The next step is to continue meeting. The NHL needs to back off on some of the contract issues.
The NBA had a long laundry list of demands but
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League sources said the players' union viewed the following three aspects of the owners' previous offer as the most unappealing:
• An escrow system that assured owners would be fully reimbursed in subsequent years if they spent too much on player salaries in any given season.
• The inability of teams under the salary cap to use a mid-level exception if it took a team's player payroll over the cap and teams over the cap to have use of any exceptions at all.
• Prohibition of teams over the salary cap from making sign-and-trade deals.
The players won concessions on two of the three issues, league sources said.
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The owners also apparently relented on several other demands in the previous offer that were not mentioned in the summary proposal the league made available to various media outlets. According to a source, the owners also wanted to eliminate the opt-out clauses for players making above the league average salary.
The owners also abandoned reducing minimum salaries and the first year of rookie contracts by 12 percent in the handshake agreement, sources said.
The league wanted an overhaul of its $4-billion-a-year enterprise, and it got it, with a nearly $300 million annual reduction in player salaries and a matrix of new restrictions on contracts and team payrolls. The changes mean a $3 billion gain for the owners over the life of the 10-year deal.
Before finally agreeing to those sacrifices, the players’ negotiators won a handful of concessions that will allow the richest teams to keep spending on players, ensuring a more competitive free-agent market.
Back-diving is a huge issue for the league -- a legitimate one, too -- but using the 5 per cent variance provision it proposed (year to year salary fluctuations on a contract can't be more or less than 5 per cent) would instantly correct that situation and not cause the players' real hardship. There is, however, no desperate need for the league to have a term limit of five years if the 5 per cent variance rule is in place.
As for second contracts, the NHL proposed a potent combo of reducing the entry level phase to two years (instead of three) and delaying salary arbitration and unrestricted free agency by one year in each circumstance. That would unquestionably make it difficult for a player coming out of entry level to hit a home run on his second contract (Steven Stamkos, Drew Doughty, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle et al). But in a salary cap system, when there's a defined benefit of 50 per cent, these measures aren't likely to actually take money away from the players as much as they would simply re-allocate it. One thing the players can always count on, the owners will spend as much as they can, it's really just a matter of who gets it.
Of course, that cuts both ways. The players could say the NHL shouldn't worry about how the dollars are allocated. But the war against second contracts is one the general managers have asked for because it would assist them, within the salary cap system, in building their teams. Besides, truth be told, some veteran NHL players wouldn't be opposed to the youngsters having to wait to the third contract to hit their home run.
The players keep the gains they made in free agency and arbitration. The NHL should get contract restrictions with the stupid dummy contracts. LeBrun and McKenzie have written the players are willing to play ball with the NHL on the 5% increase or decrease. As McKenzie pointed out,the NHL doesn't need contract term limits with the 5%. No more 50% dives. The NHL wants 2 year ELCs. Throw the kids under the bus. Two years of non-eligible years before being arb eligible after year 4.
I guess it depends on who's side your favoring. I hate both, but Bettman is just a moron. He's no hockey guy, he's a lawyer. From all accounts he is more concerned with screwing the PA as much as he can despite if there is a season or not, he's done it once already. I'll never get over how he thinks is ok and fair to tell the players that they won't be getting what their signed contract, from the league and team says. Nobody, either making $10 an hour or 10 million a year would ever agree on that, nor should they.
Bill Daly on the other hand is who should be the commissioner. Guy is a hockey guy, interacts with the fans, cares about the sport. If he was running the show they would be playing hockey right now.
I don't get this. Bettman is arguing that a lot of teams are losing money. He wants the PA to take a cut in their HRR % so that those teams can be profitable. That is not him focusing exclusively on "screwing the PA," that's him trying to make the league sustainable for owners. Also, the last lockout wasn't about "screwing the players" either - they were making a TON of money, and since then their salaries have doubled on average. I fail to see how that amounts to them getting screwed. They want more than players in any other sport get even though their sport is by far the least successful financially.
Lastly, this has been said a million times but their contracts were signed to be contingent on the future CBAs they're played under. Nobody - not the players, not their agents, not the owners ever thought that players were going to get the exact amount of money they signed for.
Over 50% of the league already qualifies for the playoffs.
Do players get bonuses for making the playoffs like how they have it in the MLB? If so, I think that's what they are referring to.
