The NFL Lockout Will End On June 2nd

You can take that prediction to the bank, thanks to a little thing I like to call "math." You see, the two sides are actually making steady progress every day. Well, every six days.

It all comes down to how to split revenues. Currently, a cool billion is taken off the top and given directly to the owners. They want more: $2 billion before the remainder is split with the players. The players' proposal would split all revenues equally, with no skimming. Based on current revenues, the difference between the two sides was roughly a billion dollars. That's big money, and not a lot of time to get something done before what would be the start of minicamps.

On Friday, as the players and owners agreed to a seven-day deadline extension, it came out that one or both sides had budged a little: the difference was down to $750 million. And today ProFootballTalk reports that the gap has narrowed further, to $700 million or less. Plotting that drop on our graph, if it keeps up at the same pace (and we see no earthly reason why it wouldn't, given all the conflicts over financial transparency, 18-game-season, TV revenues, antitrust suits, decertification threats and all the other aspects of the CBA on which the two sides are still very far apart) they'll meet in the middle on June 2nd.