N.F.L. Owners Propose Adding Two Teams to Playoff Format

About half of the league’s revenue comes from broadcast rights, and the bidding for those rights is expected to be strong. The value of the broadcast rights should increase with new streaming rights and, if the owners have their way, a growing number of regular season and playoff games.

To push the current proposed labor agreement over the finish line, the owners have called a special meeting on Thursday in New York, where they will receive an update on the status of talks with the union. On Friday, union representatives from each of the 32 teams will meet via conference call to continue to hash out their differences.

The union’s 11 executive committee members, many of whom were opposed to a 17-game season a few weeks ago, would have to vote to recommend this deal to the 32 team representatives for it to move forward. Those representatives would then have to approve a deal by a two-thirds majority before it could be sent to all N.F.L. players for approval. For a deal to be finalized before the end of the current league year, the 32 team representatives would need to vote on a proposal by next week to have enough time to put the agreement to the full membership for a vote.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/sports/football/nfl-playoff-format.html