I agree. I think the tipping point will be late next summer. With another lost season looming, I think the owners will look for replacement players for the 2013-2014 season.
To do that they need to get an impasse declared and impose a CBA. Big legal hurdle.
Does anyone actually think that is a viable solution?
No. Not even one player that actually believes he has even the tiniest chance at some day playing in the NHL would sign up to be a replacement. I would imagine mostly everyone in the AHL considers themselves too close to the NHL to forever destroy their chances at playing in the real NHL by becoming a replacement player during the lockout.
Plus, I don't think the owners themselves would be willing to go the replacement route. Why would they? It's not as if they are going to gain any type of revenue from replacement players. People are not going to pay NHL ticket prices (or any price for that matter) to come watch what amounts to a beer league game featuring players that are bad enough to where they don't see becoming a replacement as interfering with their future in hockey.
Replacement players are no longer a realistic option for any major sport going through a labor battle. The only precedence for the use of "scabs" in a major pro sport is from the NFL strike of 1987. First of all, that was a strike, not a lockout. It's a little different, and a lot easier to justify replacement players, when the players are refusing to play as opposed to the owners not allowing the players to play. Second, that strike was not wholesale. There were many players that crossed the picket lines out of respect for their owners. While the majority of NFL players were fighting extraordinarily greedy ownership, teams like the 49ers were put into an extremely difficult position. The 49ers adored Eddie Debartolo, and the veteran stars, especially, did not want to go on strike. Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, and Roger Craig, all of whom were like sons to Eddie, crossed the picket line mid-way through the strike because they believed Eddie deserved better after how well he had treated them over the years. Ronnie Lott, who was equally close to Eddie as those 3 were, believed that their duty as players was to stand by their NFL brethren who were not being treated as well as they were. So, that left a slightly awkward situation that involved Montana and several other 49er offensive stars playing with the scabs. Even when the NFL used replacement players, they were generally mixed in with NFL players that crossed the picket line. No such happening for the NHL. Even though the use of scabs ended up bringing the regular players back from strike without any major concessions from the owners, the embarrassment that the NFL encountered from using replacement players was so much that that option is no longer a realistic one. Especially considering that a federal judge dropped the hammer on NFL owners a few months after, ruling that the players did indeed deserve the unrestricted free agency that they went on strike for in the first place.
Last edited by Blades of Glory: 10-31-2012 at 01:50 AM.
No. Not even one player that actually believes he has even the tiniest chance at some day playing in the NHL would sign up to be a replacement. I would imagine mostly everyone in the AHL considers themselves too close to the NHL to forever destroy their chances at playing in the real NHL by becoming a replacement player during the lockout.
Plus, I don't think the owners themselves would be willing to go the replacement route. Why would they? It's not as if they are going to gain any type of revenue from replacement players. People are not going to pay NHL ticket prices (or any price for that matter) to come watch what amounts to a beer league game featuring players that are bad enough to where they don't see becoming a replacement as interfering with their future in hockey.
Replacement players are no longer a realistic option for any major sport going through a labor battle. The only precedence for the use of "scabs" in a major pro sport is from the NFL strike of 1987. First of all, that was a strike, not a lockout. It's a little different, and a lot easier to justify replacement players, when the players are refusing to play as opposed to the owners not allowing the players to play. Second, that strike was not wholesale. There were many players that crossed the picket lines out of respect for their owners. While the majority of NFL players were fighting extraordinarily greedy ownership, teams like the 49ers were put into an extremely difficult position. The 49ers adored Eddie Debartolo, and the veteran stars, especially, did not want to go on strike. Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, and Roger Craig, all of whom were like sons to Eddie, crossed the picket line mid-way through the strike because they believed Eddie deserved better after how well he had treated them over the years. Ronnie Lott, who was equally close to Eddie as those 3 were, believed that their duty as players was to stand by their NFL brethren who were not being treated as well as they were. So, that left a slightly awkward situation that involved Montana and several other 49er offensive stars playing with the scabs. Even when the NFL used replacement players, they were generally mixed in with NFL players that crossed the picket line. No such happening for the NHL. Even though the use of scabs ended up bringing the regular players back from strike without any major concessions from the owners, the embarrassment that the NFL encountered from using replacement players was so much that that option is no longer a realistic one. Especially considering that a federal judge dropped the hammer on NFL owners a few months after, ruling that the players did indeed deserve the unrestricted free agency that they went on strike for in the first place.
great info
I mean while I understand it's a nuclear option, I just don't see how the owners supposedly have so much leverage. They are the ones not making their nut, the players are already wealthy and still have their talent... which is the product ...
