s roster, payments for appearing at voluntary training camps and hitting performance targets like leading a statistical category.Top-tier quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers have in recent negotiations prevented their teams from assigning them franchise tags. The tag would have kept Brady from hitting the open market after the 2019 season, his last with the Patriots. The reworked contract Rodgers signed in July prevents the Packers from assigning him the franchise tag after the 2022 season, when he is eligible to become a free agent.In 2018, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins negotiated through an agent to reach a rare contract that was 100 percent guaranteed, like those in Major League Baseball and the N.B.A. The percentage of guaranteed money in N.F.L. contracts is increasing, but for most players it is below 70 percent, which makes it easier for teams to justify cutting players.Agents argue that part of their role is to steer players away from deals that give teams too much leverage.“There are so many different ways to not get your money in the N.F.L.,” said Joby Branion, who runs Vanguard Sports Group, an agency that represents 36 N.F.L. players, including Von Miller of the Denver Broncos and Keenan Allen of the Los Angeles Chargers. “The best agents are going to understand that the most important part of any negotiation is leverage. Guarantees in the N.F.L. are not guarantees like in other sports.”Agents also pay for top prospects to train for the combine and talk up their draft value with general managers. Once they join a team, agents help players find marketing opportunities and keep track of their needs during the season.“It’s not just doing negotiating the contract and washing your hands of the player,” said Kim Miale, an N.F.L. agent who leads the football division at Roc Nation Sports, which represents Giants running back Saquon Barkley, Buccaneers running back Leonard Fournette and others. Still, some players do many of these things themselves. Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner said he negotiated a three-year, $54 million extension in 2019 not just to avoid paying his agent, but to become a smarter businessman. He read the league’s collective bargaining agreement, studied other player contracts and sought advice from corporate executives, team owners and even Michael Jordan.During the process, he was aware of how unusual a path he was taking. “There were a lot of people that felt players were not able to negotiate their contracts successfully, so I knew once I committed to doing it, I had to do it right because I knew there was a lot of eyeballs that wanted me not to succeed,” Wagner said.Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner told reporters that reading the book ”Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?” by Reginald Lewis helped him negotiate a three-year, $54 million contract with the team.Ted S. Warren/Associated PressThe union does not push players either way on hiring agents. But it provides players who represent themselves access to its database of contracts and reviews any proposed contract language, just as it does for agents. Since 2016, the union has required agents to send all contracts that average $2 million or more a year to the union’s lawyers for review to ensure that agents are sufficiently protecting their clients.“The union-agent relationship is complicated and sometimes adversarial,” said George Atallah, the spokesman for the N.F.L. Players Association. “But when it comes to representing players, we haven’t changed our model of providing services to the agents.”For now, just 17 players represent themselves according the N.F.L.P.A., but that may change in the coming years as college athletes, now allowed to earn money off their names, images and likenesses before turning pro, become better educated about their value and how others profit from it.“With name, image and likeness rules, you’re going to have more young people recognizing their worth,” said Charles Grantham, the director of the Center for Sport Management at Seton Hall and a former N.B.A. agent and union executive. Agents may be forced to cut their fees to secure players, he added. “It’s definitely going to change the economics of the business.”Over time, Grantham and others said, the younger generation’s awareness could lead them to take the same leap as Jackson.“A lot of it is players waking up to realizing the power that they have and how they can execute if they educate themselves the way that they should,” Wagner said. It’s all part of a bigger picture of players becoming more aware of their potential outside of the sport that they play.” More

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      Clinton Portis, Former NFL Players Plead Guilty to Defrauding Insurance Plan

