It Could Happen Here · Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts

How to Break a Union From the Inside: The NFL Players Association, Pt. 2

April 7, 2026·48 min·3 clips

An arbitration judge found 'beyond the benefit of a doubt' that Roger Goodell and the 32 NFL owners were actively colluding to suppress player pay — and text messages between the Cardinals and Chargers owners about Justin Herbert's contract exist as evidence.

The process looks staged. The speaker walks through a vote where players get three finalists for executive director, including J.C. Tretter and the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference. Then the list changes. The commissioner drops out on election day, after a detour through the smaller world of Temple, James Madison, Rice, and Toledo scheduling. The joke is mean in the right way. The AAC becomes a knockoff ACC with leftover Big East value taped to it, and then the labor story snaps back into place. The remaining choice is Tretter, a former football player, or a Hollywood union executive whose interest and labor record both sound shaky. That is barely a choice. After two back-to-back executive directors who were not football players, Morris Smith and Lord Howell, the room is left with the guy who at least knows the sport. The grim part is the timing. Tretter had said eight months earlier that he wanted no union leadership role, but here he is again, right in the middle of it. The segment does not need to yell. It just lines up the steps: finalist list, election day dropout, weak alternative, reluctant candidate returning. The jokes keep it alive, especially the college football bureaucracy and conference-brand dunking. They do not soften the accusation. The read is plain: union power can be bent from inside by procedures that make a narrowed outcome feel like player choice.

As heard by us

A sharp sports-labor look at how a union election can feel decided before the final vote.

It Could Happen Here treats the NFL Players Association's executive director race as a case study in how a union election can narrow before members make their choice. The conversation centers on J.C.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the NFLPA's executive-director race, with J.C. Tretter back in the mix and the whole thing feeling staged.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from It Could Happen Here