NFL, players to meet with mediator

Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS

Different state. Different mediator. Same disagreements.

One month and two days after the NFL and its players cut off negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement and put the 2011 season in peril, the two sides will return to the table for court-ordered mediation today with a key legal ruling on the lockout still pending.

NFL executives met with U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan on Wednesday for five hours the day before the first talks between the league and the players since the middle of March.

Executive vice president Jeff Pash, the NFL’s lead negotiator, was at the federal courthouse along with other officials and outside counsel. Lawyers for the players met with Boylan for about four hours on Tuesday.

“We appreciate the opportunity to meet with the magistrate and review the issues with him in preparation for our session tomorrow, and we’re looking forward to seeing the players and their representatives tomorrow morning,” Pash said.

Larger contingents are expected when mediation begins in Boylan’s chambers, including commissioner Roger Goodell. League spokesman Greg Aiello said Goodell will attend along with some of the owners.

NFL Players Association executive DeMaurice Smith is scheduled to attend, too, after withdrawing from a speaking event at Wake Forest so he could be in Minnesota.

The talks are seen as the first encouraging step since March 11, when the union was dissolved, the CBA expired and the NFL wound up a few hours later with its first work stoppage since the 1987 strike. All that has taken place since then are lawsuits and sharp disagreements.

The lockout followed 16 days of negotiations overseen by a federal mediator in Washington, with the sides failing to agree on how to divide more than $9 billion in annual revenue.

Boylan has a reputation as a problem-solver, but he may have his work cut out for him.

The key for Boylan is to make both sides comfortable with his neutrality and fairness, said Robert Berliner, an attorney who runs the Berliner Group mediation service in Chicago. He said the judge also has to prove he knows the subject and is flexible. Persuasiveness is a must, too.

“I think this is a fascinating opportunity to bring this to a successful conclusion, but the parties have to be willing,” Berliner said.