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      Clinton Portis was among 15 people who pleaded guilty in a scheme to bilk an insurance fund that repays retired players for out-of-pocket medical care expenses.Clinton Portis, the former star running back in Washington and Denver, and two other former N.F.L. pros pleaded guilty for their roles in a wide-ranging effort to defraud a health care benefit program for retired players, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Portis and Tamarick Vanover pleaded guilty on Friday, while Robert McCune, a ringleader of the scheme, entered his plea on Aug. 24.In all, 15 people have pleaded guilty to taking part in a plan to defraud the Gene Upshaw N.F.L. Player Health Reimbursement Account Plan, which repays former players for out-of-pocket medical care expenses up to $350,000.The N.F.L. declined to comment. The N.F.L. Players Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.According to court documents, Portis submitted fraudulent claims for nearly $100,000 in medical equipment that was never delivered. Vanover recruited three other former N.F.L. players and helped them file false claims for almost $160,000 total.McCune, the Justice Department said, orchestrated the fraud, which included submitting about $2.9 million in false claims, for which the plan paid out about $2.5 million between June 2017 and April 2018.Cigna, the insurance company that administers the plan, detected claims for expensive medical equipment that raised alarms. According to Portis’s plea deal, a claim from January 2018 included Portis and McCune seeking reimbursement of $44,732 for a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. In another, from March 2018, they asked for a reimbursement of $54,532 for a cryotherapy sauna. Portis, the plea deal said, was “aware of a high probability that the claims McCune submitted on his behalf were false and fraudulent and deliberately ignored that fact.”Portis and Vanover pleaded guilty two days after jurors in their case could not reach a verdict, and a mistrial was ruled on some of the counts against Vanover. A retrial had been scheduled to begin this week.The two former players will be sentenced in January and each face up to 10 years in prison, but will most likely receive far less, based on sentencing guidelines.Jeffrey Darling, a lawyer who represents Vanover, said in an interview that his client decided to plead guilty despite the hung jury in the first trial, because jurors had voted 11 to 1 to convict. In a second trial, “we might not have been able to pull it off again,” Darling said.Darling said Vanover admitted in a settlement that he had provided the personal information of three former N.F.L. players to Reche Caldwell, another former player who worked with McCune to file fake claims. However, “the government was unable to produce any evidence at trial that Mr. Vanover personally facilitated the filing of the claims or that he received any money himself,” Darling said in a written statement.Portis’s lawyer declined to comment.McCune pleaded guilty at the beginning of the trial to all the charges he faced, including multiple counts of health care fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He will be sentenced on Nov. 19 and could face what amounts to a life sentence, if all the charges against him are included.Five other former N.F.L. players were indicted, including former New Orleans Saints receiver Joe Horn. His son Jaycee, a cornerback, was drafted in the first round in April by the Carolina Panthers.Horn and 11 other defendants charged in the case pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud. One of them, Caldwell, died in June 2020.Portis, 40, was by far the best known of the players. Drafted in the second round in 2002 by the Denver Broncos, he was voted Offensive Rookie of the Year. He played 113 games in Denver and Washington and retired in 2010.McCune, 42, was drafted in 2005 and played eight games at linebacker for Washington and the Baltimore Ravens.Vanover, 47, was drafted in 1995 by Kansas City. He played 77 games at receiver for Kansas City and the Chargers.All of the men were originally charged in December 2019. More

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      N.F.L. Sets Stiff Penalties for the Unvaccinated, Jolting Teams

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      Commissioner Roger Goodell said outbreaks traced to an unvaccinated player or staff member could warrant a game forfeiture for their teams. The announcement prompted a backlash from some players.Throughout the off-season, the N.F.L. had stopped short of requiring that its players and other team personnel receive a Covid-19 vaccination, instead strongly encouraging inoculation. More

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      N.F.L. Salary Cap to Rise as Much as 14 Percent in 2022 Amid Pandemic Rebound

