The tensions of the NFL’s collective-bargaining negotiations and the drumbeat of the fast approaching March 3 contract deadline played themselves out in a federal courtroom in Minneapolis this morning. U.S. District Court Judge David Doty heard NFLPA lawyers seek his reversal of a decision by Special Master Stephen Burbank that league owners can retain $4B in broadcast rights fees in '11, even if there is a lockout of the players this fall. Referring to internal league documents, union lawyer Thomas Heiden said the owners' proactive decision to redo TV deals so they could build a lockout war chest was all about, “leverage, leverage, leverage” and inflicting “economic harm to the players.”
Heiden and Jeffrey Kessler, another union lawyer, asked Doty to issue an injunction halting the league’s access to the TV payments, which would be made throughout the year. But NFL lawyer Gregg Levy told Doty that the NFL has long had work stoppage payment provisions in its TV deals, that its efforts to gain that cash during '11 was not “malevolent” and that the union, Levy said, “wants this court to put its thumb on the scales of the collective-bargaining process.” He called the possibility of a reversal of Burbank’s decision “repugnant.” Indeed, Doty himself called Burbank’s work on the decision “masterful.”
Reporters from the N.Y. Times, AP, Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press and local television stations all covered the hearing.
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