With a CBA that won’t expire until 2011 at the earliest but also with the prospects of the “last capped year” threatening to create all sorts of challenges in 2009, the NFL and the NFL Players Association finally have commenced the process of negotiating a possible extension to the labor contract.

Daniel Kaplan and Liz Mullen of SportsBusiness Daily report that the two sides met on May 8 in New York.

NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw’s weekly “100 words” item on NFLPA.org disclosed the meeting:  “We met with NFL negotiators last Thursday in New York.  Attendees included owners Jerry Richardson and Pat Bowlen, the League’s financial team and its new outside attorney, Bob Batterman.  The NFL discussed the 32 teams’ financial condition and how the CBA has caused every club to lose money.  They are attempting to gather financial information to share with the NFLPA.  We made it clear that we are willing to discuss their financial condition, but we cannot expect our players to embrace the NFL’s position without the owners providing audited financial statements.  This is just the first step in the process.”  (By the way, that comes out to 100 words on the nose . . . we wonder whether there’s an NFLPA employee who is paid in part to make sure that exactly 100 words are used by Upshaw.  If so, it would be a prudent use of those player dues.  Eye roll.)

We wonder whether the NFL genuinely has taken the position that “every club” is losing money, or whether Upshaw is slanting the issue to advance his own agenda.  There’s a buzz in some league circles that Upshaw prefers labor problems to labor peace, given the tenuous hold he now has on his position.  Last week, NFLPA President Kevin Mawae declared that there would be no leadership change while the CBA is in flux, which naturally gives Upshaw a clear incentive to keep the CBA in flux for as long as possible. 

The league and the union both have the opportunity to pull the plug on the current CBA two years early, which would make 2010 the final year of the deal — and also a season without a salary cap.  Though from the league’s perspective the proposition is often characterized as the ability of the owners to opt out of the deal, the reality is that 24 of the 32 owners must affirmatively agree to continue the deal or it will expire early. 

And that means that it only will take nine owners to pull the plug two years early on the CBA.