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      If fans are in stadiums and games are played as anticipated in 2021, the salary cap for 2022 could be as much as $208.2 million.The N.F.L. and the N.F.L. Players Association on Wednesday agreed to raise the salary cap by as much as 14 percent, to a maximum of $208.2 million, for the 2022 season, according to a person with direct knowledge of the agreement, a sign that the league is quickly rebounding from the financial havoc caused by the coronavirus pandemic last season.The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement had not been announced.After losing roughly $4 billion in revenue last season because of prohibitions on fans attending games, the league and the players’ union agreed to cut the salary cap — or the maximum amount teams can spend on player payroll — by 8 percent, to $182.5 million, for the 2021 season. This was only the second time the cap had been lowered since the spending limit was introduced in 1994. For the 2020 season, the salary cap — which was based on revenue from 2019 ticket sales and from preset 2020 media-deal numbers — was $198.2 million.Once the lost revenue from 2021 was calculated, the owners and the union — which split the revenue each year, with about 53 percent going to team owners and 47 percent to players — agreed to reduce the salary cap’s growth over several years rather than take a more drastic decline for one or two seasons. But now it seems that the cap will rise roughly as was expected before the pandemic.N.F.L. revenue appears likely to rebound more quickly than anticipated, for several reasons. In the coming season, the league will add a 17th regular season game, which will generate more ticket revenue for teams. Also, nearly all of the 32 teams have announced plans to host full-capacity crowds at their games this fall. The league drew just 1.2 million fans last year, down from about 17 million before the pandemic.The league also plans to return to playing several games outside the United States in 2021, after canceling all international travel last season.“We do expect a more normal experience” this season, Commissioner Roger Goodell said on a conference call with reporters.The N.F.L. also expects more income from its new media contracts, including the sale to Amazon of the rights to show Thursday Night Football starting in 2022. Amazon agreed to pay an estimated $1.1 billion per year for 10 years to show those games, about 35 percent more than Fox, which is entering the final year of its agreement.Many of the other new media agreements that the league secured in March, with CBS, NBC and other networks, do not begin until the 2023 season, all but ensuring that the salary cap will continue to grow in the coming years.The league typically announces the salary cap for the upcoming season at its owners meeting in December. The $208.2 million cap for the 2022 season presumes all games will be played in full stadiums. If those plans change, the cap might be lowered.Separately, the N.F.L. owners, in a one-day meeting on Wednesday, approved limits on team rosters. Teams will be able to invite 90 players to training camps when they open in late July. The rosters will have to be cut to 85 on Aug. 17, 80 on Aug. 24 and 53 on Aug. 31, after the third and final preseason game.Goodell declined to say what percentage of players were currently vaccinated. The league and union agreed to loosen restrictions on players who are vaccinated, in hopes of increasing the number of people who are inoculated. The league said that more than 90 percent of essential staff members on 30 of the 32 teams had already been vaccinated.The owners also approved an expansion of the prohibition against blocking below the waist. Players will now be penalized if they block an opponent below the waist beyond 5 yards on either side of the line of scrimmage and more than 2 yards outside of either offensive tackle. The rule is designed to reduce the risk of knee and ankle injuries. More

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      After a Workout Push, the N.F.L. Players Union Falls Flat

