Nfl confirms lockout but still has draft in april

as some may have heard the nfl players and the owners could not make a deal and is suing the owners. thus may have a lockout for the 2011-2012 season but plan to still draft college players in april even if they dont have a season to look forward too. 

Unable to decide how to divvy up $9 billion a year, NFL owners and players put the country's most popular sport in limbo by breaking off labor negotiations hours before the collective bargaining agreement expired. At midnight, as Friday became Saturday, the owners locked out the players -- creating the NFL's first work stoppage since 1987 and putting the 2011 season in jeopardy.

The league said in a statement Saturday it was "taking the difficult but necessary step of exercising its right under federal labor low to impose a lockout of the union."

On Friday, the union decertified, meaning it declared itself out of the business of representing players. In exchange for giving up their rights under labor law, the players are able to take their chances in court under antitrust law.

That paved the way for 10 players, including MVP quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, to sue the owners in federal court in Minneapolis in a class-action claim. The players also sought an injunction to block a lockout -- even before one had been imposed.

Despite two extensions to the collective bargaining agreement during 16 days of talks overseen by a federal mediator -- following months of stop-and-start negotiating -- the sides could not agree on a new deal.

The league's statement Saturday called the NFL Players Association's decertification a "sham" and said the players' court action is "built on the indisputably false premise that the NFLPA has stopped being a union and will merely delay the process of reaching an agreement."

The statement told fans: "We know that you want football. You will have football. This will be resolved."

In the end, it appeared the sides were about $185 million apart on how much owners should get up front each season for certain operating expenses before splitting the rest of the revenues with players -- a far cry from the $1 billion that separated the sides for months.

But the union refused to budge any further without getting detailed financial information for each team. 


espn.com