NFL Lockout 2011: League Owners Ask Federal Court To Dismiss Players' Antitrust Lawsuit

MINNEAPOLIS — As the labor battle between NFL owners and players moved from the bargaining table to the courtroom, judges at each stop have urged both sides to reach an agreement before they have to issue significant rulings.

The latest nudge in that direction came on Monday from U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson, who scheduled a hearing on the owners' motion to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit from a group of players for Sept. 12.

Coincidentally or not, Sept. 12 is four days after the regular season is set to open in Green Bay, and one day after the first Sunday of games for the 2011 season.

Shortly after the owners filed their motion to dismiss on Monday, Nelson announced when she would hear arguments on the motion.

The timing is significant, given that the Packers are scheduled to host the New Orleans Saints on Sept. 8, and the NFL has big plans for the first Sunday of action to commemorate the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Both sides hope that hearing never has to happen. The NFL and its players held settlement discussions in Chicago last week, but there is no sign a new collective bargaining agreement is imminent.

A group of players including superstar quarterbacks Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees filed the antitrust lawsuit against the owners, alleging their lockout of the players is illegal.

Nelson initially ruled in favor of the players in April, requiring the league to lift the lockout and let the players get back to work. That ruling has been appealed to the 8th Circuit in St. Louis, where a three-judge panel heard arguments on Friday and is considering the matter.

The 8th Circuit put Nelson's ruling on hold while it considers the appeal, though it is unclear when they will issue a ruling. In the meantime, the judges urged both sides to get back to the bargaining table and hammer out a deal.

Judge Kermit Bye told attorneys on Friday that if no deal is done before the panel comes to a conclusion, they will likely offer up a decision that will be "probably something both sides aren't going to like."

The owners argue, among other things, that Nelson did not have the jurisdiction to lift the lockout while the National Labor Relations Board is considering an unfair labor charge brought by the league against the players.

The NLRB's regional office in New York forwarded a preliminary report to the national board in Washington, but a spokeswoman said Monday it "doesn't mean a decision is around the corner."

The two sides are engaged in a sometimes bitter dispute over how to divide $9 billion in revenue, a fight that has already caused some minicamps and offseason programs to be lost, free agency and trades to be delayed and resulted in hundreds of employees for teams across the league having their paychecks cut.

The start of training camp is less than two months away, and teams are already making contingency plans if the lockout drags on. The Minnesota Vikings plan to have a date set this week that, if the lockout continued to that point, would force them to cancel training camp in Mankato.

The owners are required to file a full brief supporting their motion by Aug. 1.

Comments

[Jeffrey Micheal Jones]

01:20 AM on 06/18/2011

Could the NFL be Eminent domained?
After all, the cities that these teams are based in will lose tax revenue and the other businesses that depend on the games will be affected!
Not to mention that several of these teams owners got the the local city governments to pay for new staduims.
The NFL owners won't negotiate in fair faith, won't open their books, use a draft system of ownership of potential players, demand more games and double their own salery.... I say Eminent domain the teams to the cities that support them!!!!

[MtnGeek]

03:22 PM on 06/08/2011

They can sit in court rooms and press conferences bad mouthing each other, but the fans are already losing interest. There won't be a big pot of money to split if you piss off everyone who pays to watch the games ... so I am guessing this will all fix itself when the fans move on and there is no longer anything that looks like the old NFL.

[lambdin1]

08:30 AM on 06/08/2011

A silly waste of the court's time! Millionairs and Billionairs fighting in court...gag...

[LawTalkingGuy]

05:34 PM on 06/07/2011

The NFL owners are a bunch of rich guys (except for Green Bay, which is publicly owned) that have decided to invest their money in a scheme that involves substantial redistirbution of income from rich teams to poor teams because they know that this is necessary to keep the league competitive, the game exciting, the play top-notch, and the marketing dollars flowing.

The NFL is America's greatest ad for socialism. Substantial redistribution, NOT free markets, are what the rich do when they play with each other. It's only when poor people become involved that redistribution becomes an evil and pure selfishness a virtue. When they're honest with themselves and their peers, they know it really doesn't work and active management of their market - with redistribution of wealth!! - is the way to stay competitive and profitable.

