Over the next nine days, we will be looking at the top nine stories of the year in lacrosse, based off of our most read and covered stories. Today is #4 looking at the new CBA deal with the National Lacrosse League.
The National Lacrosse League had to renew their Collective Bargaining Agreement before the 2014 season, and they needed to avoid a lockout situation. The league had created a one year CBA for 2013, but now that it had expired, they needed to negotiate a new one.
Several things changed under this year’s CBA. The most noticeable change was the reduced roster sizes from 23 to 20, with only 18 players active on gamedays and the practice rosters moving from three players to four. The salaries stayed the same but starting in 2016 all salaries will raise 3.5% every season.
The CBA also created a new playoff situation. There are now two divisions, east and west like before, with three teams in each division making the playoffs. The top seed in each division gets a bye week and an automatic bid to play in the division championship. The Minnesota Swarm also moved to the eastern division, giving the east five teams.
To make up for the smaller rosters the league announced the free agent age would drop from 32 to 30 for unrestricted free agents. There will only be one franchise tag per team as well, with players over the age of 34 being able to reject it.
Of course, the biggest change may have been the regular season moving from 16 to 18 games and the playoff format changing. Like mentioned above, six teams instead of eight will be in the playoffs. However, each playoff series will be a two game series and if the teams split both games, there will be a ten minute mini game to resolve the winner.
The luxury tax will also be in place to penalize teams who go over the limit. Overall, the good news was this wasn’t a big story, like a lockout would have been. The NLL negotiated the deal peacefully, and now the season kicks off tonight.
