The NHL 2004-2005 Season (LOCKOUT! now over) (1 Viewer)

[MikeH1]

I always enjoyed watching the Oilers play a Southeastern team and looking into the stands to see over half of the seats empty. Really made me wonder about all this expansion into the US.

Losing Winnipeg and Quebec to relocation was a crime.





Great quote

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

So is the cap they are currently arguing over at the player or team level? I thought it was team based, but haven't been paying that much attention. I don't see what is so bad about a team being limited in their overall player payroll. They can pay their stars as much as they want, but just can't pay the whole team exorbitant amounts.

 

[Moe Maishlish]

I was of the understand that the dispute was over a per-player cap, not an overall team cap. I believe the number that was being thrown around was $6,000,000 per year.

Still, I can't believe someone would complain that they're ONLY getting $6,000,000. Even after taxes, that's a big chunk of change!

If the strike lasts the season, players will make $0... not exactly great economics.

moe.

 

[Angelo.M]

No, I'm not. Yes, they have a huge salary burden. But I'd be curious to see, for example, the licensing revenue figures.

 

[Richard Travale]

Moe, I'm fairly certain there has been no real talk of a player salary cap...just an overall team cap.
I remember there was the number 31 bandied about and people thought it was crazy that if Calgary had a 31 mill payroll and Jarome Iginla was being paid almost a third of it.
Of course, with a team cap comes owner responsibility. If there is a 42 million dollar team cap, then gone are the days of throwing 7, 8 and 9 million dollar contracts to multiple players.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

If all the fuss is over a team cap, then the player's association is being ridiculous. All a team cap will do is spread out the talent, and force owners to prioritize. That, plus a revenue sharing system would create a more balanced league, more competition, and assumedly better draws for some of the more fragile markets, since their teams won't look like bantam league teams with all the rejects.

Owners should already know that loading up on expensive players isn't a guarantee of success - look at New York's roster and their standings last year. The same goes for Detroit. I don't see an issue paying a third of the budget to a player who fills seats and helps his team succeed, both on the ice and financially. Just make the cap reasonable, and the teams should still be able to have a few A players, with a strong supporting roster.

If the season is cancelled this year, they will have a lot more to worry about than hoarding major players.

 

[chris rick]

I for one am sort of glad there is a lockout. The NHL really needs to reorient the sport in a new direction--it's just not exciting enough for the common person. I am not insinuating that we need puck trax back or anything so wretched--in fact I really have no answers. But the game needs a MAJOR rehaul in order to bring more people to it.

While I am an avid hockey fan and played team hockey for 12 years, I can't help but notice the downhill slide that the NHL has taken vis a vis the other major sports. Hockey will always have the stigma of not being an American sport--but rather a CANADIAN and a European one. This alone crushes its chances to make as much money as the other major sports. Couple this with the fact that team CANADA just won the World Cup and a team from Florida (!) just won the Cup last year and you have a huge recipe for disaster. It is downright laughable to the common joe to see a team from sunny Florida win a Stanley Cup when he/she has hardly any interest in the sport to begin with and views it as a non-American sport. Although I am from near Philly and we have no problems whatsoever selling very, very pricey tickets for every game, other NHL teams are absolutely dying financially.

It is for these reasons and many others that the NHL MUST begin to rethink its marketing (especially of star players--just ask the average person to name a superstar hockey player in the league now and they might be able to name one, maybe two at most). There are few genuine superstars left in the game anymore--there is a mass of talent (St. Louis, Kovalchuk, Nash, Lecavalier, and Gaborik come to mind to name but a few), but no genuine superstars and true ambassadors for the game wrapped up into one except for a very select few, (Jerome Iginla and Keith Primeau most of all come to mind--players that are great leaders and even better human beings) and the NHL does a PISS POOR job of presenting such specific players to the mass public. I really hope that the NHL does something with this time off other than bitch about losing money--like rethink everything about the game. This really sucks without hockey the way it is meant to be seen.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Here's one interesting tidbit I heard on ESPN this morning: the average NHL player salary is higher than the average NFL player salary. That's despite the fact that the NFL has a $2 billion network TV contract and the NHL gets virtually nothing from its new contract. Also, NHL player salaries equal 75% of the league's total revenue -- this is way higher than the other professional sports.

If these figures are accurate, there is no way the league can survive under its existing financial model.

