When it comes to the American art of capitalism, the First Amendment often takes a back seat.
Via Adam Schefter of ESPN, the NFL has issued a memo to all teams prohibiting public comment on the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations with the NFL Referees Association.
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It’s no surprise. With owners, coaches, and General Managers already interacting with reporters at the NFL’s annual meeting, it will be impossible to get a wide range of voices on the same page. The easiest approach is to tell everyone to zip it.
That gives everyone who will answer questions on the record an easy out: “Sorry, I can’t comment.”
Obviously, this won’t stop off-the-record conversations. And plenty of people in the NFL ecosystem already have strong opinions about the prospect of a sequel to 2012’s Fail Mary, thanks to the possible use of low-level replacement officials if/when the NFL locks out the officials.
An internal gag order regarding labor talks is nothing new for the NFL. Before the 2011 lockout of players, the league told teams to not talk about it. Along the way, the league fined Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones at least $100,000 for violating it.
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The recent memo also contained predictable, one-sided propaganda regarding the CBA battle. From Schefter’s tweet: “The memo stressed that while the league has the highest regard for the game officials, officiating must improve, and that the NFL proposal would enhance the ability to hold the officials accountable for their performance while offering generous compensation packages. The union continues to resist those efforts while seeking raises almost double the rate realized by players over their last two collective bargaining agreements and millions in marketing fees.”
It’s no surprise that the league has fed this message to ESPN, since the NFL now owns 10 percent of ESPN. But, again, there are two sides to this. The NFL Referees Association has begun getting its story out, starting with last week’s claim that the NFL sent to the most recent negotiating session no one with the authority to actually negotiate. The league has not refuted that claim.
