The NFL (National Football League/American footbal) has a lockout right now... and it's a case of players vs owners... and I'm with the players... and I'd like to support some reasons why I think everyone who cares should.

1) Financial Transperency.  The biggest issue in this, is that currently the owners are given 1 billion of the 9 billion dollars the league makes annually for expenses.  The owners have demanded 2 billion dollars instead of 1 billion. 

The players have asked for the Owners books so they can verify that this money is really needed for expenses.  The NFL owners said no.

This alone seems like a good enough reason to support the players. 

2) The longer season.   Who wants it?  Nobody, but the owners.  I mean, did anyone even watch the last few games this year?  Everyone was injured... I mean in the Superbowl, we had the Steelers who had like... literally no offensive line left, vs the Packers who had a 5th string runningback.   A longer  season will only make this worse and considering the recent injury concerns... it just seems stupid to have a longer season.  If anything, the season should be shorter.

3) Although it's an arguement between billionaires and millionares.... well millionaires still have less money.

4) NFL player is one of the riskiest jobs out there.   Just period.   Your less likely to just outright die or somehing like oil refinieries or something, but you are extremly likely to shortenyour life.  The average life expectancy for an NFL player is around 53-59.   The average NFL player only plays about 3 and 1/2 seasons.

17% of the NFL  suffered career ending injuries this year... and there has been a lot of worrisome research that suggests that depression is caused by all the hits NFL players take.   Both of these show that even their shortened lives after the NFL are worse off.

Those poor millionaires. So every union should go on strike,because there ceo/excutives make more money. #3 just does'nt hold water with me. I agree with what your saying with the last two parts,but again NFL player's know the risk. They know what there getting into. I would agrue that it used worse back in the day,before all of these rules of how to hit and were to hit. I actually think the NFL is just a couple rule changes away from flag football. I've been an NFL fan all of my life,but I really don't have any sympathy for either side. boo hoo how can we split billions of dollars. They just need to shut up and work something out,that way I can have something to watch on Sunday's in the fall. 

Both sides are greedy and it's we,the fans, who are losing.

I'm sorry, but I can't relate to the player's plight since if I were playing a game for a living and made millions of dollars a year, even though I thought that maybe I should be getting more (point one is valid), I'd still be happy. 

The harsh reality in life is that he who has the most money has the most power and the owners will always eventually come up the winners.  The players can strike forever, but the owners will still make money because they'll put replacement players out there and fans will still watch because it's better than nothing.  Eventually the replacement players will be looked at as the "real" players and kids that are getting drafted will start signing with teams since a few million dollars a year will sound good to them.  Basically what I'm saying is that the players have no leverage, whether they like it or not.  It's time that they nip it in the bud and accept that they'll only have three Ferraris instead of four, otherwise they'll be down to one Lotus before you know it.

Damned owners and their fifteen Rolls Royces...    

Transperancy is the biggest issue here.  With transperancy the free market will effectively determine the value of all private goods and services.

The minimum salary for a NFL player is $300,000 a year.  Thats a lot more than average, but you have to consider that most players only play for a couple of years and that they will have many health problems later in life from playing football.

The NFL's monopoly doesn't hurt stars like Tom Brady, but it hurts most of his teammates who will go on to live an average life after football.

Ultimately i too would view this as a dispute between rich people (and thus out of my ideological range where i would automatically support labor), but i sympathize with the players in this particular case because its really the owners who are jockeying for more money and the owners want the 18-game season which nobody wants (does the NFL want to become the MLB? Playing the sport at times of the year when the sport shouldn't be played? I don't think so)

AFL used to be so much harder than the NFL because you could get tackled from any direction and not no and the players were less armor. But the AFL is f'ing up the sport that is becoming increasing popular world wide especially in SA, china, Dubia, England and US. 

But really after reading the above the NFL players should be thankful that they are being paid rediclous amount of money just for exercising very hard and running on a patch of grass hitting other players kinder like all sports (but in soccer the players dive when an player so much walk pass). Really? about the whole this sport is dangerous, the whole players get carreeer ending injuries doesn't matter as long as they can still get an job or live off there high money earnings. 

Really NFL players should be thankful and NFL owners shouldn't be greedy. 

Let's be honest.  The minimum salary is only earned by practice squad players normally. 

Let's for the sake of discussion say that a player makes the league minimum for two years.  That would be $600,000 and that's a lot more than many people on this site will make in twenty years.  See why I can't really relate to the terrible injustice done to them? 

Now I will agree with you on the health issues that most players eventually have.  What they should be fighting for is more medical attention given to them by the league after their careers are over and not more money.  They get paid plenty and most of Brady's teamates will not live "normal" lives like you claim unless they are horrible at managing their money.  Basically, what I'm saying is that they are fighting for the wrong things and coming across as being greedy.