 

[Lew Crippen]

You are correct in that each team could pay their stars whatever they wished—and would just prioritize the rest. But no matter what any individual gets, it is still a zero sum game.

If the owner’s assertions are correct (and I don’t really think that they are being entirely honest), they are paying over 75% of their revenue on player salaries. Should that drop to around 55% (some of the proposals), there will be less money to go around.

Remember the Player’s Association is trying to maximize the salaries of its entire membership, not just the stars. After all, it is more or less a democracy and there are more average players than stars. It follows that the Association will try to keep the average player’s salaries up as well as the marquee players.

I expect that the player’s are not concerned with creating league balance—their first priority is to their membership—keeping the salary level as high as possible, not making sure that every team has a chance.

Of course on can argue that the players’ interests would be better served with making sure that the bottom teams don’t fold, but if I were a player, I’d want ownership to demonstrate that they were interested creating league balance with things like revenue sharing before giving up any of my paycheck.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

The problem with being hard line on the player's side is that if things go on as they are, teams will fold, which means less players in the NHL. I would think that the NHLPA would not only want to maintain the number of clubs, but expand as well, bringing more players into the pool.

 

[Sami Kallio]

I see more problems in the owners side though. Players have other options for work, owners don't have replacement players. Even if they reach an agreement they can't make the salary cap too low, that would lead to exodus to other leagues that would pay them. Right now there are no leagues that pay like NHL but if they see an opportunity they will start paying higher and higher salaries. NHL needs to make sure they can pay considerably more than the other leagues, they can't go past that fact.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

In theory, yes, but there still has to be income for the rival league to support those salaries. If there is a cap in place there is less likelihood that salaries would increase elsewhere. If anything, I could see a decrease in pay since the NHL wouldn't be offering more competition.

 

[Sami Kallio]

If they could attract the stars, they could better attract the revenue. There is enough money for this if the NHL salaries decline considerably. It is just a matter of getting the flow away from NHL started. Right now people wouldn't play elsewhere even if the money was equal just because everyone wants to play at the best league. Depending what happens, NHL might not be the league to play in the future.

Just to clarify, I am not talking about a rival league in NA but rather in Europe. Lots of money and fans if they could just attract the stars away from NHL.

 

[Sami Kallio]

Example of the rising salaries in Russian league.

http://hfboards.com/archive/index.php/t-73291.html

"Tverdovsky signed a contract with Omsk in Siberia worth $5 million over two seasons, with the team even paying his taxes"

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

While I can see a talent drain if salaries are reduced greatly, I don't think that is the scenario that is likely to happen. A team cap would only really affect the elite players in terms of increasing their already huge contracts. While the foreign leagues could offer more money, they will also face the same challenges as the NHL. One $2.5M/season contract is one thing, having dozens of players making over $6M a season is a lot harder to sustain in the long term.

The NHL is a sick league, and can't get better without revising its strategies. I also doubt that most North American players would be willing to relocate to Russia, no matter what the salary. There is still some cache to playing and living in the west.

 

[Sami Kallio]

That is true, NHL still has a lot of leverage but it makes it easier for the player when there are other options for work. Unlike NFL for example.

Most NA's wouldn't want to go to Russia but a lot of Russians would also not want to go NA if they had the same benefits at homeland league. Same with Swedes, Finns and others. Forsberg would have propably been playing in Sweden for years now if the league economy would have made possible say 5M a year instead of his 10M NHL salary. High priced combined European league would be possible with the right players and TV deals. Being European myself living in US I know what some of these players are thinking and understand their desire to go back home. Even if it is another European country it is still better as it is a lot closer to home.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Well, at least Quebec relocated to Colorado, where they actually play hockey...and its not just a novalty.

Scott is correct, the average NHL player makes more than the average NFL plaer.

Consider this, of all the revenue that the NFL generates in a year, something like 15 percent is used to pay the players, which is the lowest in pro sports. I would not be shocked in the least to learn that Hockey is the highest, given the salary structure and the fact that it generates the least amount of revenue of the 4 major sports in the U.S.

 

[Micheal]

I feel really sorry for the arena staff, referee's and linesmen. They are all getting screwed during all of this.

:frowning:

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Yeah me to, and plus I think I remember reading or hearing that quite a few people working out of the league office got laid off.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Yes, it is pretty sad that while the players and owners bitch about multimillion dollar salaries, the little folks making peanuts are ousted from their jobs.