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      Union leadership had led a charge for players to workout on their own. But when the Broncos cut a player after a season-ending injury, tensions over the effort were revealed.At the beginning of May, just a few days after the N.F.L. draft, the N.F.L. Players Association hosted a conference call for hundreds of rookies and their agents. The call was ostensibly to welcome the players to the league and explain their benefits as union members. But during the discussion, J.C. Tretter, the union’s president, also repeated a pitch that he has made to veterans for months: Most off-season workouts are voluntary, and no player should feel obliged to attend them.Harold Lewis, one of the agents on the call, pushed back. Telling rookies to avoid off-season workouts was “complete insanity,” he said in a phone interview, because they are critical opportunities to impress coaches. Veterans with guaranteed contracts may feel secure enough in their jobs to skip a week or two of workouts, but players who still must earn a roster spot may not.“When you’re talking about rookies, whether it’s the first pick or Mr. Irrelevant, to tell them not to show up, I don’t understand it,” Lewis said, recounting his dispute with union leadership on the call. “And for an undrafted player, it’s suicidal.”The rookies were just the latest group that the players’ union has pushed to avoid off-season workouts. At the N.F.L.P.A.’s urging, veterans from half the N.F.L.’s teams pledged not to attend voluntary camps, with Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady out in front on the issue. Tretter, an offensive lineman for Cleveland, claimed that less than half of all players showed up for the first workouts in late April.The union’s campaign to dilute off-season workouts hit an unexpected and unfortunate speed bump on May 4, a day after the pitch to rookies. Ja’Wuan James, an offensive lineman for the Denver Broncos with seven years’ experience, tore an Achilles’ tendon while working out on his own, instead of at the team’s facility. The Broncos put him on the non-football injury list, which is normally for players who get hurt doing activities other than training for football.Seeming to back the Broncos’ decision, the N.F.L. sent teams a memo on May 5 with the reminder that they are under no obligation to pay players injured away from team facilities. A week later, the Broncos then released James, with the option to void the $10 million salary he would have been paid this season.DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the players’ union, said this week that James could reach a settlement with Denver, or the union may file a grievance on his behalf. James’s agent did not return a request for comment.Still, James said on social media that he felt snookered. His salary would not have been at risk if he was injured during a voluntary workout at the team’s facility, a fine point detailed in the league’s labor agreement that applies to all players.But James followed the union’s advice and now he is suffering the unintended consequences. He added his voice to calls for the players’ union to indemnify players who were injured working out on their own. “@NFLPA if your gonna advise all of us we need you to have our backs on the other end of this,” he wrote on Twitter.After James called on the N.F.L.P.A. for support, Tretter did not say what help it would provide, only that there was no way to fully protect players. “As players competing at the sport’s highest level, the reality is that we must train year-round, meaning we assume an inherent level of risk during the majority of the off-season while preparing on our own away from the facility,” he wrote in his newsletter on Monday.James’s injury ignited an already simmering debate about off-season workouts, and the union’s one-size-fits-all advice to members who have very different priorities.At issue are “voluntary” workouts that coaches have made all but mandatory in recent years, according to the union. Tretter pointed to 2020, when all off-season workouts were scrapped because of the coronavirus pandemic and players made it through training camp and the season no worse for the wear. He also claimed that there were an inordinate number of injuries during these off-season workouts that could have been avoided if coaches didn’t push players so hard.In a league as cutthroat as the N.F.L., players without assured roster spots or roles — and there are hundreds of them — have no choice but to show up to the minicamps in April, May and June if they hope to win one. Even though James had a long-term contract, he too had something to prove: He opted not to play last year during the pandemic, and a knee injury limited him to just three games in 2019, his first season in Denver after five with Miami.These competing priorities are another reminder of the vast gap between the top tier of players, including Brady, who has backed the union’s push, and the far less wealthy players who fill most roster spots and are typically out of the league after just a few years. The union’s campaign to reduce injuries during the off-season is admirable, but telling players to stay home raises questions about whose bidding the N.F.L.P.A. is doing.DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the union, said this week that James could reach a settlement with his old team, or the union may file a grievance on his behalf. Perry Knotts/NFL, via Associated Press“It might be fine for Tom Brady to avoid minicamp, but he isn’t a representative example of a football player,” said Brad Sohn, a lawyer who has represented numerous injured players. “This speaks to who the union is trying to represent, its loudest and most influential constituents or all of its members.”News reports suggest the percentage of players at the second set of workouts that began this week is higher, a sign that rank-and-file players are having second thoughts.Lewis said one of his clients, Keanu Neal, has gone to Cowboys’ minicamp this spring because he wanted to impress his new bosses (he spent his first five years with the Falcons) and start learning his new position, linebacker. “Of course he’d like to be back home in Florida with his wife and newborn baby, but he is trying to build a future for them and the sacrifice of just a few weeks is worth it,” Lewis said.Ross Tucker, a former offensive lineman, said he battled for roster spots throughout his seven-year career and always attended off-season workouts because he never wanted to give a coach a reason to cut him. “There’s no way I would have hurt my career because of a new N.F.L.P.A. initiative,” said Tucker, who has his own football podcast.But there are only nine weeks of off-season workouts, so players are left alone for 20 weeks. Tucker said that he knew that his salary was at risk if he was injured away from the facility, so he stopped playing basketball and skiing while he was in the league.Most players, though, don’t listen to the warnings, which is a problem when the union tells its members to consider skipping minicamps, he said.“You’re talking with guys in their 20s and a lot of them feel invincible and they’re not reading up on what the rules are,” he said. “It’s hard to help guys who don’t want to be helped.” More

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      Months Before Season, N.F.L. and Players Clash Over Pandemic Workouts