I mean while I understand it's a nuclear option, I just don't see how the owners supposedly have so much leverage. They are the ones not making their nut, the players are already wealthy and still have their talent... which is the product ...
The owners of these teams are mostly billionaire businessmen, who can lose $20 mil a year until the cows come home and not really notice it. The players, save for a few, are far from 'wealthy' and have real bills to pay.
And as far as the product goes, 'the product' the players have to sell would be worth almost squat without the billions of dollars the owners have invested in arenas, infrastructure, marketing/promotion, staffing, etc. If the players have all the leverage, why not just go form their own league?
No. Not even one player that actually believes he has even the tiniest chance at some day playing in the NHL would sign up to be a replacement. I would imagine mostly everyone in the AHL considers themselves too close to the NHL to forever destroy their chances at playing in the real NHL by becoming a replacement player during the lockout.
Plus, I don't think the owners themselves would be willing to go the replacement route. Why would they? It's not as if they are going to gain any type of revenue from replacement players. People are not going to pay NHL ticket prices (or any price for that matter) to come watch what amounts to a beer league game featuring players that are bad enough to where they don't see becoming a replacement as interfering with their future in hockey.
While I think it's a long shot simply because it's not a real solution, I don't think it's impossible. Bettman already hinted that at some point the owners would consider it and I think if it came to a true impasse, i.e., there will be no settlement, the league would pursue it and they would get players willing to play. They'd drop ticket prices and just try to cover their fixed costs as much as possible. Eventually the players would realize they have no option, cave and get back on the ice.
And as far as nobody coming to watch, granted it won't be a packed house, but plenty of minor league teams draw decent crowds in much crappier arenas with much less of a fan following.
I mean while I understand it's a nuclear option, I just don't see how the owners supposedly have so much leverage. They are the ones not making their nut, the players are already wealthy and still have their talent... which is the product ...
lol, most of the players are rich. very few are wealthy.
all the owners are extraordinarily wealthy.
in addition, owners can recoup losses relatively easily in the coming years and they can own the team for as long as they want. players don't get their lost salary or the years of their prime playing days back. their playing days are much more limited than an owner's tenure.
And the players seem to fail to grasp that sponsorship $$$ are HRR and if sponsors abandon the NHL due to the lockout, that will mean less HRR, which will mean less $$$ to them, even if they were to cut a good deal. The players are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Donald Fehr and the NHLPA are like a 6 year old kid throwing a temper tantrum because they can't have more ice cream while Daddy takes away the ice cream they already had.
The only thing that is 100 percent for sure in this whole mess is that the players would have been better off financially if they had just negotiated the deal that's currently on the table (which they could have done during the summer) and not missed any games. There is no end game that will ever net them more than that. They have made a bad business decision on the advice of an egomaniac.
And the players seem to fail to grasp that sponsorship $$$ are HRR and if sponsors abandon the NHL due to the lockout, that will mean less HRR, which will mean less $$$ to them, even if they were to cut a good deal. The players are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Donald Fehr and the NHLPA are like a 6 year old kid throwing a temper tantrum because they can't have more ice cream while Daddy takes away the ice cream they already had.
The only thing that is 100 percent for sure in this whole mess is that the players would have been better off financially if they had just negotiated the deal that's currently on the table (which they could have done during the summer) and not missed any games. There is no end game that will ever net them more than that. They have made a bad business decision on the advice of an egomaniac.
Totally agree. The players thought bringing in Fehr would make their union strong like the MLBPA, but really its apples and oranges. Hard to imagine the NHLPA EVER being even half as strong as the MLBPA.
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The owners of these teams are mostly billionaire businessmen, who can lose $20 mil a year until the cows come home and not really notice it.
Yet somehow they cry the loudest about it. For them they are losing money. For the players they are spending their money on living so it's nothing out of the ordinary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eighth Fret
in addition, owners can recoup losses relatively easily in the coming years and they can own the team for as long as they want.
Totally agree. The players thought bringing in Fehr would make their union strong like the MLBPA, but really its apples and oranges. Hard to imagine the NHLPA EVER being even half as strong as the MLBPA.
