NFL players get paid to work out online

NEW YORK • The National Football League (NFL) and its players' union have agreed on a strategy for conducting off-season training amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the agreement, clubs can begin online workouts with their players on April 20, with no on-field work allowed until all 32 club facilities can reopen.

The virtual period will consist of three consecutive weeks of classroom instruction, workouts and non-football educational programmes using video conferencing technology. New head coaches can add extra voluntary sessions.

Teams will be allowed to send players workout equipment and monitoring devices with a maximum cost of US$1,500 (S$2,100) per player.

Teams must pay players a daily rate - reportedly a minimum of US$235 - as mandated by the collective bargaining agreement for completing online activities.

Shelter-at-home orders aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus have forced the closure of all NFL team facilities ahead of the new season, which is set to start on Sept 10. The NFL, America's richest and most-watched sport, remains the only major North American professional sports league that has managed to avoid suspending the playing of games because of the coronavirus, thanks to its traditional late summer start date.

It has yet to entertain the idea of delaying or shortening the campaign, or having its 32 teams play games in empty stadiums.

"Our planning, our expectation, is fully directed at playing a full season starting on schedule and having a full regular season and full set of play-offs," NFL executive vice-president Jeff Pash said on March 31.

This year's draft is still scheduled for April 23-25, but it is to be a virtual affair, with commissioner Roger Goodell introducing the selections from his home.

"You might get a virtual hug, because I think a virtual hug would still work, right?" he told The New York Times.

While organisations like the NFL can survive the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the crisis has claimed the XFL.

Wrestling tycoon Vince McMahon's upstart American football league has landed in bankruptcy just weeks after suspending its comeback season.

A 15-page filing in a US bankruptcy court in Delaware estimated the league's liabilities to be between US$10 million and US$50 million against the same range in assets.

The XFL joins a long list of professional football leagues that have challenged the NFL's dominance and failed. The Alliance of American Football folded last year in the middle of its first season, stranding players at hotels; the original XFL, McMahon's first attempt, folded after one season back in 2001.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, BLOOMBERG