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      Players on 14 teams announced they would not attend off-season programming because of concerns about the coronavirus. Some may give up financial benefits in the process.Five months before the regular season starts, the N.F.L. and its players are facing their first clash over playing in the pandemic, with players for nearly half of the teams vowing to skip voluntary off-season workouts.Players on 14 of the league’s 32 teams, including the Giants, the Jets and the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said in statements released by the N.F.L. Players Association that they would not participate in the workouts scheduled to begin Monday because of concerns it would be unsafe to gather.Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady was among players who spoke out to the news media and on social media.“We feel very strongly about the game, the short- and long-term health of the players, and there is no game without strong, healthy players,” Brady said in a conference call with The New York Times and the union’s leadership. “People within the league may think, ‘Oh, let’s just get back to business, let’s go back to what we’ve usually done.’ But I think it’s really smart for people and players to think, ‘Is this the best possible way to do things?’ Not, ‘Is this tolerable, but is it the best way to deal with the situation?’”The N.F.L. declined to comment.The union has called for a virtual off-season — essentially players working out on their own away from team complexes — similar to what took place in 2020. Although a nationwide vaccine campaign is underway, the union argues that the danger is still high.Last season, the N.F.L. shifted its off-season program to a virtual format, with the only in-person work happening at training camps in August. This spring, the union asked the league to use a similar format, while allowing for a mandatory minicamp in June. The league declined, citing protocols that it said would allow the workouts to occur safely.That prompted the players to mobilize. J.C. Tretter, a center for the Cleveland Browns and the president of the union, wrote an open letter to members with DeMaurice Smith, the union executive director, encouraging players not to attend.The league and the union signed a new collective bargaining agreement in 2020, stipulating that off-season workouts were optional, which Smith and Tretter’s letter emphasized. Players then organized calls and team meetings to discuss their stances, some choosing to collectively release statements.The nine-week off-season regimen, which the league published on Wednesday, consists of three phases that gradually increase the level of physical interaction. The first phase will be virtual, with chances for players to work out in the team weight rooms. The next phase allows for on-field work at a gradual pace before traditional full-speed, organized team activities and the minicamp conclude the program.Last season, despite virus outbreaks at team facilities and a flurry of schedule changes, the N.F.L. played all 256 regular-season games and a full playoff slate, culminating with the Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla.The N.F.L., which had put in place protocols such as regular testing, mask wearing and social distancing at team facilities, reported that 262 players and 463 team personnel tested positive for the coronavirus, yielding a 0.08 percent positive rate. Similar protocols would be in place this off-season.But Smith said those procedures did not apply to the current situation. More players will be in team buildings as they vie for a spot on the active roster, increasing the possibility for transmission. Others may not live in the city where the team is based during the spring and summer — Tretter said he was one of about six players who had entered the Browns’ facility this off-season — and travel will create chances for exposure.Players should not need to jeopardize their health for optional workouts, unlike during the regular season when they would need to be present daily, Smith said.“It’s balancing necessary versus unnecessary risks,” Smith said. “Our guys have to be there from week to week to compete at the level that our fans want them to compete on Sunday. Off-season workouts are something we know that is not needed for a successful season.”Data compiled by the players association show 172 concussions were reported in 2020, a 30 percent drop from the average of 247 concussions reported per year over the last five seasons. Missed-time injuries, defined as injuries sustained that affect a player’s availability during the season, dropped to 2,716, a 23 percent decrease from the five-season average of 3,524.Tretter argued that those statistics show it is in the N.F.L.’s best interest to continue last season’s template, something Brady agreed with.“If we want to make the game better, we have to continue to make better year-round choices as individuals, as teams, as a league.” Brady said.Tretter said that the workouts had “completely lost the definition of voluntary” and that some players might feel forced to go. “There’s an expectation that you’re just supposed to show up and put up with whatever the N.F.L. asks of you,” Tretter said. “Guys are remembering now that they have a choice to attend.”Still, some view the off-season programs as beneficial. More than 200 players could receive financial bonuses for attending off-season workouts, according to OvertheCap.com, a perk included in their contracts. Teams have discretion to qualify what counts as a workout, including whether they want a player to attend physically or virtually.The face-to-face interaction can build camaraderie between new players, and offers those on the fringe of the roster a chance to impress coaches early.Leigh Steinberg, a longtime agent who represents Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, said he sided with the union, but would advise any client to make the best individual decision.“When they call for advice, it’s a personal choice,” Steinberg said. “It’s predicated on their position with the team, how secure they feel in their position and how much work they really need.” More

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      N.F.L. Signs Media Deals Worth Over $100 Billion

