NFL and NFLPA Come Through For Retired Players
By Ken Reed
After decades of treating retired players poorly, the NFL and NFLPA have come through big time for the league’s old timers in the league’s new CBA.
More than 10,000 retired players will get a substantial bump in their pensions, along with other new benefits.
“A few weeks ago, the question I had posed — would the league and players step up for the men on whose shoulders the N.F.L. was built? — was largely answered,” wrote NFL great Jim Brown in a letter to The New York Times.
“And the answer is yes. The N.F.L. and the National Football League Players Association ratified a new agreement that will govern the game for the next decade and provides unprecedented improvements in benefits that will help transform the lives of thousands of former N.F.L. players and their families.”
According to the NFL Alumni, average pensions for players jump from $30,000 per year to $46,000. Players with three years in the league will now get an annual pension of nearly $20,000 per year. Previously, players needed four years in the league to be vested. The $20,000 figure is expected to continue to rise, based on NFL revenue growth projections. The change effects about 3,000 former players, who now become eligible for benefits.
Also of note, retirees 65 and older will get a 25 percent increase in their Medicare supplement benefit. And the new CBA calls for “all retired players to receive free or low-cost screenings, preventive care, mental health services and orthopedic care at a new national network of top hospitals created by the owners and the union.” That is very important given what we’ve learned in recent years about repetitive brain trauma, concussions and CTE.
Brown, who was skeptical that the NFL and NFLPA would ever step up for the players who helped make the NFL so popular, was pleased with the result.
“I want to thank everyone who worked collectively to make this great change.”
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
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Episode #29 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: The Honorable Tom McMillen Visits League of Fans’ Sports Forum – McMillen is a former All-American basketball player, Olympian, Rhodes Scholar and U.S. Congressman. We discuss the state of college athletics today.
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world. We discuss problems in youth sports today.
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Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- Reed Appears on Ralph Nader Radio Hour League of Fans’ sports policy director, Ken Reed, Ralph Nader and the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner discussed a variety of sports issues on Nader’s radio show as well as Reed’s updated book, How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan. Reed's book was released in paperback in February, and has a new introduction and several updated sections.
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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