Dave Rather can't help but fret that his patio will be empty come the second Sunday in September.
The day should be one of the most festive and lucrative of the year at Mother's Federal Hill Grille, a time for eight months of anticipation to pay off in a purple-tinged celebration of beer, cheer and most importantly, football.
But now that the NFL players union has decertified and the owners have locked the players out, Rather — like millions of fans and interested business owners nationwide — is contemplating a fall without football. A season-long labor stoppage could cost his business $500,000 in revenues, cause him to hire fewer waiters and deprive longtime employees of their best tip days of the year. It might hurt Rather even more as a fan. He has hardly missed a game since the Ravens came to Baltimore and has raised his kids on the team.
"More important than the financial aspect, the Ravens are just a huge part of my life," he said. "They're part of our social fabric, something everybody can get behind. Poor or rich, black or white, everybody loves the Ravens."
Rather is one of countless Marylanders whose years could be upset by a prolonged NFL work stoppage.
The first to feel the effects would be those most closely involved with the game. Players would lose millions of dollars in salary, free agents would be unable to search for new homes, draft picks would be unsure whether to sign contracts and injured veterans would be forced to seek treatment from their own physicians rather than team doctors. On the other side, coaches and general managers would be unable to construct their 2011 rosters or teach new plays at off-season camps.
Come July, the pain would begin to spread, first to Westminster, where fans flood the streets of the small city for training camp. In September, the ripples would reach Baltimore, where downtown bar owners depend on purple-clad patrons for lucrative Sundays and thousands of vendors earn extra income by working in and around M&T Bank Stadium.
A 2007 study ordered by the Maryland Stadium Authority found that the Ravens pay $16.5 million to the state in sales and income taxes, support 400 jobs worth $300 million in wages and account for $69 million in sales at local businesses.
"I think the direct impact would be substantial but fairly concentrated to advertisers, retailers and merchants located near the stadium," said Anirban Basu, chairman of the Baltimore-based Sage Policy Group. "It would not be enough to throw the city back into recession, but it would be meaningfully felt."
The sense of loss would go deeper than dollars and cents. The Ravens are perhaps the greatest cultural touchstone for the Baltimore area. Irrespective of race or creed, thousands of people plan everything from their Friday wardrobes to their Sunday dinners around games. The NFL has become a secular church and its adherents would feel spiritually bereft in its absence.
"What would I do?" said Jeff Schwartz, an Owings Mills resident who attends every home game and several road games a year. "It would be kind of like if somebody took away Christmas."
Most of the pain could be averted if the sides come to an agreement in the next few months. The current standoff has an abstract quality. Fans have not truly begun to agonize, because the prospect of losing real games, which hasn't happened in the NFL since 1987, is six months away. It seems impossible to many that a corporation generating $9 billion a year could simply halt operations.
For those who have not followed the labor dispute, it's important to understand that issues such as an expanded 18-game schedule and a new wage scale for rookies amount to interesting distractions. The owners and players are really fighting about how to divide that $9 billion pie. Owners want to take $1.5 billion off the top, a significant increase over what they received under the old deal, for expenses such as stadium construction and renovation. Players say that, as the talent that makes the enterprise run, they deserve to keep their share.
The union asked the owners to open their books and explain why they need a larger cut, but never received the documents they wanted. Now the matter will likely be settled in court rooms — several players have already filed antitrust lawsuits — and it appears the fate of the season won't be known until later in the summer at the earliest.
The player
Ravens receiver Derrick Mason isn't shy about voicing his opinion, whether he's talking politics, music or how often the Ravens should be throwing him the ball. Of late, the Ravens' union representative has turned his sharp tongue to the anxieties flowing from labor strife
He has spent weeks reminding fellow union members to sign up for COBRA health insurance, in case a lockout costs them benefits.
"I don't know if everyone did it, to be honest," Mason said. "I know a few guys who still haven't got their packets, or they haven't filed for it. I just want to remind guys and makes sure you sign your COBRA insurance, because the last thing you want to do is go to the doctor with your wife or your child and be denied."
Ravens cornerback Domonique Foxworth has already discussed holding unofficial workouts in the event of a lockout, and Mason has broached the topic with several teammates as well. But Mason doesn't worry that veterans will fail to prepare for the season. It's the younger players he's unsure about, especially the ones who haven't been drafted yet.
