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

[Scott Merryfield]

I hope the owners stick to their guns on this one. The NHL has been headed in the direction of major league baseball with its financial structure for several years, and the league cannot survive that way. However, along with a cap the owners should also be talking about revenue sharing. They have the most disparate differences in markets of any of the professional sports. I do not see modern hockey surviving in the smaller Canadian cities without a cap and revenue sharing. Personally, I think the league needs to abandon some of their warm weather cities regardless of what type of agreement is reached. Has anyone in Raleigh or Phoenix even noticed that the NHL is not playing?

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Yes, revenue sharing is a must, but I don't know that it necessitates closing any teams down, in fact I think they could expand even further if there was a shared system in place.

I really can't see what the players are arguing about. There is a fixed amount of revenue that gets generated each season, and if the players are getting more than half of it, why the bitching? The fan base will not support the kinds of ticket prices that would be necessary to continue down the current path, and Bettman is absolutely sound in his reasoning about how the rollback would work - and he has ten years of salary negotiations to back that position.

I say they split them money evenly, and cap the roster spending. If a team wants a $10M goalie, great, but soemwhere else they will have to sacrifice. The small market teams would have the same opportunity for great players as the bigger markets, which would mean an equal chance to draw an audience, and increase their revenue through merchandising and playoff potential. Having a more balanced league should also increase TV revenue, since advertisers would actually have an audience for games that would otherwise not have much draw due to lack of star power or a given outcome. The roster cap could be evaluated each year based on revenue performance. The players have to realise that if they are unable to create a revenue stream that supports their salaries, they are being paid too much.

I hope this can be resolved sooner than later so there is some sort of season this year, but at this point, I don't know that a playoffs would have much meaning.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I think there is almost zero chance of seeing any NHL hockey this season. Neither side is budging. The players will have to miss out a complete season's salary before enough of them will agree to a cap.

In the long run, though, I think the players will give in. After all, this is the players source of income, while the owners did not make their money from hockey -- they bought their teams with money earned elsewhere.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

I have to say that I side with nobody on this issue. The owners are just as responsible for the state of the game as the players are, and are in a sense asking the players to help bale them out of the mess that ownership played a very large role in creating.

The owners just had to have those expansion fees that came with bringing hockey to the Nashville's of the world. Well, when you add a number of teams in a short period of time you need players to play on those teams. The demand for players results in an escolation of player salaries and then you have basically what hockey has now. However, the players wouldn't have signed these high dollar contracts if someone hadn't offered them.

The owners should've pushed harder for a cap back in 94 before that round of expansion took place because the rise in salaries that came with 4 new member clubs would've been minimized if those teams were already coming in to a league that had a cap in place.

Now I happen to think that the league needs a cap and it needs revenue sharing if it wants to be successful. However, I'm not going to say that the players should necessarily just roll over and agree to this, because it is their salaries that are going to be impacted for the negative (in their view) because of mistakes that were made by ownership.

So I don't think that ownership is really in the right at least completely nor are the players completely in the wrong. It is one thing for people on the outside to look at the situation and say that the owners should do X or that the players should do Y but if you are a player or and you see this current situation as something largely created by ownership then why should you be so quick to do Y? Its not the players fault that ownership put forth contracts they wish they could get out of largely because they had to because of greater demand for player services that came about because owners wanted more money from expansion fees in the first place is it?

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Some of the owners are responsible, not all of them. Bettman's argument in the press conference hit the nail right on the head regarding caps - if even one owner ups the ante for one player, the repercussions are felt league wide. It isn't fair to run other teams out of business by creating payrolls and pay expectaions that are completely unsustainable, and unreflective of the revenue those players can generate for the league.

Yes, it is easy for me to sit here and say that Jagr can afford to take a $4M hit on his salary. If I were in his shoes, of course I wouldn't like it, that's a few Ferraris and a couple of estates I'd have to lose. The alternative is that the league goes under, and he goes back to playing in Europe for a couple hundred grand a season. Which would you pick?

