Contract Negotiations

I have been reading many articles from the NBA and NFL about athletes who are asking for new contracts before the current contracts are done and saying they will not honor contracts to the new city if they are dealt by their existing teams.

I think all professional sports needs to have a standard, CBA-approved system by which a contract may be disputed. Outside of that system, a player should have to honor their contracts. These contracts are legally-binding agreements between the team and the player for services to be rendered by the player to the team.

Here are the steps I would institute in any professional sport in order to minimize this issue and (try to, at least) maximize the value that a player gets for the contract:

1. If a player decides to retire, hold out, or in any other way not play while under a current, valid contract, their contract terms are suspended until such time that they decide to play. At that point, the  original contract kicks back in and they either play for that team and that contract or they go through the CBA-approved dispute process (and are legally bound by the decision made during the process).
2. The dispute process will involve three arbiters who are hired by the sport's management, the sport's player's association, and one outside, neutral party. A majority agreement either positively or negatively will approve or deny the contract issue(s) in cases of a dispute. Once a ruling is made, the dispute is final and both sides agree to honor it.
3. Contracts will be for between one and four years, maximum. Rookie contracts will be for four years and veteran contracts (players who have been in the league a minimum of four seasons) can be as short as one.
• The younger the player, the longer the contract to help maximize the team's value for that player. The older the player the shorter the contract, so the player can try to get the maximum value for their play the longer they play (although both sides, if mutually agreed, can sign longer-term contracts if desired).
4. All contracts will have reasonable positive and negative incentives for both the team to play the player and for the player to play his best in order to maximize the value of the contract.
• I realize this is a tricky one, but I think "reasonable" is the key here. No incentives should be based on a snap count (too easy for the team/coach to decide to sit the player so they do not hit that incentive).
• Some incentives should be roughly equivalent to the "Franchise tag" in football; if you play equivalent to a top 5 player at your position, X incentive kicks in. If you play like a top 15 player at your position, Y incentive kicks in. If you are voted to the Pro Bowl (or equivalent, depending on sport), Z incentive kicks in. (Basically, you should get paid more if you play "above your contract," at least as an inherent increase to your following season's pay if not a bonus to that season.)
• Alternately, if you play in the bottom 5, 10, or 15 of your position, you should maybe be penalized (i.e., the team gets to keep a percentage of the pay for your position, or your salary for the following season goes down a tier, or similar).
5. Create a tiered veteran's minimum scale based on a block of years and/or a percentage increased based on quality of play.
• For example, the year blocks could be 5, 10, 15, and over 15 years. Five years is $250,000 minimum (this would be based partly on the sport, partly on the CBA for that sport, and partly on what the market can bear; consider all the numbers I put here as examples only), 10 is $350,000, 15 is $450,000, and over 15 is $550,000 minimum. However, if you are in the top 50% for you position, it is +10%. If you are top 25%, it is +20%. If you are top 10%, it is +35%. Top 5% would earn an additional +50% on that value (not including other performance incentives).
6. Some incentives could be based on aggregate goals for the position. For example, the sport could determine a baseline average for each position for things like offensive and defensive production and then base some bonuses and penalties on the player being a certain amount or percentage over or under those baseline statistics. Penalties can apply if the player is below those averages.

I'm sure others can come up with other, meaningful, and fair ways in which a team and a player can maximize profits and minimize disputes. It seems to me that highly incentivized contracts and a dispute resolution system that is binding are the first step.

Do you agree or disagree with my hypothesis and (generalized) plan to solve it? If not, how would you do it? Do you have any additions to these rules?