Think about that the next time you get a chance to watch an NFL game. It is a triumph of socialism!

[Robert Paul Locke]

01:40 PM on 06/07/2011

I have about enough of this! If I had a yard stick. I beat both the players and the owners with it. I have had enough of this Male Macho Pandering crap! When are they going to act like men and get this worked out? Do we have to get The God father involved here? When are these cowards going to become men and work this out? Its so much easier to do nothing then it is to work something out? I challenges the players to explain it to me here. Or on national tv on Why they and the owners are both being cowards? I want Answers. ! and I want them now! Or you will loose me to soccer! You freakin jerks. come on Players. I know theres gotta be some one from the NFL Who reads this blog. here I'll even give you my email.

[speakingtruth2power]

10:49 AM on 06/07/2011

How is this any different than what is happening in Wisconsin and Ohio?

The greed on display is disgusting and so is the lust for ultimate control.

[BillZBubb]

11:33 AM on 06/07/2011

First the obvious: The executive and legislative branches of the NFL haven't been hijacked by anti-union fanatics who are using a temporary revenue problem to bust unions and trash modestly paid workers. The NFL owners WANT A VIABLE PLAYERS UNION, because that gives them anti-trust protection that they need. That's the main difference.

Also, the unions in Wisconsin and Ohio didn't voluntarily decertify themselves to engage in a court fight. They are real unions, not unions of convenience. The unions in Wisconsin and Ohio weren't offered mediation, on the contrary they were to be denied that right. The NFL players "union" of convenience walked out of negotiations when the owners had put a reasonable, though not perfect, offer on the table and went right to court.

The list could go on and on.

[centsable]

10:01 AM on 06/07/2011

What happens to season ticket holders who have paid for a product they won't recieve...they should sue the owners.

[BillZBubb]

10:11 AM on 06/07/2011

If they don't get a refund, yes they should.

[LawTalkingGuy]

05:36 PM on 06/07/2011

They should check the contract they signed first. The beauty of the 'free market' is that the league knew they were oging on lockout, and included clauses in your purchase contract that obligate you to pay whether the games go on or not. Of course, you were free to read that contract and get legal advice on it, and you were free not to buy tickets if you thought the risk was too much.

Of course, the risk was always in their hands and their choice, but they get to push the cost on fans and broadcasters while billionaires lock out millionaires over greed.

[Bloodwart]

09:34 AM on 06/07/2011

Where the heck is my comment from last night?? There was absolutely nothing offensive about it. Some of us are getting mighty tired of this.

[LawTalkingGuy]

05:37 PM on 06/07/2011

It's just a HuffPo comment. If you are posting them, then coming back to search for them, then getting in a snit when you can't find them, you need a hobby.

[manface]

08:33 AM on 06/07/2011

By the way, the contract that all the owners signed still had two years left before the owners opted out of and started the lockout

[BillZBubb]

10:00 AM on 06/07/2011

The owners and players agreed in that contract that the opt out was an option. The owners abided by the contract.

The players walked away from negotiations, decertified the union, filed suit, and forced the owners to institute a lockout to protect themselves from anti-trust violations.

[LawTalkingGuy]

05:38 PM on 06/07/2011

Do you work for the owners? What interest do you have in describing the dispute between billionaire owners and their millionaire players in such a one-sided fashion?

[TXconfidnz]

08:16 AM on 06/07/2011

Sheesh, NFL owners. You keep asking for the lawsuit to get dismissed... don't you think that makes it look like YOU are in the wrong?

[BillZBubb]

10:16 AM on 06/07/2011

???? How does it make someone look in the wrong to ask for the dismissal of a lawsuit? If you got arrested for a crime you didn't commit, wouldn't you want your attorney to ask the judge at your arraignment to throw out the case? Would that make you look guilty?

The owner's have a legitimate argument under the labor laws to ask for a dismissal. Whether it is a winning argument remains to be seen. It really comes down to whether the decertification of the union was a sham and done with too much haste given that the sides were in mediation at the time. If the court finds that to be the case, the decertified union's case in Brady has no standing and would be dismissed.

