Although the NFL has begun discussing contingency plans, Roger Goodell said Wednesday the NFL’s expectation remains for Week 1 to start on time. The commissioner, however, said during an appearance on ESPN’s Get Up alternative plans will be in play.
The NFL is working with the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health to establish work procedures, and Goodell said the league and the owners will determine if the season must be delayed.
“We’re going to do the things we need to do to make sure we’re operating safely, and that includes our fans,” Goodell said during the interview (via SportsBusinessDaily.com). “Everything’s on the table. We’ve got to be smart. We want to try to do what we can to continue playing football, but doing it correctly and safely.”
The NFL’s workforce dwarfs the other major American sports’, creating a bigger problem for the league operating under the cloud of a highly contagious virus. Frequent testing of more than 2,000 players and hundreds of coaches would be quite the undertaking, but the NFL is hoping better testing will be in place by the fall.
NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said (via ESPN.com’s Cameron Wolfe) mass testing will indeed be critical to the NFL returning on time next season. Both the NFL and NFLPA have formed task forces to gather information about how the coronavirus is impacting the country, Mike Jones of USA Today notes.
Regarding player salaries in the event of a shortened or canceled season, Smith said the NFL CBA does not contain a force majeure provision. This means the NFL cannot unilaterally cut players’ salaries if the season ends up being canceled. The NFL and NFLPA would need to negotiate a new arrangement if the season is impacted.
“Our salaries are tied to revenue. The CBA is clear on how that’s calculated. It’s also clear about the obligations to the parties in the event of cancellations of games,” Smith said. “[There’s] an obligation for the parties to get together and negotiate in good faith as far as projecting the salary cap. We have provisions in place where we know process-wise what happens.
“The only thing we don’t have to plug into the formula is exactly knowing what’s going to happen. We certainly will be engaging in those projections as we go forward.”
Days after the pandemic halted sports, the NFL was still set to negotiate TV deals that were expected to produce bigger cap spikes than the 2011 CBA did. It is unclear where potential negotiations stand a month later, but Smith now expects the 2021 cap to be impacted by the coronavirus.
“Obviously if there are no fans attending games, there is going to be some impact on ticket revenue,” Smith said. “The impact of this virus is going to cut across not only a scenario that includes no fans but also for companies who don’t have the money available to match or increase their sponsorships that they’ve done in the past. Companies that might spend a tremendous amount of public relations money on luxury suites or anything else.
“You don’t have to look far but the travel and hospitality business is probably the hardest hit, and all of those things could and probably will have an impact on our overall revenue.”
I guess those ideas of playing games in Beijing are all but gone!
Not to worry. Goodell will dream up some other equally brilliant plan that will offer NFL teams the chance to travel to the Delta quadrant to compete against the Cardassians and Hirogin.
The NFL: Thinking about everybody else…..
I’m old school so I wouldn’t be all that upset at seeing a stripped down, minimillist version of the NFL. I remember fondly those games back in the early 60s when the AFL operated with practically no resources at all. Some teams even had players doing their own uniform laundry back then…lol.