Voting for Madden 2012 cover..Illegal?

United States
April 4, 2011 7:13pm CST
I was getting into a conversation with a friend as we began talking about the upcoming NFL Draft. I was asked who I thought should be on the cover of Madden 2012. Being a man I turned to him & said that it didn't matter. He said "What you are not going to vote?" I just shook my head at him & said although I might act childish from time to time I wasn't a complete child. That got me thinking a little though. The NFLPA decertified on March 11, 2011 while voting for the player to grace the cover of Madden 2012 started on March 21, 2011. The 10 days is interesting considering that the NFLPA was the sole negotiator/license issuer to folks like EA & others to use the players or their digital likeness in or for commercial products. Since the NFLPA decertified & ceased to be a union then those licenses/agreements for which they previously gave are now null & void. Any kind of agreement that a company like EA had prior ceases to exist. The players can independently agree to contract terms with any company of their choosing but collectively they can not & are no longer represented. Since 32 players enter the voting for the cover of Madden 2012 I wanted to know how EA would have gotten 32 men to sign 32 different contracts in a matter of less than 10 days because keep in mind voting opened on March 21st. EA would also have to sign, independently, every single player it wished to use in the game (in production) instead of being able to obtain a license to use all players from the Union as in years past. The lack of such news seems to indicate collusion amongst the players, EA, & the NFLPA does it not? Would or does the vote for the Madden cover constitute active participation by the NFLPA to negotiate on the players behalf? Would you agree that the Union has never ceased to exist as is the claim of the NFL owners? Do you feel that in fairness to the Owners in the NFL that the players should reveal such contracts agreed to both before & after decertification so that ownership could investigate wrongdoing by the NFLPA since players asked for open financial books to do that same from the owners?
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