At midnight the collective bargaining agreement for the NFL players expired and they haven’t reached a new agreement. There was already a deadline last week at Thursday midnight but the representatives of players and owners had agreed to a first 24 hours extension just to get an additional week extension of the old agreement.

The key point of the dispute between players and owners is the division of the approximately $9 billion NFL income. Owners say they have too many expenses and want to have a greater slice of that income, initially an additional one billion dollars then down to eight hundred million but still regarded as too much by players. They also believe that owners aren’t very transparent about the ways they spend the money.

Among the other points of the dispute there’s the will to extend the regular season from 16 to 18 games by shortening the preseason and stricter rules on doping controls for players.

With the failure of the negotiations for the renewal of the collective agreement the players’ union has been decertified because that way it’s easier for them to take legal actions against the owners with the antitrust. The charge against the owners is that they created a trust to impose their restrictions on the players activities.

Owners have started the lock out, therefore stopping all activities with the exception of the draft, to be held in late April. Drafted players however won’t be allowed to have contact with the teams until the end of the lock out.

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Obviosly now the situation is bad because the negotiations have failed and contenders reached a clash so it’s practically impossible to tell if the next NFL season will start regularly. Both sides keep on stating that they wish to reach an agreement that allows the activities to start but it’s clear that they seek the fans sympathy, knowing that if play won’t start they’ll get angry.

There are still chances for a deal but now lawsuits started by players to owners complicate the situation. With the approach of the moment when players should start preparing for the new season both sides will begin to feel the pressure. If the regular season won’t start both players and owners will start to lose money: at that point we’ll see just how resolute they are in their demands.

In the midst of the contenders there are the fans, who can just wait and hope for a deal. Let’s remember that if things go really bad common people who work thanks to the NFL games are the ones who have the most to lose as they’ill remain unemployed for who knows how long.