The Canadian Football League had stayed silent for the last few months in their negotiations with the CFLPA toward a new CBA. That all changed last week with commissioner Mark Cohon making the talks public through email and the league’s website. The league has spoken out again this afternoon, with a fact and fiction email. It’s pasted below for you to have a look at.
We want CFL players and fans to have the facts.
FICTION: The CFL offer would set the salary cap at $5 million and the players want it set at $5.8 million, so they could just saw off the difference a little and get a deal.
FACT: The players’ union’s ask is actually much, much bigger. You see, a lot of player compensation does not fall under the cap. Things like benefits, pensions, pre-season and post-season pay, plus any bonus to be paid for ratifying a new agreement. If you look at everything in our offer and everything in their offer, you find that the CFL is offering to increase player compensation by $850,000 per team in the first year of a deal, and the union is asking us to increase player compensation by $2.4 million per team in the first year of a deal. Their ask is not realistic. Under their proposal, six of nine teams would lose money.
FICTION: The CFL could just add a little something to its offer and get this done.
FACT: This is the CFL’s best offer. It’s the most we can pay. It was put forward knowing that under the CFL’s best offer, three of nine teams would still lose money this year, even with the new TV deal in place.
FICTION: The players gave up revenue sharing last time because the CFL promised back then to put it back in this round of bargaining.
FACT: That’s not true. That was never agreed to.
Thank you for your interest in our attempts to reach a new collective bargaining agreement with our players. We want a full CFL season that starts on time. We need a new CBA that pays players fairly and still gives a majority of our teams a chance to break even or make a profit. We will keep you posted.
CFL Communications.
