The NBA takes the NFL’s lead

With expiry of the NBA CBA due at midnight on 30 June 2011, after hours of fruitless negotiations since the beginning of the year, in May the National Basketball Players Association (‘NBPA’) filed a complaint with the National Labour Relations Board (‘NLRB’) accusing the league of negotiating in bad faith by failing to provide critical financial data and repeatedly threatening to lockout the players.

How the NFL lockout arose 

In the case of the NFL CBA drama the players made the first move on 11 March 2011 (seven days after the CBA had formally expired) by decertifying the NFLPA, essentially walking away from and dissolving the union. Here a further body came into the picture, the National Labour Relations Board ('NLRB').

It cannot have escaped the attention of sports fans on the East side of the Atlantic, even those who do not follow US sports, that both the National Football League (‘NFL’) and the National Basketball Association (‘NBA’) have spent much of 2011 in protracted legal wranglings between the respective leagues (specifically the team owners) and their players as regards Collective Bargaining Agreements ('CBAs').