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NFL lockout ends in time for new season

There will be no delay to the new regular season of the NFL after the lockout ended © Getty Images

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More NFL lockout analysis at ESPN.com

The 2011 NFL regular season will go ahead as planned, after the players' representatives unanimously agreed to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) previously approved by the owners on Monday.

There had been fears that the new football season would be shortened or even cancelled altogether, after players and owners initially failed to reach any resolution over a new CBA.

The previous agreement expired in the months following the Green Bay Packers' Super Bowl win in February, with the two sides immediately playing hardball to try and gain the best possible terms for themselves.

After months of wrangling, some of it in the courts, a new deal was finally reached on Monday, with just days to spare before regular season games would have to have been cancelled. The new CBA - which effectively decides how the league's revenues (approximately $9 billion a year) are shared between players and the owners of the teams they play for - will last for ten years, although there are conflicting reports over whether both sides will have the option to opt out after five if they feel the deal has turned out to be unfair.

"It's been a long time coming, but football's back, and that's great news for everybody," said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

"Thanks to everybody who has been involved in this," players' chief DeMaurice Smith added. "It has been a very, very long process."

The new system will be officially ratified when the NFL Players Association re-form and vote on the issue, although that is no more than a formality. The union had previously been 'dissolved' as part of the bargaining process once the lockout began.

It is believed the league's revenues will now be divided 53-47 in favour of the owners (the last agreement saw a near 50-50 split), although the players will now have increased health provisions for their life after football and have successfully, if perhaps temporarily, blocked the owners' proposed move to an 18-game season.

The stage is now set for a frantic couple of weeks prior to the beginning of the new 17-week regular season on September 8 - with all 32 teams looking to make free agent signings, complete training camps and finalise their 55-man rosters in a much shorter window than they are normally used to.

Players and their coaches were not allowed to contact each other during the period of the work stoppage - where all team employees were quite literally locked out of the facilities they are used to training and practising in.

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