The National Football League Today
Robert Davidson
Strayer Univ.
BUS. 475

Prof. Kelly
Aug 1, 2014

The National Football League (NFL) Today The National Football League today is a Multi –Billion dollar industry, which includes some of the most influential and powerful stakeholders in the United States today. There are many key factors in this organization’s external environment that can affect its success. Presupposing, the two key factors to this are the Franchise Tag which is a tool that the owners use to pay less money to players at the end of their current contract and keep them on that team for the remainder of the season. In terms of a business decision, the franchise tag is a solid move. It prevents a player from leaving a certain team without the team receiving just compensation, but it also pays the player a top five salary at that particular position. It gives the team five extra months to negotiate a new contract in order to retain the player on the current team with a long term contract it is intended as a good faith jester from the team to show the player under this tag that this is what the organization is working towards. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case, and teams basically use the tag now to keep a player hostage. While the players are beginning to hold out, meaning not playing until well into the season in hopes of obtaining a new contract or being released to the free agent market.
The second key factor is Free Agency it is, quite simply, someone who is not currently under contract. More interestingly, there are a lot of players in the NFL who are in a nebulous grey area between under contract and a free agent. How can this be? The NFL has a labor contract with the NFL Players Association, called the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the CBA. The CBA defines several types of Free Agent depending on previous experience and club offers. Previous experience means "accrued seasons." An accrued season means six or more regular-season games on a club's active/inactive, reserved- injured or "physically unable to perform" lists.
In the NFL there are five types of free agent. Most of the classes have sub-classes. It's all quite complicated.
Unrestricted Free Agents
An Unrestricted Free Agent is a player who is not under contract with any team. This player may sign a contract with any NFL team, and their previous team gets no compensation in any form. You become a UFA if you get cut, or if your contract runs out and you have at least four years of NFL experience.
Restricted Free Agents A Restricted Free Agent is an NFL player who is not under contract, but has only three years of NFL experience. The signing period for restricted free agents begins on March 2 and concludes on April 15. If his previous team has made him a Qualifying Offer, then that team has a right of first refusal on the player. This means the player may negotiate with other teams and receive an offer; however the previous team may agree to the offer that the player has received, in which case the player stays with his former team.
Exclusive-Rights Free Agents
An Exclusive-Rights Free Agent is an NFL player who is not under contract, but has only two years of NFL experience. If his former club makes him an offer at the three year veteran minimum salary, then that's it, he has to take it or leave the NFL. These guys have no right to negotiate with other teams.
Transitional Free Agents
A transition player designation gives the club a first refusal right to match an offer sheet given to the player by another club. To designate a transition player, the club must offer a minimum of the average of the top 10 salaries of the previous year at the player's position, or a 20 percent salary increase, whichever is greater. If the player does not get an offer, then he must play for the transition offer. If the player gets an offer, then his previous team has seven days to match the offer or lose the player. If they do not match the offer, the previous team gets no compensation.
Exclusive Franchise Free Agents
The second type of franchise player is offered a minimum of the average of the top five salaries at his position computed on April 15th at the end of restricted free agency, or a 20 percent salary increase, whichever is greater. This type of franchise player may negotiate with other clubs. Other clubs cannot negotiate with exclusive franchise players.
Three stakeholders in this organization, the first are the Sponsors around the league such as Anheuser Busch, Nike, Reebok and the restaurants whom depend heavily on football season for a big portion of their annual income whom spend billions per year. The scale is tremendous just this year Anheuser Busch replaced Coors Light as the lead sponsor for the NFL for 1.2 billion per season
The second salient stakeholder is the President of NFL players association Eric Winston; the University of Miami alum has started 112 consecutive games for the Texans, Chiefs and Cardinals. Winston, a free agent, has been active with the NFLPA since being elected as a Co-Alternate by the Houston Texans in 2010, including being a voice for players during the 2011 lockout and serving on the union’s committees for finance and agent discipline. Winston does community work on behalf of Shriners Hospital for Children and local charities in his hometown and team cities. This position was voted on by all active National Football League players. Todd Brady is the third salient stakeholder as part of ESPN's NFL Nation Confidential survey of more than 320 players, the questions were asked, "If you had to start a team with one player, whom would it be?" and "Which player do you respect the most?"
Brady was the top choice for both. He is also one of the highest paid players in the NFL making an annual salary of over $16 million yearly he is also one of the oldest players in the league.
There are many ways these powerful and influential stakeholders can motivate the National Football League financial performance. The most obvious would be financially this entire organization revolves around money and the pursuit of obtaining more. The second is voting power the league has a union, this is a very powerful bargaining tool the union can vote to shut down the games if it feels it is not being treated fairly, political power if the stakeholders bring lawsuits against the league for unethical practices the government could get involved and pass laws to govern and enhance regulations against the NFL. Informational power the consumers or other stakeholders will take notice and make decisions to support players by boycotting games thus causing massive revenue loss. The economic power of the stakeholders is very influential everyone that’s a fan of football knows if a team is losing the economic fallout can be devastating causing teams to fall into bankruptcy or be sold and moved.
The main corporate social responsibility concern in the National Football League, finding the balance to achieve maximum productivity from stakeholders by compensating them well, for the services that are produced by using the franchise tag and free agency not as a hostage negotiation but as a tool to obtain the best players for the money and the individual teams not to fall in the “iron law of responsibility “by having the power to keep players but don’t use it.
To address this issue I have formed a coalition of the most influential stakeholders in the National Football league. The coalition members should be the most ethical and respected, as the president of the Free Agent/Franchise Tag Coalition the following is an outline for members included in this coalition. The people whom are most affected by this is obviously the players and the families so the first on the panel is the NFL union president since he represents the football players and their families. The presidents of the leading sports television networks (ESPN, Fox Sports, and the NFL Network) will be a part of this coalition because they have a major financial stake in the decisions that will be made by this coalition, Government officials both local and federal should be members as well, in order to give the greater population a voice on the issues at hand. Also the most respected and influential player in the NFL should be a member of the coalition because his opinion and views carry substantial public opinion.
The NFL is a national and global cooperation making billions of dollars from public interest, media and the world wide web this coalition is formed to cover all of these basis putting public policy at the for front. In order to protect the game of Professional Football, and the integrity of the players who play the game with so much passion.
As the head of the Franchise/Free Agent coalition I am aware there will be major challenges ahead one will be the ownership backlash, when there are millions of dollars that could potentially come from the front offices to compensate stakeholders in the franchise. The venders that produce the memorabilia of individual stakeholders whom have contacted the coalition will be under extreme pressure to change production of mugs, glasses and banners etc., in order to stay current with the movement of a much larger volume of free agents changing teams. Lastly there will be major opposition within the public because most people are ignorant to the business side of professional sports.

References
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Legwould, J. (2014). NFL Peers Respect Peyton Manning. Retrieved january,23 2014, from espn.go.com/nf/story
Scuteri, R. (2014, march 19, 2014). Eric Winston Elected President of NFL Players Union. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from www.latimes.com/.../la-sp-nfl-report 20140319story