When the NFL hired Bob Batterman in May 2008, nearly three years before the implementation of a lockout, alarms went off. The man known as “Lockout Bob” is now back, but the reaction isn’t nearly as strong, yet.
Via Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal, the NFL once again has retained Batterman’s services, a full five years before the expiration of the labor deal that was negotiated with Batterman serving as a legal hammer for the 2011 work stoppage.
“I was meeting with the owners . . . and the purpose was, nothing secret about it I don’t think, was preparing for the next round of collective bargaining,” Batterman told Kaplan last week. “The NFL prepares to the nth degree, and we do it in great detail and a lot of process, so we are starting.”
The NFL Players Association shrugged at the news. “Tell him I say Hello and I hope he comes back for round two eventually,” NFLPA spokesman George Atallah told Kaplan.
Eight years ago, the league’s owners had recently exercised their right to opt out early of a labor deal negotiated in 2006, which the NFL quickly had decided was a bad deal. And Batterman was only four years removed from presiding over a season-long lockout in the National Hockey League.
This time around, the NFL isn’t griping about the labor agreement, with Batterman calling it a “good deal for both sides.” Indeed, the salary cap has spiked for three straight years, eclipsing $155 million per team and seemingly destined to surpass $200 million by the end of the decade. That doesn’t mean the next wave of talks will go smoothly.
"[Y]ou still have to prepare,” Batterman said. “You don’t know what the union will be asking for. There are still improvements we should be seeking.”
It’s one thing to realize that the next wave of talks will have the standard amount of back and forth and push and pull that all labor negotiations exhibit. It’s quite another to load up the cannon, five years in advance, with a man who has a reputation for locking out pro athletes -- and who was extremely unpopular with the rank and file the last time he worked on behalf of the league.
Still, the NFL is wise to be prepared. After the salary-cap accounting fiasco from February, the level of trust between labor and management arguably is at an all-time low. The NFL needs to be ready for the union to push as aggressively in 2021 as the NFL did in 2011.
