The story about a small cadre of owners who remain unconvinced about the way the NFL lockout negotiations are proceeding—which is, aside from them, swimmingly—continues to gain steam, with Peter King writing over the weekend that it might be small-market (or, more precisely, low-revenue) teams like the St. Louis Rams holding up the deal because of how little it does to boost revenue sharing.
If speculation like that proves to be true it could be a serious bump in the road for the resurgent lockout negotiations. The last thing a new CBA needs to be this late in the process, when the 2011 season itself is threatened, is all things to all people. If it comes down to losing regular season games or not losing them, the CBA needs to be the bare minimum that would get a season in motion from the players’ and owners’ perspective, with the specifics worked out at a later date.
If the small-market teams wanted something a little more comprehensive, they should have spoken up before the lockout began—let alone before it began to encroach on summer.