Its not even that the mlbpa is that strong, you do not have to be when every team is happy being the minor league team to the yankees.
Yet somehow they cry the loudest about it. For them they are losing money. For the players they are spending their money on living so it's nothing out of the ordinary.
Not without players they won't.
Not sure I even understand what you're saying, but a billionaire who doesn't rely on the returns from one investment for his livelihood can deal with losses a lot easier than the average well paid athlete who relies on his income to cover his living expenses, which probably 90% of the players do. A player having no income for a year is a much, much bigger hardship than a billionaire eating one year of moderate losses on his investment, particularly when said owner is already either losing or making very little money on their investment to begin with.
And if the player comments LeBrun quoted today from the NHLPA conference call are accurate, it appears that the players are already feeling the pinch and are telling union leadership to get back in the room and start negotiating. Which means starting with the owner's latest proposal and working from there. What we need are some of the players to have a backbone and tell Fehr to drop his stupid alternative universe approach and just negotiate the best deal they can get using the owners' framework.
You don't get it. If this lockout goes two years, and the players finally get the CBA they want, who is losing? Sure the players would get what they want going forward, but they've lost two years of salary and two years of their careers. Considering the average NHL career is about 5 seasons, then you can see who loses more. An owner can own a team for the rest of his/her life if they choose.. plenty of time to recoup any losses. Most players don't have that luxury.
After reading comments by Shane Doan yesterday and Nicklas Kronwall today, it's obvious that a) they're jocks, not businessmen, and they have no real clue about what's going on, and b) they don't appear to be getting advice from someone who does, or who wishes to enlighten them. Their comments demonstrate such an amazing ignorance of the situation and such a lack of business acumen, that it's easy to see why there is no negotiating going on.
Every day that passes without hockey, I hate Donald Fehr more. His responsbility to the players is to negotiate like a businessman and to help them remove emotion from the equation, yet he seems to be doing nothing of the sort. Everytime one of the players opens their mouth, it becomes obvious that they are on another planet. And DFehr seems to be happy to leave them there.
Is San Jose the perfect example of a f-ed up revenue share %?
Known money loser that is a well managed winner who plays to sold out arenas in a huge metro area. Spends to the cap but only gives out 5 years deals (max) and has a cap to cash payroll that is near even every year. Needs to make the 2nd round to break even and WCF to profit.
The owners of these teams are mostly billionaire businessmen, who can lose $20 mil a year until the cows come home and not really notice it. The players, save for a few, are far from 'wealthy' and have real bills to pay.
And as far as the product goes, 'the product' the players have to sell would be worth almost squat without the billions of dollars the owners have invested in arenas, infrastructure, marketing/promotion, staffing, etc. If the players have all the leverage, why not just go form their own league?
Good post. Agree with the second paragraph.
The first paragraph seems to always be at the forefront in any labor dispute: "The owners are wealthy and they can afford to pay the poor players more." The problem with that notion is, what businessman is willing or should be forced under collective bargaining to take an annual loss on an investment? The only way that works is if the value of the franchise goes up faster than your losses, and you sell at a point and get capital gains treatment on the gain (cap gains are going to go up now, and will impact team valuation).
Just a general board comment (not directed at you Stickmata), but since I've not posted in I don't know how long ........... let me air out:
The NHL already has the 3rd highest average salary in pro sports with only football behind, primarily as a consequence of the size of the teams and the few games played versus basketball, baseball and hockey.
MLBaseball players average $3.3M while hockey averaged $2.4M last year. Baseball is the best comp simply because of team size. Baseball teams have 25 man rosters and NHL teams have 23 man rosters. But baseball plays 162 games while Hockey plays 82. Baseball has a lucrative TV contract. The NHL on the other hand has a hard time keeping their contract and consistenly is at the bottom of viewers of all the pro sports including the playoffs. Hockey makes its money with butts in the seats. When seat prices go up, there is more revenue.
The NHL salary cap the players fought added parity to the equation and more teams had a shot at the playoffs each year, increasing league revenues from more butts in the seats. The players saw a huge increase in their pay over the last CBA as a result and the product was better on ice. Now the players want more than that. How much more is fair?
Whats the financial condition of the League? We know there is one team the League had to take back because it failed financially (Phoenix) and before that there were other teams near or at the breaking point even in cold weather cities. Should owners have to lose money? Should hockey players make more than what Donald Fehr negotiated for the baseball players in what is a much better financial model? They are only off by an average of $900k a year right now and play half as many games. So on what basis does that make sense, given there is no real TV contract in the NHL?
