Eight years after the merger between the AFL and the NFL, in 1978, professional football introduced the still current schedule of 16 games per team per year. By 2021 the new normal in the National Football League may include a 17-game season, reported this morning Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero, from NFL Network.
Planning to expand the calendar is not new as such. This was stipulated as one of the possible measures to change in the collective agreement (CBA) agreed in March of this year, before which several players, including Richard Sherman, San Francisco 49ers, and Aaron Rodgers, of Green Bay Packers, publicly refused, arguing that one more game per season was a risk to athletes by increasing their probability of injury.
At that time, 1,019 players voted in favor, 959 they did it in against, and there were around 500 athletes who abstained from participating, denounced Marlon Humprhey, Ravens cornerback.
The measure was mainly promoted among the group of owners, who had already contemplated it in previous years.
According to the report, the announcement will be made in “the next few weeks, if not months.” The NFL must first negotiate at least a new contract with the television stations in order to carry out the 17-game schedule, the collective agreement exposes, but it is expected to have approval with the television networks, which, like the league, will generate more income.
That same, the increase in the league’s earnings, will lighten the balance of the salary cap, expose the insiders. In accordance with the collective agreement.
As for the players, who asked for profits even with the owners, it will increase for them a percentage point in the distribution of the generated income; that is, they will go from receiving 47% to 48%.
The increase in teams in the playoffs, from six to seven per conference, was another of the points agreed upon when the collective agreement was signed, but it has been implemented since the current campaign. The employment contract between the league and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) will remain in effect until 2030.
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The increase in games to the calendar for the first time since 1978 opens the possibility of taking the games beyond the United States and in venues other than the usual ones (Mexico, United Kingdom).
In pursuit of business expansion, the NFL plans to mark its presence in other countries. Among them it has been thought Canada and Brazil, In America; Germany, in Europe, and China and Japan, in Asia.
