About B*!!*y Time! NFL and Ref's Reach Agreement!

I love it when you write a report on a particular situation, it gets published in a New Zealand media site with your name incorrect and then a couple of hours later a development makes that report obsolete. Well this happened to me yesterday when I wrote an article on the current contract negotiations between the NFL and referees. Later that day it was announced that they had indeed reached an agreement and they will officiate NFL games starting today. This article deals more with aftermath of the agreement and the impact it has on the league and the owners specifically.

After a needless year long contract stand off between the NFL and the NFL Referee Association an agreement was finally reached yesterday. The result comes as a relief to all those involved in the league after the debacle that's transpired in the first 3 weeks of the regular season. Replacement ref's from Division III  College football and the Lingerie Football League (not kidding, look it up, just not on the work computer) have instead officiated and the results were disastrous. The ref's were shown to be well out of their depth. Their calls have consistently inconsistent and they have allowed themselves to be bullied by coaches and players. Yet the NFL and the referee association showed no urgency to compromise and get a deal done while the NFL became a breeding ground of anger and frustration.

 It took the now infamous 'inaccurate reception' play last Monday, which cost the Packers a win, for both sides to realise that enough damage had been done. All the frustration from players and fans boiled over after the game and the owners could no longer ignore the fact that they needed to settle the dispute now. The owners relented to most of the referees demands. They now have some of the best part-time positions in the world right now, working a quarter of the year and getting paid on average US $150,000 plus pension benefits. The ironic thing is that these ref's are seen as saviours when in reality these ref's have made plenty of bad decisions in the past. It won't take long for people to start complaining about poor performances form these ref's. At least they won't put up with the bullying tactics from coaches or players.

The sad thing about this whole situation is the great hypocrisy and arrogance that the owners have shown in the whole process. They have consistently said that the integrity of the game is one of their top priorities. Yet their unwillingness and stubbornness to pay the ref's a comparatively measly sum of roughly $50 million dollars over eight years has really confirmed that it's business first, integrity second for the owners. It's not like the NFL is currently in hard times, it makes $3 billion each year on broadcasting rights alone, not to mention ticket sales and merchandise. 

If history shows us the NFL has to be very careful with how they treat their product and their consumers. It's the most popular sport in America right now but for how long? Major League Baseball was the most popular sport in America for the majority of the 20th Century and the National Basketball Association dominated the 80's and 90's. Yet both have made way for the NFL in the first decade of the 21st century as the most lucrative sport in the USA. The reason it has become so popular is because the games themselves are managed professionally and with minimal outside influences. The inept performances of the replacement referees raised genuine concerns that the game would be vulnerable to match fixing if they continued to officiate. Both the MLB and NBA have dealt with match fixing scandals in the past which has tainted the leagues significantly. 

This whole saga has, in the short term, affected the reputation of the NFL. It may still affect the league in the long term, especially if the owners continue to focus on monetary gains and not the integrity of the game. Fans of sports won't put up with it forever, they will just move onto another sport. Just look at the 'sport' of Boxing. Corruption and match fixing along with the governing bodies unwilling to tackle these issues sincerely as resulted in it becoming marginalised and irrelevant. I'm hoping the NFL doesn't go the same way.

A couple of interesting statistics from the past week to finish off-

• The touchdown call on Monday affected more then just Green Bays win total. According to sports-betting website pregame.com almost $150 million was lost by punters worldwide who gambled on the Packers to win, a $300 million swing altogether in favour of the bookies. With such inconsistency in the replacement ref's decisions it's not unreasonable to think that somebody would try to fix a result if they had continued to officiate. It would be very difficult to identify whether a call was due to match fixing or incompetence.

• Not one player has been ejected from a game so far- the replacement ref's just didn't have control of the games and it showed in the amount of scuffles after plays. Expect this to be dealt with by the 'real' ref's immediately.

• Last week was the first time that quarterbacks Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers have all lost in the same week. It really goes to show how crazy the start of this season has been.