-: What's Different about NFL Contract Talks in 2011?

The threat of a lockout in the NFL still seems to be an imminent possibility. As that the possibility draws closer, both the owners and the NFL Players Association are making efforts to win the support of fans to their respective side of the dispute. The battle for the support of the fans who are the driving engine of the business is nothing new to NFL contract negotiations. But what is new or different about the battle for the hearts and minds of the fans this year?

Online Campaign and Use of Social Media
In a New York Times article, "In N.F.L. Labor Fight, Battlefield Moves Online," Richard Sandomir reports that, "the two sides are jabbing, countering and needling each other on Twitter, Facebook and on Web sites devoted entirely to the possible lockout. Their online dueling is designed, in part, to woo fans to their corners." When the last agreement was reached in 2006, Facebook was still a college campus fad, and Twitter was just being born. The cyber-landscape has shifted since then.

Fantasy Football
Fantasy football is of course not a brand new new thing, and certainly was quite popular the last time the parties negotiated. But fantasy football continues to be a growing pastime and business and its impact surely only grows stronger. From Wikipedia:
"The explosive popularity of fantasy sports, coupled with the availability of venues showcasing numerous live football games via satellite, has had significant effects on football viewing and rooting habits among participants. Fantasy sports players watch more game telecasts, buy more tickets and spend money at stadiums at a much higher rate than general sports fans...The NFL entered into a reported five-year, $600 million deal in 2006 with Sprint that was driven at least in part because of fantasy sports, allowing subscribers to draft and monitor their teams with their cellphones."

But how should fantasy football impact fans' sympathy in labor disputes? It could really cut both ways. On the one hand, fantasy football players are actually fantasy football owners. They draft players and make executive decisions about who will be on their teams. By playing owners, will they be primed to empathize with ownership in the labor dispute?

On the other hand, fantasy football shifts the focus from teams to individual players. From Wikipedia:

"Critics charge that rather than supporting a favorite team in any one game, some fantasy owners may instead support the players on their fantasy rosters." Fantasy football owners know and care about the players of a vast number of teams. They know about small details of the players' health and lives that might impact their perfomances such as minor cases of turf toe or a breakup with a girlfriend. So, if playing fantasy football makes fantasy owners fans of players rather than fans of teams, that could drive their allegiance into the corners of the players.

Whichever side the fantasy owners come down on will be important. They watch more and spend more than the average fan and will likely be angrier than average at somebody when they can't watch their games. Additionally they are a vocal group and will lead opinion among other fans.

Political Affiliation of the Fans
I don't have any historical data on this, and so I don't know if it represents a change, but a marketing study shows that NFL fans tend to be right of center politically and incidentally more likely to vote than average TV watchers. Below is a fancy dot graph from that study. Contracts run up in several pro sports this year. Of those up for negotiations, you can see below that NBA fans are the most left leaning, MLB fans are slightly to the right of center, but less so than NFL fans, and NHL fans are further to the right than NFL fans. Of course leaning right generally means leaning away from support of organized labor. Will the political leanings of the fan bases affect their support in contract negotiations?