The NHL's proposal now puts the pressure on the top paid players. I don't see why a guy making a measley $500K per season (tongue FIRMLY planted in cheek) should take a cut when it is the $5-11M contracts that are blowing the lid off the viability of the league, especially when half of them aren't even delivering!

I know it's doubtful we'll have hockey this year, and like I said before, a playoff run would have little true meaning without the full season behind it.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Since it seems apparent that the season is to be cancelled, I am still wondering just how the NHLPA expects the league to exist when player costs are outpacing revenues. It also leads me to question just where he players think they are going to get the kind of outrageous contracts they enjoy now if the league were to fold? If the NHL were to vanish, there would be a glut of players trying to get into the European and other minor leagues. There is no way they will be paid as handsomly there.

If the season is cancelled - and it should be at this point - the league will be lucky to generate half the revenue they have enjoyed thus far in coming seasons, and probably with fewer teams.

I feel sorry for the thousands of people making minimum wage who will have lost their jobs as a result of a group of greedy and completely unrealistic players.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I fully expect the following: (1) The season will get cancelled (obviously); (2) There will be no new collective bargaining agreement before the start of next season; (3) The owners will declare an impass in negotiations next fall, and open play with their desired salary cap, inviting any former NHLPA players to come back; (4) The NHLPA will sue the NHL for unfair labor practices, throwing this whole thing into the courts.

By the time everything is sorted out, there will be fewer franchises, zero television revenue and a league that more closely resembles the NHL from the late 1960's or early 1970's.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

i agree with scott, except i didnt think of the possibility of #4.

CJ

 

[Brian Perry]

I don't see how the NHLPA could possibly be successful in challenging the new deal the owners will impose. The owners want a salary cap, and should have no problems demonstrating that it will be good for the long term health of the league.

As for the current players, I'm sure the vast majority will come back under the new rules. Heck, I think the European leagues they're playing in now have caps.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

I just can't see the objection to a cap. It isn't like the league is capping individual salaries, and the lesser players will be making a heck of a lot more under the NHL deal.

I think the sticking ground is the few whose salaries will bloat a team's budget, most of them undeserving if their current performance played any role in their contracts.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

The NHL is sad, I mean its really a sad state of affairs. Salaries would decrease if there were less teams in the market out to pay these guys that's why expansion at the rate they di was a huge mistake. How many teams were added in the 90's?
The Union is looking out for the concerns of its wealthiest members and that's why they won't accept a cap even though the league can point to 2 other leagues where a cap has been beneficial the NFL and the NBA. A lot of players even have spoken out about how they'd be willing to accept a cap but they weren't the big money contract guys.
The thing that makes this sad is really how many people are upset by the fact that the NHL isn't currently playing games? The NHL is pretty close to XFL like numbers in terms of interest, I don't know what the ratings were for the last Stanley Cup series last year, but I'm thinking there's a good chance that the meaningless pro bowl could surpass them this weekend.
Scott's prediction is dead on for exactly what will happen. Once the season is canceled there will be no more negotiations for awhile because there is no urgancy. Then as he said it will unfold in exactly that manner.
This league needs fewer teams, a cap, and a better marketing strategy. The NHL should try and be a ticket driven league and not a TV driven league because hockey is so much better in person than on TV. So first and foremost market yourself in a way to keep those buildings full.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

The NHLPA will argue that the owners never intended to negotiate in good faith, and intended from the start to cancel the season and break the union. They may win with this argument.

Remember, the major league baseball players union successfully sued MLB owners for unfair labor practices a few years ago. Remember the collusion case? Once this gets into the courts, anything could happen.

BTW, I do agree with just about everything else said in this thread after my last post. The NHL desperately needs a salary cap AND revenue sharing. The league needs to get rid of several franchises, too. They never should have expanded into many of the markets they are currently in. This is not a major sport throughout most of the U.S. -- I doubt that many people in Phoenix, Miami and Raleigh have even noticed that the season hasn't started.

 

[Moe Maishlish]

Well, CNN is reporting that Gary Bettman is pretty much etched the tombstone for this season, and will announce the official cancellation on Wednesday.

