I recently watched the movie “Bridge of Spies” in which Tom Hanks, playing an American lawyer, negotiated the release of a U.S. spy pilot shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 and a U.S. student unlawfully detained in East Germany in exchange for a convicted...
NFL star quarterback Kyler Murray recently signed a $230.5 million, five-year contract extension with the Arizona Cardinals. On its face, this deal appears great for Murray – making him the second highest paid quarterback in the league behind only the Green Bay...
My friend said, “This NBA strike is ridiculous. The players are already making tons. Why don’t they just quit whining and play?” I can’t say I disagreed. Only one problem. The NBA players never struck. Instead, the owners created and publicly defined the issues in...
The negotiation lasted almost 20 years. The buyer had a clear goal: ownership. But in 1968, when the negotiation started, he admitted he didn’t have “two nickels” in his pocket. In 1987, he had more, but not nearly enough. The cost? $44.5 million. The sale item? The...
Thousands of fans sat on pins and needles as negotiators met late into the night trying to avert the ninth work stoppage in baseball history. And they succeeded. “Who succeeded?” you ask. The owners? The players? Neither? Or both? In my opinion, there were only two...
The deadline to complete a new deal is Sept. 15. That’s when the National Hockey League’s Collective Bargaining Agreement expires. It’s also when, absent a deal, the NHL appears willing to institute a season-threatening lockout of its players. The...
Few could have predicted the Green Bay Packers would lose on a bungled call by an NFL replacement official. And few could have predicted the fans’, players’, and coaches’ increasing uproar due to consistently inconsistent calls from those replacement officials. In...
I recently sat on a plane next to former NBA All Star player, head coach and long-time TV analyst Doug Collins, who has spent over 40 years negotiating with almost everyone in the NBA world. Given his unique perspective and excellent reputation, I asked him to share...
Last week I wrote about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Rooney family negotiations and the depersonalizing impact of bringing in outside experts to provide independent, credible opinions of the value of the assets at issue (here the value of the Steelers and their dog...