"It becomes a thing where they're saying 'I can't study the plays. I can't talk to the offensive coordinator and learn the offense,'" he said. "Once they get drafted, that's when they're going to start to worry. That's when they're going to say 'Man, I'll be glad when this thing gets over. I need to prove to guys that I can play on this level.' I think it's really going to hurt them."
Mason said he's also concerned about the financial pains a labor stoppage could cause for people with no affiliation to the team and about the resentment that could build.
"We're aware that they all look forward to that money," Mason said. "That's something we worry about as players. Us older guys, we've made money and we've saved money. It's not going to affect us. It's the people in the concession stands, the people that work in buildings. Once we go into a lockout, their pay is getting cut. It affects people like that.
It doesn't affect the billionaires vs. the millionaires. It's affecting everyone in the middle, and that's a problem that we're going to have."
The town
If there's a line the players and owners could cross to scare fans in earnest, it probably runs through Westminster. That's where the Ravens travel every July to begin full-on preparations for the season. It's also where thousands of fans get first glimpses of their heroes after six months without football.
At Harry's Main Street Grille, owner Harry Siriakis already has a sign up proclaiming that training camp is only five months away. His revenues jump 30 percent when the Ravens are in town and the steady flow of tailgating revelers puts everyone in a good mood.
Siriakis believes a lockout would sour those feelings. "Westminster has established itself as a real football town and there's a sense of civic pride in that," he said. "There's a lot of livelihoods at stake here, not just players and owners. It directly effects us here in Westminster."
Stan Ruchlewicz, the city's economic development administrator, said training camp brings 110,000 fans over four weeks and pumps about $1.7 million into the local economy.
"It effects not only the shops on Main Street, but the gas stations on the highway and the restaurants around town," he said.
At McDaniel College, where the Ravens actually train, the money hit is only part of the picture. "As a college, the Ravens bring us visibility we couldn't buy," said Ethan Seidel, the college's vice president for administration and finance. "It's almost priceless. They get our name out there and that's a greater long-term impact than the money."
The team's contract with the college lapsed after last season, Seidel said, so the relationship is in limbo with a lockout looming. "We're operating now as if they are coming back," Seidel said. "We'll be ready when the decision is made."
The fan
Schwartz, the super fan who builds every autumn weekend around the Ravens, remains optimistic. As a guy who has made a nice life with his lumber business in Brooklyn Park, he can't fathom the players and owners throwing away so much money.
"They're not going to kill the golden goose, they're just not," he said. "They saw what happened to baseball [after a 1994 strike wiped out the World Series], and I don't think they want to let that happen."
He has not followed the blow-by-blow of labor negotiations and like many fans, he thinks the billionaire owners and the millionaire players must have enough sense to compromise. "What's a billion dollars to these guys?" he said.
Schwartz's outlook would dim if the dispute carries past the April draft and into the months when the team usually holds mini-camps. Then, he might think about weeks without football, the loss of that rush which begins when one game ends and builds until the next begins. He'd imagine his eight-year-old daughter's sadness at the disappearance of Purple Fridays at school.
Schwartz decorates his truck with Ravens flags and magnets. He gives Ravens jerseys to customers and employees to show his appreciation. On Friday, more than six months away from the next scheduled game, he wore his Anquan Boldin jersey and Ravens jacket to work.
Paradoxically, the players and owners might be counting on the deep love that fans like Schwartz feel for football. The bet might be that even a prolonged standoff wouldn't drive customers away.
Schwartz confirmed as much. "The day they open the gates to the stadium, whenever it is, I'll be there," he said. "It would be pretty hard for me to hold a grudge. Football is too much in my blood."
The barkeep
At Mother's, the bar he fashioned into a temple for Ravens football, Rather has kept a more worried eye on the negotiations. A season without the NFL would wipe his 10 best business days off the ledger, just like that.
"It would be like it raining all summer at Ocean City," he said. "We wouldn't go out of business or anything, but it would really hurt us."
Federal Hill is a sight to behold on gameday mornings. More people seem dressed in purple than not, Ravens flags hang from windows on every block, fans line up at 8 a.m. to chug 32-ounce beers. The Purple Patio at Mother's might be the epicenter of it all, with fans drinking and talking football on a replica field painted right across the asphalt.
Rather tells himself there's plenty of time for the players and owners to erase his nightmare of an empty patio. But he thinks about it.
"The depression," he said, "could last for months."
Baltimore Sun reporters Candus Thomson and Kevin Van Valkenburg contributed to this article.