NFL Players Prepared for Change in a Rapidly Evolving Business

Today’s guest columnist is Lloyd W. Howell Jr., executive director of the NFL Players Association.

When the NFLPA Board of Player Representatives elected me in late June, it may have come as a surprise to, well, everyone in the NFL world, but not to me or our player leadership. I presented a fresh approach for the future of the NFL Players Association to take advantage of the rapid changes in our business.

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For example, we are in Las Vegas for the Super Bowl, and legalized gambling has well and truly arrived in sports, but there are other dynamics in the business that players and our union need to be thinking about. Players come into the NFL with a greater understanding of their value and have started talking about things like equity. Even though NFL games continued to dominate broadcast viewership this past year, nobody really knows how media rights are going to change in the next three to five years.

We identified these challenges in the search process and started to talk about how our union and our membership could both prepare for them and take advantage of them, well in advance of the expiration of our current collective bargaining agreement, if those changes make sense and are in the interest of our players. The reality is that change management is part of every business, and if our union stays static in a dynamic environment, we will miss opportunities. Every contract and every agreement should serve as a guidepost for how we operate, rather than an excuse for inertia and opportunities missed.

I am not suggesting that we scrap our collective bargaining agreement, but nearly four years after that agreement was signed, any smart business partners would be wise to look for improvements. It should not be lost on anyone that players and owners were forced to essentially renegotiate the 2020 CBA because of the pandemic. While, thankfully, we do not have that as a factor, the principles of improvement, growth and adaptation must be part of our…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl-players-prepared-change-rapidly-105500063.html

Author : Sportico

Publish date : 2024-02-07 10:55:00

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