Renewed CFL-CFLPA CBA talks may not get far if sides remain dug in on a revenue-tied cap

While the CFL and its players' association are resuming collective bargaining discussions Wednesday, the new talks may not accomplish much. The fundamental issue at play in this CBA is whether the salary cap should be a flat figure each year (the CFL's position) or a percentage of league revenues (the CFLPA's position), an issue that's stretched on for months with no progress. Last Wednesday's meeting ended abruptly when the league refused to consider any proposals giving the players a percentage of revenues and the players proved unwilling to take the CFL's counteroffer, leading to the league taking their proposal public and the players following suit, firing plenty of shotsat each other in the process. The sides may be returning to private negotiations, but according to Sportsnet's Arash Madani, they're still refusing to consider each other's proposed systems:

Both sides' stated intransigence may mean these talks won't get far. On merit, though, as I discussed on TSN 1260 Tuesday, each position is a little silly. First off, it's ludicrous for the league to declare that giving players a percentage of their revenues "doesn't fit with the realities of our business," as revenue sharing in and of itself doesn't come with a specific price tag. All it means is that the cap number each year would be a percentage of league revenues. Moreover, a percentage cap absolutely could work; it just has to be set at the proper percentage. (Go here for a breakdown of this by the numbers.)

Even a flat cap is a percentage of revenues in one sense, so refusing to consider any percentage doesn't really seem reasonable, especially if the league truly was facing significant financial challenges. If it was, and if revenues started to decline, a percentage cap would drop as well, but a flat cap wouldn't. Insisting on a flat cap suggests the league's very confident that revenues not only won't decline, but will rise. Under a flat cap system, the teams keep any revenue increases themselves; under a percentage system, those would be shared with the players. Arguing for a flat cap while simultaneously crying poor doesn't appear terribly logical.

The players' dogmatism isn't necessarily better, though. While the philosophy underlying their argument is more appealing (percentage-sharing systems are standard in leagues with caps, and they make players partners rather than just employees, incentivizing them to work to grow the game), it's just as silly for them to say that they wouldn't consider any flat cap. Interestingly enough, their cap proposal for 2014 is in fact a flat cap of $6.24 million per team. It's based off 35 per cent of projected league-wide revenues, but that's only a philosophical point. The CFL hasn't come even close to that yet, of course, suggesting just an $400,000 increase to $4.8 million per team this year, but if the league was willing to make an offer that met the players' financial demands (but under a flat-cap system), it wouldn't seem worth it for the players to fight that based solely on a philosophical preference for revenue sharing.

Essentially, there are deals under either system that could work for both sides, at least from a financial perspective. A percentage-sharing system could absolutely work for the league if the percentage is kept low enough; likewise, a flat cap proposal could work for the players if the flat cap is high enough. Those are the sort of negotiations that should be happening Wednesday, and if they do, perhaps there won't be significant labour disruption this year. Both sides' refusals thus far to compromise on their preferred system under any circumstances don't leave a lot of hope for this week's talks, though.