Mike Segar/Reuters
The best thing about winning Super Bowl XLV is knowing that you’ve become a football deity, at least until the next season. The worst thing about winning Super Bowl XLV is that you don’t get to wear the ring that indicates you’re the NFL Champion.
The Green Bay Packers find themselves as a result of the labor battle between the league and it’s players’ union.Because labor negotiations between the NFL and the NFL Players’ Association have collapsed, there are no football activities at all, meaning owners and players cannot talk to each other, including regarding the design for the rings worn by the championship team. They are also prohibited from making appearances at schools and doing charity events.
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Yahoo! Sports blogger Doug Farrar regards the stonewall on rings as among the most childish tactics on the part of the owners. “…For the NFL to say that one rep can’t get together on each side to at least agree on a design for Super Bowl rings smacks of the kind of “nyah, nyah, nyah” tactics these guys should have outgrown in second or third grade.”
What hurts worse in Green Bay is that the team doesn’t really have the same contention between players and owners that might exist elsewhere in the league because it’s been owned by the community since 1923. Essentially, according to an article that ran in Monday’s New York Times, it could mean a crack in the town’s economic foundations. “If there is no 2011 N.F.L. season in Chicago, they’ll miss the games,” said Brad Toll, president of the Green Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau. “If there’s no season here, we’ll miss the games and a huge part of our economy.”
(More on TIME.com: See how Super Bowl footballs are made)