James Surowieki does a good job of summing up the landscape of the litigation between the NFL players and owners:

But the N.F.L. isn’t capitalist in any traditional sense. The league is much more like the trusts that dominated American business in the late nineteenth century, before they were outlawed. Its goal is not to embrace competition but to tame it, making the owners’ businesses less risky and more profitable. Unions are often attacked for trying to interfere with the natural workings of the market, but in the case of football it’s the owners, not the union, who are the real opponents of the free market. They have created a socialist paradise for themselves that happens to bring with it capitalist-size profits. Bully for them. But in a contest between millionaire athletes and billionaire socialists it’s the guys on the field who deserve to win.

My sense is that the combination of the lockout of players and the players’ litigation against the owners is going to end up being a public relations disaster for the owners. Already, I’ve heard that every NFL team except the Giants is requiring full or partial season ticket payments from fans during the labor impasse. I mean, really — who is giving these guys their PR advice?

Meanwhile, though, what I’m really wondering is whether college football players should attempt to intervene in the NFL players’ litigation against the owners and bring some additional defendants into the lawsuit – that is, the NCAA and its member institutions?

After all, the NCAA and its members have created a similar form of socialist paradise with capitalist-sized profits, too.

Now that would be worth the price of admission.