There's unrest aplenty on the NFL labor front

It's a fight between millionaires and billionaires, so it's not something that's going to elicit much sympathy from everyday Americans.

But the dispute between NFL players and team owners could result in a lockout in 2011 — the first labor meltdown since the 1987 strike — and that would certainly grab the attention of football fans.

As the NFL Players Assn. conducts its annual meetings in Hawaii this weekend, and owners prepare to convene later this month in Orlando, Fla., the two are on opposite sides of the actual and philosophical map.

What's the dispute about?

No surprise here: money. Owners believe players have gotten too much of it under the current collective bargaining agreement, struck in 2006, and that they haven't shouldered enough of the financial risk of "growing the pie" with new stadiums, NFL.com, NFL Network, international games and the like.

Is there extra pressure on the two leading men, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith?

Yes. Each is making his debut as the No. 1 negotiator on a CBA, and each has to convince his constituency that he fought hard and left nothing on the table.

Both Goodell and Smith have to live up to the legacies of former commissioner Paul Tagliabue and former union head Gene Upshaw, who presided over a long era of labor peace and unparalleled prosperity.

Smith faces the pressure of possibly being the NFLPA leader who gave back financial gains Upshaw made in the last negotiations, or being the person in charge when labor peace ended.

What got them to this point?

Four years ago, owners were facing a similar deadline, and, in the 11th hour, agreed to a CBA cobbled together by Tagliabue and Upshaw.

Owners agreed to that deal but almost immediately regretted it. They saw it as heavily lopsided in favor of the players. In the spring of 2008 — at their earliest opportunity — they unanimously opted out of that deal, setting the current countdown in motion.

In every other case before this, the labor deal was extended before the disincentive of an uncapped year was reached. Not this time. The deadline passed last March 5, and there is no salary cap for this season.