Midnight, March 4. Mark it down on your calendars, NFL fans. The events of that previous day will likely mean the difference between having-or not having-football next fall.And if September Sundays roll around and stadiums like Soldier Field remain barren, don’t blame the players. Know it was the owners who got us there.

Midnight on March 4 signals the end of the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA)-essentially, negotiations between the employer (in this case, the NFL) and its union employees (the NFL Players Association) that regulate working conditions.

For a professional sports league, that entails season length, practice time allowed, minimum and maximum wages, the spread of revenue, and a multitude of other details that affect how the two groups work together, as one whole unit.

So what’s potentially holding up the sport?

How to slice up a $9 billion pie.

Currently, owners remove $1 billion from revenue to cover operating expenses. Players then receive 60 percent of the remaining revenue. Owners are asking for an additional $1 billion to be taken off the top to cover rising expenses they say-before giving the players their percentage. They have also reportedly asked the players to take a smaller cut than 60 percent.

A rookie wage scale is also being proposed, that would essentially fix rookie contracts to a specific price based on where a player was drafted.

The rookie wage scale is the change each side can almost connect on right now. Both agree the salaries of incoming college players need to be controlled-they just can’t agree on how much control there needs to be.

In addition, owners want to create an 18-game regular season while cutting the number of preseason games from its current four down to two.

Why? Ask Commissioner Roger Goodell, and you will get one answer.

“We started this with the fans,” Goodell said at his annual State of the League press conference before the Super Bowl. “The fans have clearly stated that they don’t like the preseason. We have a 20-game format, 16 regular season games and four preseason games, and the fans have repeatedly said the preseason games don’t meet NFL standards. And that is the basis on which we started this 18-game concept, taking two low-quality preseason games and turning them into two high-quality regular season games.”

This despite an Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll released on Feb. 3 in which only 27 percent of those surveyed said they were either “strongly” or “somewhat” in favor of expanding to an 18-game season.

But 18 games also means two more opportunities to rake in the gigantic sums of advertising money and broadcast rights the NFL receives. That part is not often mentioned.

The NFLPA, on the other hand, has one big concern-ensuring that they are taken care of post-retirement due to the physical trauma suffered from playing the game.

The game that makes owners the millions of dollars they have-including record profits the last few years.

There is a clear gap in priorities between the two sides that makes the current impasse look daunting. One side is worried about squeezing every dollar out of the industry possible, despite already making more than they ever have. The other is happy where they stand, but would like some assurance that former players will be able to get help for injuries sustained while playing football.

People have a tendency to latch on to the people they see. If a movie was bad, we often say it was because of the actors and actresses, not the composer who over-scored it, or editor who chopped the film into oblivion. Those are the visible faces, the ones doing the action. So when we see an absence of football, people will probably ask why the players would decide not to play.

But make no mistake-this is not the players choosing to sit out, unhappy with the current structure. This is simply the owners trying to increase revenue at the expense of their employees.

And there is a good chance they will get away with it.