[bassboatboy]

08:06 AM on 06/07/2011

(MORE) SHAMELESS CORPORATE TAX DEDUCTIONS

[WhatDaBleep]

08:03 AM on 06/07/2011

Let the players strike and the owners close the stadiums and the sport will soon be forgotten and replaced by something else.

[InnaGaddaDaVida]

08:57 AM on 06/07/2011

The Brietbart Hour on Fox Noise.

[DogWoodDaze]

07:45 AM on 06/07/2011

Where's the outrage over player's salaries? Or is it OK to make $10M per year as long as you're in a union?

[manface]

08:26 AM on 06/07/2011

#1 outrage- it costs 200$ to take my family to the game
#2 outrage- the owners make the players look homeless by comparison and they do not have an average career of 3 years( that is the average playing time)
#3 outrage- it costs 7$ for a cheap plastic cup of beer
#4 outrage- players salaries (especially when my teams owner gives the bank to a lame player)

[VeryGrood]

11:04 AM on 06/07/2011

$200 for your family? That must be a small family... You can't touch a cheap-seat in Indy for less than $75.

The players' salaries aren't as big as they seem. They have less than 4 years to work. The majority of players don't make millions per year. The average salary is somewhere around $800,000 and they get no benefits when they retire.

If you look at it like that- many players will only make $300,000 per year.... and only work 4 years. $1.2M no benefits isn't very much money.

A lot of the superstars are going to court to fight for these guys... Manning, Brady, etc... are suing for the lower paid guys.... because of the media exposure their names draw.

[VeryGrood]

09:52 AM on 06/07/2011

The average player will make $770,000 per year. If you look take the superstars's salaries out of the picture... that number will drop significantly.... if you look at the bottom 50% of players, they're only going to make ~$400,000 per year. The average lifespan of an NFL player is just short of 4 years.

$1.6M total earnings. They will not get health care after they retire.

If a normal person retires at 65... that comes out to something like $35,000 per year to make the same amount. That is hardly 'rich' or 'wealthy' or any other adjective like that.

[centsable]

10:04 AM on 06/07/2011

And this from a 10 billion dollar sports industry...F&F!!!

[BillZBubb]

11:44 AM on 06/07/2011

So, a 22 year old non-starter on an NFL team makes $1.6 million over four years and then goes into the normal work force at 26. And he can't get health care? At 26? Is he unable to find any employment after the NFL?

These guys get paid a lot of money at a young age to do something they love doing. There are risks, but exactly what percentage of the players with a 4 year career are so worn down they have no other income prospects? There is life after football.

BTW, the proposal the owners offered in mediation that the players representatives totally dismissed and didn't even make a counter to offered greatly expanded health care benefits for both current and retired players.

[Joe Mastromauro]

07:08 AM on 06/07/2011

How to divide 9 billion in revenue.... Reimburse cities for stadiums built at taxpayer expense.

[stanton89]

06:45 AM on 06/07/2011

Players want it both ways . Now they say their union is dissolved, but at the same time their negotiator is still around. Unions are nothing but trouble!

[manface]

08:28 AM on 06/07/2011

if the gop could blame unions for global warming they would believe in it

[stanton89]

08:51 AM on 06/07/2011

Kind of hard to put a blame on something that does not exist

[InnaGaddaDaVida]

08:59 AM on 06/07/2011

I guess the only thing I can blame unions for is having terrible PR offices. For everything the union does for working people, it just can't seem to get its message out.

[VeryGrood]

09:54 AM on 06/07/2011

The union will be reformed when a deal is done. The dissolution of the union wasn't because they players don't want a union.

[krazygraphics]

10:21 AM on 06/07/2011

No point in explaining to these people... there are small triggers in their minds that when they come across a talking point trigger, they ramble nonsense instinctly, regardless of actually assessing the situation or facts.

In this case the trigger was the word Union.

[BillZBubb]

11:39 AM on 06/07/2011

In that case the decertification was a sham and the owners will win the case in the Eighth Circuit. It is a violation of the CBA and labor laws to decertify a union as a pretense to circumvent the mediation process.

BTW, the owners want a union as much as the players. They have to have a union to avoid anti-trust problems. People attacking the owners as anti-union need to learn this fact.