As the Professional Lacrosse Players Association leadership prepared to launch its strike, beginning just after midnight tonight, National Lacrosse League commissioner Jim Jennings was busy addressing the masses.

Several NLL players received emails Thursday evening from the commissioner, explaining the details of the owners' "last, best, and final offer to the PLPA."

In the email (it's unknown just how many players received the letter), Jennings runs through each of the issues key to the collective bargaining agreement negotiations.

The league's proposed deal starts with a salary floor of $190,000 (American), a 54 percent increase over the previous minimum of $123,000, and reaches a maximum of $290,000 -- comparable but not quite equal to the top teamwide payroll last season.

The salary floor and ceiling would increase in proportion to the rise in sponsorship, television, and merchandising revenue, Jennings said, noting that the league is finally positioned to cash in on its growth.

Jennings pointed out in the letter that the reason these revenues have been so small until now is that the league has, until recently, been almost entirely located in the northeastern United States and Ontario. There are now more teams west of the Mississippi River (six) than east of it (four).

A team's roster would remain at 23 players, with at least thirteen designated as Franchise and Core players. Those players would be guaranteed at least $12,000 for the season, with Core players able to earn up to $18,000 and Franchise players (a maximum of three per team) receiving $20,000 to $25,000.

The previous collective bargaining agreement allowed for a maximum salary of $20,625 for players who were eligible to receive the "Franchise" tag and $18,750 for all others.

The non-Core/non-Franchise players would be paid between $3200 and $8000 for the season, but are guaranteed that amount, since players will be paid their full contract amount regardless of whether they dress for games. Prior to now, non-dress players were paid $187.50 per game.

In addition, bonus pay increases from $12,000 per team to $4000 per player -- potentially $92,000 among the 23 players. It's not clear, though, if bonus money would count against the salary cap.

The owners are proposing that free agency continues as it existed in the last CBA, with three-year veterans able to become restricted free agents if certain conditions are met and six-year veterans gaining their unrestricted free agency at the age of 32.

Jennings also addressed the issue of currency, a point of serious disagreement after the owners originally proposed to pay American players in American dollars and Canadian players in Canadian dollars. All contracts will be negotiated in American dollars, the commissioner explained, with immediate conversion to Canadian dollars as needed.

Salaries would then be locked in at that converted salary for the entire season.

The proposal-killer for the players may be the contract length -- while PLPA reportedly has locked into one-year-only mode, the owners want a seven-year deal, extending through the 2010 season. A long deal favors the owners' desperate attempts to demonstrate league stability.

The owners, concerned about the uncertainty caused by the strike, has informed PLPA that its offer will only stand until Monday. After that time, if no new collective bargaining agreement is reached, the league will impose its own rules and begin signing players.

"We can not wait any longer and jeopardize the start of the season," Jennings said of the NLL's eighteenth season, scheduled to begin in Glendale, Arizona, on Friday, 26 December.

PLPA, which made its first offer in mid-November, has still not issued a statement on either the pending strike or the struggling negotiations which caused it.

The union needs to do something this weekend, though, or it risks the collapse of its unified front.