The Agreement That Had To Be

Maybe Roger Goodell was inspired by the legendary tenures of his predecessors as Commissioner of the NFL, Paul Tagliabue and Pete Rozelle. Perhaps DeMaurice Smith was channeling the spirits of the recently late former NFLPA presidents, Eugene Upshaw and John Mackey. Whatever it was, the stewards of the opposing sides in the National Football League's labor war finally made up their minds to forge a ten-year agreement. This was the kind of solution where neither side got all it wanted, but where both sides won. This agreement had to be. There was far too much at stake for it not to happen.

Pro football has supplanted baseball as America's Number One sport. It is ingrained in our society. It has almost become America's newest Sunday religion. We fans of the game are riveted by it. We watch it. We bet on it. We play fantasy football. We enter office pools. We decorate our cars and desks and we even dress in our team's official colors and logos. We go to saloons and sports bars devoted to our teams.

When our team wins, we have a great day. We scream. We shout. We Dance. We exult. When they lose, we are down. We question strategies. We question effort. We hurl questions and insults and epithets at our wide-screen TVs, as if the players and coaches can hear and heed us. We angrily call the local all-sports radio station to voice our frustration.

But mostly, we attend. Those of us who live near the team and are lucky enough to be able to afford it, can buy season tickets and support the team in person. And season ticket holders do, literally, support their teams. And so do television viewers. The advertising money brought in by high TV ratings for the NFL is staggering. Put it all together, and there are nine billion reasons each year for the NFL to keep playing the game we all love.

So, the agreement had to be made. I don't know the exact moment it happened. I don't know the exact words that were said, but in one of their private meetings, one or both of Goodell and Smith said to the other, "You know what? This isn't going to work as long as our two sides are fighting one another. We are about to blow the sweetest deal ever granted a sport. And the only way we can stop that from happening is by working together!"

Americans are living with an economic quandary of almost impossible proportions. I think it's safe to say that many of us have less disposable income than we've ever had. And yet, like pizza, football never seems to grow unpopular, no matter the overall economic forecast. Forget the Golden Goose. Pro football has been like a Giant Golden Cash Cow that showers its participants with untold millions of dollars. Take that away from the fans - the consumers whose dollars make this gigantic money-making machine go - for a year, and you run the risk of those consumers realizing how much their NFL habits are costing them, each year. You run the risk of those fans sinking their money into something else; something entirely more necessary. If this year's NFL season had been wiped out by a strike, some of those fans might never have come back. After using the unspent money to buy a new home or save the one they already live in, some of those fans might not have been able to come back.

So congrats are in order for Goodell and Smith and all of the players and owners. Instead of trying to break the other side in this dispute, they all realized that their Giant Golden Cash Cow was suddenly in danger of becoming extinct. And they worked together; listened to each other; helped one another. The agreement that resulted is historic, and its length means that the fans won't have to be bothered with labor negotiations for a long, long time. Management and players in pro basketball's labor dispute should look at what pro football did, and take heed.