NFL fans everywhere have a keen interest in when the NFL Lockout will end a new collective bargaining agreement will be in place. Everyone, of course, wants to see football start on time. Fans in Upstate New York, though, have an extra reason to be rooting for a resolution to the labor dispute to come sooner rather than later.
The New York Jets and New York Giants are among the NFL teams who hold training camp away from their regular-season practice facilities, and both use upstate college campuses. The Jets have trained at SUNY Cortland the past couple of seasons. The Giants have held camp at UAlbany for the past 15 summers.The lockout is endangering the ability for both teams to commit to holding training camps in those locations.
The Jets have apparently been given a July 1 deadline by SUNY Cortland to make a decision. There is no deadline in place for the Giants, but the team's PR Director, Pat Hanlon, admitted that July 1 is "a good time frame for when everybody has to figure out what we're going to do."
Around the league, the belief is beginning to crystallize that a deal needs to be done, or at least nearly be done, by July 4 in order to guarantee that training camps and the preseason are able to go off as scheduled.