Are you ready for some football?! The NFL Lockout is over

NFL owners and players have come to their senses.  The lockout is now over. What that means for the players is that they can officially start training camp and ger ready for real games. What that means for owners is that they can start looking at what players they want to pay, trade or just cut. Rookies now actually have jobs.

What that means for us not working for the NFL is that Fantasy Football and Madden 12 are a go. Well EA was going to go ahead with Madden anyway. The end of the lockout is more important is sport sites and entrepreneur.  The lockout has already cost sport sites millions in advertising. Fantasy football is big business. Sites like footballguys.com lives off what happens in the league. They can not relax for the next 10 years.

The lockout on the part of the owners was greed and complete disregard for NFL fans. The owners spent three years preparing for the lockout. The owners also renegotiated network television contracts to require payments to the league during a lockout but did not plan to share that with the players. At no point did they honestly want to work things out until they saw they had no choice.  The owners lost by a rare 9-0 vote in the U.S. Supreme Court.

On the players part they were actually looking out for the less fortunate of the league. Not everyone that plays in the NFL is a star. The practice team, bench warmers and dare I say ‘kickers;’ do not get paid millions. The players decertified and sued the owners even though commissioner Roger Goodell offered the guaranteed annual increase in player salaries in early March.

So what was the end game of all this drama?

For one rookie bonuses and contracts will be reduced with a four-year salary program and a team option on a fifth year. The rookie payment program includes a provision that benefits agents in the third year of a rookie’s contract. Players also got a new program that will give lifetime health insurance. The players and the owners found a way to both pay the players increased salaries and allow for increasing profits for owners.