The National Football League could face a work stoppage in 2011 if a new collective bargaining agreement isn't reached with the plyaers.

The average sports fan could care less about the labor troubles of professional sports leagues. All they care about are having the games played and broadcast on television or radio.

All of the major sports at one time or another had either player’ strikes or owners’ lockouts cancel games for most, or in some cases, the entire season.

The most recent case was the lockout of the 2004-05 season of the National Hockey League players. The Stanley Cup was not awarded that season, the first time since 1919 because of an influenza outbreak.

The Major League Baseball Strike of 1994 cancelled the World Series for the first time in 90 years, and the 1998-99 NBA lockout reduced that season to a 50-game schedule and playoffs.

Yet most football fans born after 1980 would have a hard time remembering the last time that the National Football League had games cancelled due to labor problems.

It’s been 21 years since the players’ strike of 1987 in which the owners used replacement players to break the union to end the impasse. Most veteran players crossed the picket line and the owners won a clear victory. Only one game was lost due to the walkout.

The union then decertified and fought the NFL in court. A new collective bargaining agreement with free agency and a salary cap was agreed upon in 1993 and the league has had peace ever since.

NFL announces it will not renew CBA

On Wednesday, May 21, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced that the league will not renew the current collective bargaining agreement with the players.

A renewal would have meant labor peace until 2013. Now, the CBA will expire after the 2010 season.

The 2008 and 2009 seasons will be played under the current CBA, but if an agreement is not reached by 2010, then the salary cap will expire. That means richer teams will outbid smaller market teams for players, much like is done in baseball.

Salaries could skyrocket.

Gene Upshaw, the head of the players union, has said. “Once the cap expires, it’s hard to see it ever coming back.”

Since the owners do not want to see the salary cap go by the wayside, a lockout could occur in 2011.

That’s four years away, but still should cause concern for football fans.

NFL games would be missed.

The cancellation of National Football League games would leave a huge void on Sunday afternoons in the fall and winter. Unlike the other sports, there is no television programming than can replace it.

Fans found out during the 1982 season just how much. NBC’s replacement programming included Canadian Football League games.

While the CFL is a quality league, most Americans did not view it as an alternative to the NFL. College football was still played on Saturdays, but after baseball season ended, Sundays brought nothing.

The 1982 season was reduced to a nine-game schedule and playoffs. The strike lasted 57 days, the equivalent of two months. Today, only people in their 40’s would remember what it was like.

NFL players union not as strong as baseball

The NFL players never had a strong union, not compared to baseball or basketball.

Major League Baseball players got free agency in 1975, yet it took the NFL until 1993 to introduce effective free agency.

Prior to that year, an NFL player could not sign with another team without the former team being compensated with a top round draft pick, something owners were wary to give up.

Few NFL players if any have guaranteed contracts. Most players get their money upfront in signing bonuses and even that is subject to being paid back if the player doesn’t fulfill most of his contract.

A player could be released by a team at anytime, regardless of the contract.

Despite that, NFL owners and players were happy with the current CBA until now. The owners are now saying it’s not working for them and that too much of the revenues are going to the players.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the parties work this one out.