Update from NFLPA Player Rep Meeting

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For Immediate Release
March 15, 2013

UPDATE FROM THE NFLPA BOARD OF REPRESENTATIVES MEETING

The NFL Players Association’s Board of Representatives held its annual meetings this week in Nassau. With 57 first-year player representatives elected, the meetings provided player leadership and union staff with an opportunity to review last year's business and discuss current business. It also provided players the opportunity to put their interests to a board vote in the form of resolutions.

The seven-hour business days consisted of a General Session (GS) and Player Breakout Sessions. The President and Executive Committee lead the GS to conduct business requiring a quorum. NFLPA Player Advocates led the four Breakout rooms and used the more personal setting to foster discussion and create a think tank environment for drafting resolutions.

Below are highlights from the four days of presentations, discussions and actions. The Board of Representatives meeting concludes tomorrow with a joint session held in conjunction with the NFLPA Former Players Convention.

Health and Safety Summary

  • Lifecycle Initiative
    • The NFLPA presented its new Lifecycle Initiative which is designed to provide future, current and former players with the tools they need to succeed off the field.
    • Current players will be offered continuing education, career counseling and internship opportunities along with financial protection advice. Advocates will engage with players on a one-to-one basis.
    • Former players who were credited with at least two seasons during the past 15 years will be offered the chance to enroll in a program that offers: health assessments, wellness programs and counseling; career resources including skills assessments, resume assistance and mock interviews; and education options including a scholarship fund, degree completion, vocational and certificate programs, real estate license assistance and financial advice.
  • Player representatives were given details about the execution plan on the $100 million partnership with Harvard University.
    • The decade-long initiative is focused on enhancing the health and wellness of NFL players before, during and after their careers. The initiative involves “an interdisciplinary team of leading research scientists, laboratories, and institutions whose work is aimed at reducing the time between academic discovery and the development of treatment, with a success based upon protecting and improving the health of current and former NFLPA members.”
  • Through a partnership with Athletes Performance, former players can visit its centers nationwide to customize an action plan as they redefine “normal” with their health and wellness after the NFL.
  • Player representatives were updated about the ongoing negotiations with the NFL about human growth hormone.
  • NFL Referees Association President Scott Green talked to player representatives about his organization’s increased awareness and education surrounding player health and safety.

Salary Cap Summary

  • “Cash over cap” – More than $200 million in compensation that the players received in 2012 beyond the $120.6 million cap per team. Twenty teams spent cash over cap last season, pushing the total to $4.066 billion, or 105 percent of the cap. Clubs also averaged $6.25 million in cap carryover from 2011.
  • Players’ share of revenue – Players are guaranteed 46-48 percent of revenues in the salary portion of the salary cap each year. Benefits (more than $700 million in 2012) raised players’ share to 54 percent of all revenues in the first year of the 2011 CBA. This year’s numbers are in the process of being finalized.
  • Club spending – Historically, teams spent as little as 68 percent of their cap allowance, but going forward all clubs will not be allowed to be below 89 percent of the cap over a four-year period with a league-wide average of 95 percent over the same span.
  • Salary Cap – This year’s salary cap is $123 million with each club responsible for $24.2 million in benefits, up from $22 million in 2011. All told, players are receiving more than $500 million than they did in 2008. And these numbers will only rise when the new contracts with the NFL’s national television partners kick in beginning in 2014.

Benefits

  • Player representatives reviewed the various benefits areas which include: the insurance plans (medical, dental, life); severance; the Gene Upshaw Health Reimbursement Account (HRA); the annuity plan; Second Career Savings (401-K); and the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle Retirement Plan.
  • The major new development in this area is the neurocognitive benefit in which those men with mild impairment receive $1,875 monthly for 15 years while those with moderate impairment receive $3,500 monthly. The NFLPA’s 88 plan, named for the Hall of Fame tight end and former union President John Mackey, who died of dementia at 69 in 2011, pays $100,00 to those suffering from dementia, ALS and Parkinson’s who need in-patient care and $88,000 to those who only require out-patient services.

Business Summary

  • Revenues from Players Inc., the for-profit marketing arm of the NFLPA, rose from $110.2 million in 2011 to $123.8 million in 2012.
  • Apparel revenues nearly doubled from $11.7 million to $22.6 million.
  • Multi-media revenues totaled $25.6 million.
  • In July 2012, NFL Players, Inc. started One Team Shop (www.shop.nflpa.com) to sell player merchandise and memorabilia. Players can sell products on their own web sites to raise money for their charities.
  • Each active player receives a royalty payment from group licensing revenues of roughly $10,000 each season.
  • The NFLPA partnered with Babson (Ma.) University and its “It’s My Business” program as well as with Hillard Heintze and Score.org to help players decide if entrepreneurship is their correct post-football path.
  • The Board of Representatives approved the 2013 NFLPA budget.

Legal Summary

  • Player representatives received in-depth information about the worker’s compensation system, the NFL’s reluctance to have cases heard in worker-friendly California and how players can make successful challenges to receive what they deserve.
  • Player representatives were given information about the league’s drug-testing policies and compliance programs. The presentations focused on substances as Adderall and marijuana, on test collections and the appeals process.

For more information:
http://proplayerinsiders.com/strength-and-unity-nfl-players-meeting-day-1/
http://proplayerinsiders.com/health-and-safety-remain-on-the-forefront-at-nflpa-players-meeting/
http://proplayerinsiders.com/the-numbers-nfl-players-annual-meeting-day-3/