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      The new deals with broadcasters and streaming services pave the way for team owners to add a 17th regular season game to the schedule and to recoup revenue lost with reduced fan attendance in 2020.The N.F.L. signed new media rights agreements with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN and Amazon collectively worth about $110 billion over 11 years, nearly doubling the value of its previous contracts.The contracts, which will take effect in 2023 and run through the 2033 season, will cement the N.F.L.’s status as the country’s most lucrative sports league. They will also set the stage for the league’s owners to make good on plans to expand the regular season to include a 17th game and charge more for broadcasting rights.The league’s soaring revenues will aid far-reaching plans for the next decade, a period when team owners hope to expand the N.F.L.’s already robust calendar, make deeper inroads into overseas markets and increase the football audience via streaming services. The N.F.L. is poised to more than recoup the roughly $4 billion in losses wrought by not having maximum capacity attendance at games in 2020.“Along with our recently completed labor agreement with the N.F.L.P.A., these distribution agreements bring an unprecedented era of stability to the League and will permit us to continue to grow and improve our game,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement.According to four people familiar with the agreements who requested anonymity because they were not authorized by the N.F.L. to speak publicly about the deals, CBS, Fox and NBC will pay more than $2 billion each to hold onto their slots, with NBC paying slightly less than CBS and Fox. ESPN will pay about $2.7 billion a year to continue airing Monday Night Football, but also to be added into the rotation to broadcast the Super Bowl beginning in 2026. The agreement with ESPN starts one year earlier, in 2022, because its current contract expires one year earlier than the others.Each of the broadcasters’ deals include agreements for their respective streaming platforms, while Amazon will show Thursday night games on its Amazon Prime Video service.“Over the last five years, we started the migration to streaming. Our fans want this option, and the league understands that streaming is the future,” said Robert K. Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and chairman of the N.F.L.’s media committee.The N.F.L. has not yet announced who will broadcast Sunday Ticket, a subscription service that lets fans watch out-of-market weekend games that are not broadcast nationally. DirecTV has the rights to that service through 2022.The jump in revenue will not initially change the fortunes of players, who are locked into a 10-year collective bargaining agreement narrowly ratified in March 2020. Under the terms of that labor deal, players will see a bump in their share of the N.F.L.’s revenue, up to 48.5 percent from 47, while team owners negotiated the option to add a 17th game to the regular season schedule in 2021, something players had long opposed.It will be the first major expansion to the N.F.L. season in more than four decades, when teams began playing 16 games, up from 14, in 1978.Player salaries in the next few years will rise moderately because most media agreements are graduated, with the first year of a new deal worth only marginally more than the last year of an expiring deal. N.F.L. team owners are expected to formally approve the additional game at their annual meeting in late March, when there is likely to be little dissent. Once the additional game is approved, players and team owners will work out the calendar logistics, which could include eliminating one of the four preseason games teams are required to play and adding a second bye week to each of the 32 team schedules.Many other competitive issues will also have to be resolved, as extending the regular season by one game could also affect other fixtures in the N.F.L. calendar that were adjusted last season because of the coronavirus pandemic. The owners voted on Dec. 16 to make the extra game an interconference matchup so as to not affect playoff tiebreakers. But still unresolved are the timing of off-season workouts, the start dates of training camps and the regular season’s start and end dates.The league was able to fully complete its 2020 season on schedule in part because it worked hand-in-hand with the N.F.L. Players Association to hammer out Covid-19 protocols and a raft of other rules.The union’s executive director, DeMaurice Smith, has said that no decision would be made “without an eye to what we’ve learned this year.” “March and April of 2021 is not going to look like March and April of 2018 and 2019,” he added.The labor deal also included an expanded playoff format, with an extra team added in each conference, more limited training camps and a relaxation of the rules governing the use of marijuana.Many players initially balked at the idea of a longer regular season, which they said increased their chances of injury. But the team owners were eager to expand the regular season as a way to entice the league’s national television partners to pay more for broadcast rights.All of the N.F.L.’s national media agreements — which together have an average annual value of nearly $8 billion — were set to expire over the next two years. ESPN’s deal to show Monday night games was scheduled to end after the 2021 season, while agreements with CBS, Fox, NBC, DirecTV, Verizon and Amazon were in place through the 2022 season.Before the coronavirus pandemic, many television and digital media executives said the N.F.L. had the upper hand in negotiating major increases in rights fees because the league had a long-term labor deal in place and because its programming took less of a ratings hit than other broadcasts of U.S.-based sports during the pandemic. Ratings for regular season football fell just 7 percent, compared to 20 percent for prime time broadcast television and even larger declines for other marquee sports events like the Masters, the N.B.A. finals and the Stanley Cup finals.N.F.L. games are also the most watched programming on television by far, making up 76 of the 100 most watched television programs in 2020.Other leagues have also signed new agreements with big increases during the pandemic. The Southeastern Conference received nearly a sixfold increase in money for its marquee college football games, while the N.H.L. will almost assuredly see its media payments double when it finishes selling its rights. More

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      N.F.L. Sets Salary Cap at $182.5 Million in 2021