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"Trust me I'm an expert, I watched 13 rangers games on NHL center Ice this year through streaming." -Starburst
"I don't even understand what the point of all this arguing is. Are you guys hoping that the other side is going to have an epiphany and go 'Oh, OH! You're right, we ARE going to lose this series!'" -Crease
For the 2nd time in my life, I'm ridiculously tired of hearing the name "Don Fehr".
I think the next deal should include a fan-driven contest for the chance to kick Fehr and Bettman in the nuts. You know, to act as the obligatory "I'm Sorry!" bouquet of flowers.
The players keep the gains they made in free agency and arbitration. The NHL should get contract restrictions with the stupid dummy contracts. LeBrun and McKenzie have written the players are willing to play ball with the NHL on the 5% increase or decrease. As McKenzie pointed out,the NHL doesn't need contract term limits with the 5%. No more 50% dives. The NHL wants 2 year ELCs. Throw the kids under the bus. Two years of non-eligible years before being arb eligible after year 4.
Great point(-s) RB.
Put in any kind of perspective, the NHL and the PA are extremely close on the core economic issues. The diffrence over the term of a new CBA amounts to like, I don't know, what 10 rounds of regular season hockey? If the player share is 1.6b. 1/8 (or like 10 of 82 rounds of hockey) of that is 200m.
The NHL get what they want in the core economic issues. They wanted 50/50. They get 50/50. But not from y1. But very few could realistically have expected that.
The 5% issue is as much a PA issue as a NHL issue. If the PA could write their own CBA, in a cap environment, why would the majority of memembers want a system in which a few basically cheats the other members? The money made in additional to the AAV on a frontloaded contract is basically recovered by the league through escrow from all members.
28/8 and later arbitration is definitely a luxury problem for the league as a whole, but, I am sure these issues are pushed for really hard by a small but determined group of owners. And who would those owners be?
Take Edmonton for example. A great team will be able to keep a great roster as long as they are great basically. Pittsburg could have been situated in Columbus, but they would still have been attractive if having won a cup and been a look to be a contender year after year. Playing on that team, no matter where its located, is attractive. Pittsburgh hit jackpot with Sid and Evg. For every Pittsburgh there is a Atlanta. Atleast one. With 7/25, and if you get good players but maybe not a Sid or Malkin, you have a relatively small window to contend. These players will start to cost money pretty soon, and if you face adversity all of a sudden you start to loose your core when they hit 25 y/o...
So it seems obvious that teams that are in the position of EDM right now, or envisions to go down that road in the near future, put it forth to Bettman as basically a deal breaker in the BOG vote that Bettman get something for them on these issues.
The PA shouldn't underestimate the impact of the above. IE, yes, its a luxury problem for the league as a whole and from the PA's point of view, it does really limit their options. Its a big issue for them. But, while its a luxury problem for the league as a whole Bettman must get a deal that is accepted by whatever majority he needs and in that equation this could be a diffrencemaker...
I also agree that the NHL needs to back off on most of the contract issues. Fixing the cap circumventing retirement contracts is a given, and the PA has no valid reason to object it, but other than that I'm mostly on the PA side on those matters.
On the other hand, assuming the NHL agrees to the former, the PA should accept the NHL's offer on most of the economical issues. The 50:50 split with the make whole paid by the league, to me seems like a pretty reasonable offer.
The NHL won't be able to get everything they want. It doesn't work that way. The NFL and NBA owners didn't get everything they want.
NFL owners didn't get
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• Another $1 billion off the top of all revenue. The league went into negotiations in March looking for an additional $1 billion of credit off the top of the $9.2 billion the game generates, but it never happened. In fact, that $1 billion the league took off the top last season? That's gone, too.
• An 18-game season. OK, the league said, "until at least 2013." But here's the key: "Any subsequent increase in the number of regular-season games," owners said in a prepared statement, "must be made by agreement with the NFL Players Association." Uh-oh. Prepare the battlefield for 2013.
• Rights of first refusal for this year's unrestricted free agents. That would have limited the movement of players and, essentially, made them transition players. Players stood fast and won. Under the schedule proposed last week by owners, teams would've had a 72-hour window to negotiate with their unrestricted free agents. Now it's not clear what that schedule will be.
The NFL players made gains. The NHL players are making no gains. The grabbing hand wants more and more.