The reality is the last CBA that included a cap was a win-win for both players and owners. Player salaries have more than doubled and more teams are now in the black than there were before the last work stoppage.
I worried about this when the players brought in Fehr based on his prior resume. He is missing the fact that not enough teams are making money so its a lot easier to keep the owners together, versus baseball when almost all the teams made money. The early 1990's strike in baseball hurt the owners in the pocketbook so they eventually gave in. Its a different situation here. A strike here might actually mean some of the teams are losing less money than they would if they actually played games. Its a different landscape that Fehr doesn't seem to appreciate.
Sorry for the long post and ramble. I'll go back to watching football now.
Is San Jose the perfect example of a f-ed up revenue share %?
Known money loser that is a well managed winner who plays to sold out arenas in a huge metro area. Spends to the cap but only gives out 5 years deals (max) and has a cap to cash payroll that is near even every year. Needs to make the 2nd round to break even and WCF to profit.
Exactly! Something seems extremely wrong with this picture. Obviously if you sellout every game and you still loose money at the end of the regular season then the cap is too high.
After reading comments by Shane Doan yesterday and Nicklas Kronwall today, it's obvious that a) they're jocks, not businessmen, and they have no real clue about what's going on, and b) they don't appear to be getting advice from someone who does, or who wishes to enlighten them. Their comments demonstrate such an amazing ignorance of the situation and such a lack of business acumen, that it's easy to see why there is no negotiating going on.
Every day that passes without hockey, I hate Donald Fehr more. His responsbility to the players is to negotiate like a businessman and to help them remove emotion from the equation, yet he seems to be doing nothing of the sort. Everytime one of the players opens their mouth, it becomes obvious that they are on another planet. And DFehr seems to be happy to leave them there.
I don't think Fehr is unaware of business issues. In the players proposal, he wanted to give Bettman a $100mil for his own pool to prop up teams as Bettman saw fit. There are teams in trouble and everyone, including Fehr, knows it.
The rhetoric is willful ignorance to keep the players onside. Fehr is leading with that when discussing issues with players. My take is that he is using the lowest common denominator as far as intelligence goes with the players. I find Fehr indirectly insulting to players with this tact.
The reality is that any of the proposals only serves to add to the problem the league has as the system design has been hard or neutral on weaker revenue teams while it has provided a windfall to the rich. Fehr is reluctant to give in just to line the pockets of Toronto, NYR and Montreal. There should not be one iota of profit to any of those 3 for staging this lockout, yet the league's proposals do exactly that. Probably in part to keep the big 3 onside with the rest of the owners. The better design of any proposal would be to serve the weaker rev teams while leaving the rich static or even having them give a little more. The reason the design needs to be better is to insure ongoing employment for players among 30 teams rather than face contraction. Improvement can be made by enhancing rev sharing or reducing player costs or modifying the ranging system or any combination of the above three. There are also alternative systems that could mitigate the problem like a common payroll pot (contributions to said pot being based on ability to pay) for the entire league or other dramatically different systems.
Exactly! Something seems extremely wrong with this picture. Obviously if you sellout every game and you still loose money at the end of the regular season then the cap is too high.
The system was designed with a range. San Jose is a middle revenue team, they should have a payroll in the middle of the range, NOT at the cap. I won't go into all of the counters about why SJ should spend to the cap but am just saying that ideally the system design is meant for SJ to have a mid-level payroll.
The system was designed with a range. San Jose is a middle revenue team, they should have a payroll in the middle of the range, NOT at the cap. I won't go into all of the counters about why SJ should spend to the cap but am just saying that ideally the system design is meant for SJ to have a mid-level payroll.
And then they stop selling out most likely because they do not have thornton, boyle, marleau, and to a lesser extent pavs and vlasic.
And then they stop selling out most likely because they do not have thornton, boyle, marleau, and to a lesser extent pavs and vlasic.
Maybe. I do agree that a less competitive team will snowball into losses as we have already seen it. The system was meant for the Sharks to find a way to a competitive team with a mid-range payroll. They did it before Thornton; however, they haven't done it since. We have also seen leaguewide that money spent does not equate to competitiveness (eg Nashville, Phoenix, St. Louis, Florida this past year) although it may help.
great info 