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyN.F.L. Sets Salary Cap at $182.5 Million in 2021The figure is down 8 percent from 2020, an anticipated decline based on revenue lost because of the coronavirus pandemic.N.F.L. franchises will have nearly $16 million less than they did last year to pay players, which is sure to distort how general managers allocate their more limited funds.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesMarch 10, 2021Updated 4:28 p.m. ETThe N.F.L. has determined the salary cap for the 2021 season, saying each team will have $182.5 million to spend on player payroll, nearly 8 percent less than in 2020, when revenues were cleaved by the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, the salary cap was $198.2 million, a league record.A decline in the cap, the maximum amount available for teams to spend on player salaries and bonuses, was expected, but it was less severe than anticipated. Still, N.F.L. franchises will have nearly $16 million less than they had last year to pay players, which is sure to distort how general managers allocate their more limited funds.Sports Business Journal was first to report the final salary cap figure, which fell for only the second time since the spending limit was introduced in 1994.With the free-agent market loaded with big-name quarterbacks and other star players looking to relocate, teams seeking to sign those players will have less money left to fill out their rosters. That could lead general managers to sign more rookies and free agents who are willing to play for league-minimum salaries or to sign the biggest names to one-year deals, rather than look to veterans seeking lucrative long-term contracts.Of the 500 or so players looking for new deals, many of them are young players at the end of their rookie contracts who are seeking second deals that reflect their value (think JuJu Smith-Schuster of the Pittsburgh Steelers) or established players seeking to cash in on longer résumés. Trent Williams, an eight-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle, and Jadeveon Clowney, a three-time Pro Bowl defensive end, are expected to garner significant interest, as are midcareer players like defensive end Shaquil Barrett, whose stock has risen because of his role in helping the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win the Super Bowl in February.As a practical matter, each team’s salary cap is subject to adjustments based on rollover amounts from players under contract that they cut or traded. Some teams, like the Cleveland Browns and the New England Patriots, will have more than $200 million in payroll to spend in 2021.Still, the salary cap is a barometer of the health of the league, and the lower cap reflects some grim math: The N.F.L. lost about $4 billion in revenue last season by limiting attendance at games. About 1.2 million fans watched N.F.L. games in person, down from about 17 million in a typical season. Teams lost tens of millions of dollars because of a decline in sales of tickets, suites, food, beverages, parking and sponsorships.The league initially set a salary cap of $175 million to make up for the lost revenue, then raised it to $180 million before settling on $182.5 million.The only other time the salary cap declined was in the 2011 season, in somewhat of a fluke. In 2010, the N.F.L. played without a cap because team owners, unhappy with the labor agreement, exercised their option in 2008 to end the deal ahead of schedule as a way of prompting both sides to return to bargaining. The union and league failed to reach a new deal, however, triggering a capless year. When the two sides ultimately agreed, the salary cap for 2011 was set at $120 million, less than the $123 million salary cap in 2009.The final increase does not reflect revenue that will be generated in newly negotiated broadcast agreements, which are expected to be completed in the coming weeks. The money from those deals is expected to grow by 50 percent to 100 percent over the next decade or so, a windfall that is likely to grow the salary cap significantly in the coming years.ESPN’s deal to broadcast games on Monday nights expires at the end of the 2021 season, as does Fox’s agreement to carry Thursday night games. The league’s other contracts, with CBS, NBC and other carriers, expire after the 2022 season.The N.F.L. and the N.F.L. Players Association could have faced a far worse situation had they not agreed to a 10-year labor agreement last year on March 15 as the coronavirus pandemic was causing shutdowns in the United States. That agreement ensured the two sides would have terms in place to avoid a work stoppage and gave the league enough certainty to begin negotiations with its broadcast partners.A person familiar with the league’s finances said the salary cap could have fallen to about $160 million if the labor agreement had not been signed last March and had negotiations spilled into what was already a chaotic 2020 season. The new labor deal gave the owners the right to add a 17th regular-season game, which they are likely to do in 2021, adding another source of revenue to offset the impact of the pandemic.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      N.F.L. Union Delays Cuts in Disability Payments to Ex-Players

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDisabled Former N.F.L. Players Get a Reprieve on Benefit CutsA reduction of disability payments, scheduled to start next month, has been delayed for three years, the players union announced.Cleveland Browns center J.C. Tretter is the president of the N.F.L. Players Association. He had promised a re-examination of the plan to cut benefits.Credit…David Richard/Associated PressPublished More