A new national anthem policy unveiled last week by the National Football League threatening fines against teams that have players kneeling as a sign of protest appears to have reignited long-simmering tensions between management and labor in the nation's most profitable professional sports league.

The National Football League Players Association, a labor union representing the interests of the league's current and former players, promptly issued a statement condemning the league's decision not to consult with the NFLPA in adopting a new national anthem policy and warning of a potential challenge to any provisions that do not comport with the collective bargaining agreement between owners and players reached in 2011.

If the Washington, D.C.-based union does go down that path, it will have a deep bench of high-powered law firms to dip into for outside counsel. The NFLPA made its annual LM-2 filing with the U.S. Department of Labor just before Memorial Day weekend. The document reveals that the union incurred nearly $7 million in legal expenses in the one-year period between March 1, 2017, and Feb. 28 of this year.

Winston & Strawn, a longtime outside legal adviser to the NFLPA through antitrust litigator Jeffrey Kessler, who became co-chairman of the firm in 2015, once again took the top spot for the union with more than $4.84 million in legal fees. That total surpassed the nearly $4.5 million that Winston & Strawn earned from the NFLPA the previous year. Kessler and Winston & Strawn made headlines in late 2017 for their work unsuccessfully challenging a six-game suspension levied by the NFL against star Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott.

Other firms on the NFLPA's outside counsel roster include Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher ($861,745); Washington, D.C.'s Groom Law Group ($328,716); Latham & Watkins ($283,278); Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan ($266,054); Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner ($98,255); Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton ($88,685); Philadelphia-based Willig, Williams & Davidson ($67,178); Jackson Walker ($61,604); Baker & Hostetler ($35,561); Dechert ($25,066); Boston-based Hemenway & Barnes ($10,459); Bethesda, Maryland-based Bregman, Berbert, Schwartz & Gilday ($9,628); Northern Virginia's Nova Business Law Group ($8,400); Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr ($6,452); and Newport Beach, California-based One LLP ($5,000).

DeMaurice Smith, a former Latham and Patton Boggs partner who since 2009 has served as executive director of the NFLPA, took home more than $2.7 million in total compensation last year. Ira Fishman, a former partner and COO at Patton Boggs, received $844,434 in his role as managing director of the union. Former Latham associate-turned-NFLPA deputy managing director Tuaranna “Teri” Patterson Smith took home $341,678, while former Latham and Patton Boggs associate Ahmad Nassar was paid $468,446 for his work as president of NFL Players Inc., the union's licensing and marketing arm. All three were hired by Smith in 2009 after he took over leadership of the NFLPA.

The union itself has an in-house legal department led by former NFL linebacker-turned-general counsel Thomas DePaso ($749,744). Other lawyers on the union's in-house payroll include associate general counsel Heather McPhee ($400,879) and Ned Ehrlich ($369,686); and staff counsel Sean Sansiveri ($278,754), Joe Briggs ($201,800), Todd Flanagan ($207,884), Sophie Gage ($109,572), Christopher Fawal ($101,396) and Caroline Gotschall ($59,141).

Many other current and former Big Law attorneys also now serve as registered NFL player agents, a database of which is maintained by the union. Almost all of the union's outside legal bills are related to matters pertaining to its collective bargaining agreement with the league, the current version of which runs through the 2020 season. Major issues looming on the horizon between players and owners of the NFL's 32 teams include revenue sharing from media deals, the adjudication of player conduct and disciplinary matters, player safety and the number of games in a season.

Earlier this month, the NFL's Carolina Panthers sold for a record $2.2 billion in a deal that yielded roles for Proskauer Rose, O'Melveny & Myers and North Carolina's Moore & Van Allen. A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision issued in May smoothing the way for widespread sports betting could add to an already robust revenue stream for NFL owners.

The NFL, whose commissioner is Roger Goodell, the son of a former U.S. senator and brother of Hess Corp. general counsel Timothy Goodell, gave up its nonprofit status in 2016. The league's top outside legal advisers generally include Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Covington & Burling, Proskauer and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, according to our previous reports. The NFL's longtime general counsel is former Covington partner Jeffrey Pash.

As for NFL and other aspiring professional football players, they could soon have several venues to ply their chosen trade outside the league's 32 teams. Vince McMahon, the famous wrestling promoter and chairman and CEO of media and entertainment company WWE Inc., has been advised by K&L Gates in his attempt to restart the ill-fated XFL in 2020.

The Alliance of American Football, another venture which trademark records show has received counsel from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, announced plans in March to launch a rival to the NFL and reborn XFL next year. The AAF has several well-heeled financial backers, one of which is Adrian Fenty, a former mayor of Washington, D.C., who now serves as a business development manager at Perkins Coie in Palo Alto, California, where he joined the firm in 2013.