NFL players are unrestricted after 4 years. 6 years in MLB. Its 7 or 27 in the NHL and they want to roll it back one year. NBA players are unrestricted after 5. That's for players who have their options picked up in years 3 and 4 and there is 5th year where the team can match an offer sheet.
Someone in the players union says the two sides aren't far apart on the economic issues. Its the contract stuff.
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But lost amid the gloom is the progress the league and union have made in six straight days of talks. They are fairly close on the critical issue of honoring existing contracts, according to the union delegate.
The issue of finding a way to pay players with existing contracts in full under a lower salary cap — or settling on a “make whole” provision, in the language of the negotiations — had been a stumbling block in previous weeks. But by Sunday, the two sides were $2 million to $3 million apart per team, per year, an amount the delegate described as “within spitting distance.”
The league and union are even closer to agreement on revenue sharing among clubs, with a plan described as basically done except for administrative details. The system will be significantly expanded compared with the N.H.L.’s current system, with more teams qualifying for revenue sharing and more money distributed.
The system will include a small fund, similar to baseball’s industry growth fund, that Bettman can specially earmark for the neediest franchises — presumably teams like Phoenix, the Islanders, Columbus and Florida.
I saw that someone that had participated in the mettings described the distance between the league and the PA on the economic issues as the parties are within spitting distance (I think it was in the NYT).
Bettman don't like to be pragmatic and to make comprimises. I kind of like that about him from a technical point of view. A bunch of exemptions left and right, and what not, is just messy and hard to overview what you actually achive with them.
But it does kind of seem like a typical comprimize could solve the deadlock on contractual issues.
For example:
-give a team a chance to protect 2-3 players and have them hit UFA at 28/8 if they are paid like atleast twice the league avg or whatever. Call it the RNH-rule or whatever. ¨
-let a RFA go to arbitration as under the old CBA, unless the said player is paid twice the league avg. Or whatever... Call it the RNH-rule II.
With the economic issues more or less solved, it really is on the league's side now to end the lockout. They got their desired 50/50 split of the revenue and there really is no reason to get 28/8 UFA as well. Fix the retirement contracts either by a contract term limit or a cap on the variance between the years (I don't see the PA having a problem with that) and drop the puck already.
With the economic issues more or less solved, it really is on the league's side now to end the lockout. They got their desired 50/50 split of the revenue and there really is no reason to get 28/8 UFA as well. Fix the retirement contracts either by a contract term limit or a cap on the variance between the years (I don't see the PA having a problem with that) and drop the puck already.
In what world are the economic issues solved? Both sides agree that there needs to be a 50/50 split, but they cant decide when - and the make-whole issue is hundreds of millions of dollars apart.
If you were to do a 5% drop in contract and did a 20 year contract from 7M per year, it would average out to $4.5M per year. At 10 years, it would work out to $5.6M per year.
I say 5% drop max per year and 10 year max. I think that'd be a pretty decent way to do it.
I don't get this. Bettman is arguing that a lot of teams are losing money. He wants the PA to take a cut in their HRR % so that those teams can be profitable. That is not him focusing exclusively on "screwing the PA," that's him trying to make the league sustainable for owners.
Why are the players solely the ones responsible for making the other teams profitable? Why can't there be more revenue sharing?
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Nobody - not the players, not their agents, not the owners ever thought that players were going to get the exact amount of money they signed for.
I could not disagree more. Players sign a contract and expect that they will get paid what the contract stipulates.
Not surprising, and IMO probably means the "outrageous" demands we've heard from the NHLPA have been more like "look Gary, we agree on a lot of the economic stuff, but if you expect us to accept these contract rules as is, then our stance on the economic stuff is going to change to this", not that the NHLPA just wildly decided to ask for the moon when they were close on economic stuff
Each part doesn't happen in a vacuum...it's all related, and the NHLPA wants a gain on the owners side to be offset by a gain somewhere else by the players
edit: it's also pretty funny that if you took some kind of poll before the lockout started, most people would have probably been saying that a split more like 52 or 53% for the players would have been fair and should get the job done. Now suddenly 50-50 is fair and the players are lucky to even be getting that because they should be grateful to be playing hockey. Just goes to show how little people care about fair bargaining when it impacts their hobbies, and to a larger extent, how much this country doesn't give a **** about things like unions and workers rights