It's really sad that this is going to be the first year in 86 years that the NHL season won't see a stanley cup champion, the first season in NHL history that the season never even started, and the first season in profession sports history that was ever cancelled due to a player/owner dispute.

I hate to be partisan, but the NHLPA really needs to let go of the delusion that they're going to come to an agreement without a salary cap. A cap is necessary to keep the league afloat, and the reality is that hocky is not the most popular sport in north america, so salary's simply cannot be handed out like they are in other leagues!

I'm not saying the owners aren't at fault at all here - they're partially responsible for creating the problem in the first place. As soon as salary's starting soaring, this problem should have been addressed. Now, with hockey in cities & markets that can't support them, we have teams that can barely keep their heads above water, and players that demand salaries that can't be justified based on average attendance for regular season games.

I don't expect this dispute to be resolved by next season. In that case, I'd be happy to see the owners populate their rosters with amateurs & juniors, just to thumb their noses at the NHLPA (can they do that?). Let the season commence without their regular players, and show the whiny rich players that it's the GAME, not the individual players that we care about.

Of course, at this point with the amount of disinterest shown by the sports community towards the NHL & Hockey, I'm hoping that both sides see that they have a lot more to lose collectively with this dispute.

In the end, I have no remorse for the owners or the players. They have their millions (or thousands, or whatever). It's sickening that this all boils down to money, and that the fans and other businesses that rely on the sport to exist have been thrown to the wolves. Shame on them all for letting this happen.

Moe.

 

[Edwin-S]

How do you know that player costs are outpacing revenue? Do you have access to the NHL league books? The books for individual NHL teams are not public knowledge. One of the player associations main complaints is that they are not being given a full and accurate accounting of all revenues generated. For example, in one report the player association representatives were complaining that one team's books showed that not a single hot dog or soda was sold in the arena during any home games. How can the player association be expected to believe that league revenues are far below costs, with accounting practices like that. All they have is the word of a bunch of fat cat owners that the league is drowning in red ink.

"Destitute" owners certainly seem to have been able to accumulate a big enough war chest during the "financial crisis". They are so destitute they can all afford to stop running their entire business for this year and possibly part of the next. If there is anyone that is greedy it is team owners......not players. Hell, most owners probably don't make most of their money from owning a hockey team. Their money comes from ownership of other businesses. Owning a hockey team is probably nothing but a hobby for a lot of these pinsuited assholes. Any revenue generated is just icing on the cake for their already bloated wallets.

 

[Edwin-S]

deleted

 

[Scott Merryfield]

While nobody here has seen the owners books, it's only logical that most teams would be in a dire finacial situation. Many teams in lesser markets play to half full arenas, and there is virtually zero revenue coming in from television. TV and ticket sales are the two major sources of revenue in sports. Yet the average player salary in the NHL is higher than in the NFL, which fills its stadiums and has a $1 billion TV contract.


The owners response to this has been that the small market teams are losing less money by not playing than by playing under the current financial system. Whether this is true or not is open for debate, but the items I listed in my first paragraph certainly make such a situation possible.

 

[Richard Kim]

Actually, the Players Association has agreed to a salary cap, but talks have broken down.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=1991361

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I think the players agreement to a cap was a setup for their future lawsuit against the owners. They agreed to a very high ($52 million) cap, knowing the owners would reject the offer. However, when the NHLPA sues for unfair labor practices, they can claim that they did relent on their stance regarding a salary cap.

 

[Edwin-S]

The NHLPA can't win. They don't agree to the company demand for a salary cap and the general tone is...."the players are greedy snd don't give a shit about hockey or the fans".

They now give in to the company demand for a salary cap and it's, essentially, "well, they are just agreeing so they can set up the NHL for a lawsuit."

They make a concession and Bettman just keeps upping the ante because he and the owners think the NHLPA is starting to fold.

 

[Prentice Cotham]

Well, 52 million is too high of a cap. It wouldn't be any better than what is going on today. I think this PA offer is a good starting point. The owners gave up linkage which was a big deal. Now they can sit down, as they are doing, and possibly whittle the cap down to about 45-46 million and get a 28 game season going.