How to Break a Union From the Inside: The NFL Players Association, Pt. 1
It Could Happen Here
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
4.0 • 6.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mia talks with Yahoo Sports writer Charles McDonald about the history of the NFLPA and how it installed a corporate consultant as its Executive Director.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.0 | Cool Zone Media. |
| 0:10.9 | Welcome to Iqadap and hear a podcast about unions falling apart. |
| 0:14.7 | And in this case, how they're not being put back together again. |
| 0:18.3 | I am your host, Bia Wong. |
| 0:19.7 | And today we are telling a somewhat unusual |
| 0:22.2 | story for this show. It's usual in the sense that it's a story about, you know, the replacement |
| 0:27.0 | of democracy with bureaucracy, like the death spiral of business union of unionism. It's a story |
| 0:33.0 | it's also as much about the defeat of the workers movement as it is like Lamar Jackson's |
| 0:37.0 | counting stats, |
| 0:37.8 | a thing that it also bizarrely is about. |
| 0:41.0 | And this is the story of the crisis of the NFL Players Association, |
| 0:45.3 | which is the NFL's union, and it is so unhinged that the only way that this can actually |
| 0:52.8 | be talked about reasonably is to bring in someone who |
| 0:56.0 | knows ball. And that is Charles McDonald of Yahoo Sports and the wonderful Football |
| 1:02.8 | 301 podcast. Welcome to the show. This is going to be a trip. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I've listened to |
| 1:08.7 | a few episodes, so I was excited when you asked me to come on. |
| 1:11.1 | Oh. |
| 1:11.6 | Love your work. |
| 1:12.6 | And yeah, this is going to be a good rant because, and not even really a rant because |
| 1:18.5 | because honestly, like, when you like, when you start to peel this back, it is really like |
... |
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