Players accuse NFL of withholding $100 million from revenue sharing, and an arbitrator agreed
An independent arbitrator ruled last week that the NFL must return over $100 million it withheld from the player revenue pool over the past three seasons, as reported by the The Wall Street Journal Tuesday.
According to the WSJ, the NFL Players Association discovered in January that NFL owners had mischaracterized as much as $120 million worth of ticket revenue over the past three seasons, keeping approximately $50 million in salary out of the players' pockets.
The dispute centered around the "waived gate" provision of the collective bargaining agreement. Under the current CBA, NFL teams have the right withhold "waived gate" revenue earned from things like luxury box sales and ticket naming rights from the player revenue pool in order to finance stadium construction costs.
This was the NFL's justification. Deadspin helpfully breaks it down:
That's what the NFL says they did here, but the arbitrator ruled that "waived gate" revenue revenue counts as typical ticket sales, of which the players receive 40%. That's how you get the players' share of around $50 million from $120 million in withheld revenue.
As such, the NFL must return the money to the shared revenue pool immediately.
On Wednesday, NFLPA Executive George Atallah went on ESPN Radio to discuss the matter further.