It took a monumental blown call on Monday night, but the National Football League and its referee union final reached a deal Wednesday, ending the officials’ strike.

By now almost everybody knows of the egregious wrong call at the end of the Green Bay Packers/Seattle Seahawks game Monday, where the referees signaled a Seattle touchdown on a Hail Mary pass as time expired, although replays clearly showed the Packers had intercepted the ball. That bad call led to a Seattle victory.

Twitter immediately blew up with thousands of people texting about the call, which was made by replacement officials, and how the NFL needed to end the labor dispute.

Since the early part of summer, the NFL and its officials have been at odds over the refs’ contract. The NFL wanted to move from a pension to 401k program for the officials, who are part time. The NFL also wanted to add 21 full-time officials. Until Monday, the two sides were at odds and seemingly not close to forging a deal.

For the past three weeks, the fans, players and coaches have balked at the replacement referees’ lack of experience and inability to make good calls, which led to extra timeouts for teams that didn’t have any, blatant missed calls on pass interference, improper placement of the ball and many other blunders.

These referees, after all, didn’t come into the NFL as top college officials, as they did during the officials strike in 2001. No one remembers that season for having bad officiating, because it didn’t.

This year, the replacement officials came from small, Division III schools, high schools and even the Lingerie League, and it showed.

It appeared that the NFL only cared about its bottom line, since viewership during the past three weeks had increased. Why should the NFL care what the fans thought? After all, the fans were still watching the game and the league wasn’t losing money.

Then Monday night happened and the league finally had no choice, since the Seahawks won 14-12, affecting betting lines as the officials clearly blew not only the call, but the game. It was an embarrassment for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Funny how quickly the negotiating heated up after Monday night. By Tuesday, the two sides began meeting again in New York. By Wednesday night, they had a new contract.

Why couldn’t this have been done during the summer when the strike began? The NFL simply wanted to demonstrate its power and crush the officials’ union, and make an example of the referees like it did when it locked the players out in 2011. Only this time, it backfired.

The NFL will hire only seven full-time officials starting in 2013 and the officials’ pension will be kept through 2016. Then, it will become a 401k retirement plan. The officials will also earn $205,000 per year by 2019, an increase of nearly $85,000.

The referees, who earn a minimum of $3,500 per game right now and work only 20 weekends per year, have one of the best part-time jobs in America, and now they have apparently won against a league that earns $9 billion per year.

The referees, however, are not the real winners in this saga. The fans and the players are, because, after all, the game should be about them.