The Business of HockeyDiscuss the financial and business aspects of the NHL. Franchise sales, valuations, TV contracts, ratings, expansion, relocation, the CBA and work stoppage discussion goes here.
He is making the process as difficult as possible for the owners.
If you think that the players capitulating immediately to the owners demands is a way of preventing future lockouts then you have quite a lot to learn about contract negotiations and collective bargaining.
If this process is made easy for the owners, they will continue to do it every single time.
He is making the process as difficult as possible for the owners.
If you think that the players capitulating immediately to the owners demands is a way of preventing future lockouts then you have quite a lot to learn about contract negotiations and collective bargaining.
If this process is made easy for the owners, they will continue to do it every single time.
The league must have thought so, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are.
The league seems to feel that frequent, prolonged lockouts will not hurt the game. Donald Fehr has called their bluff.
Well ultimately the League can lose teams one way or another... Either through an unsustainable economic structure, or through lose of fanbases due to too many lockouts.
The league must have thought so, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are.
The league seems to feel that frequent, prolonged lockouts will not hurt the game. Donald Fehr has called their bluff.
He hasn't called their bluff, he has done nothing but stall negotiations...he has his drop dead date, now he is ready to go...he has cost his members money they will never retrieve...
I think it's amazing that many of you actually believe this 50/50 will be some sort of final resting place of magnanimous partnership going forward. There were just as many who deeply held that conviction last time in the cba to end all cba lockouts by finally not only capping but triple capping and linking to revenues so they could hold hands in partnership and share the benefits of growing the game together happily ever after. It made perfect sense back then.
And now many of the same people are saying the exact same thing about the latest convenient ideal from the masterful nhl propaganda department. Like "make whole" which should more honestly be called make partial.
And next cba, when the league is pointing to the ability of the nfl to skim a couple billion of the top before sharing as hrr, it wont be seen as fair for the nhl to want too? Or when the other leagues are now down to 45%, suddenly 50/50 wont seem like too fair for the players? We can bookmark any objection to that now here because your 50/50 ideal is a principled stand you will hold on to going forward?
Perhaps each lockout is just Bettmans way of trying to achieve a little 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' appeal from fans who were each time getting sick of the state of boring hockey under his watch at that time and the lockouts are seen as marketing exercises by the league to increase demand going forward?
Taxpayers provide huge subsidies and breaks for pro sports in all sorts of ways. If we cut that pipeline off, what would the effect on hrr be? A drop in franchise values of 50% or more? Taxpayer hockey fans sick of these rich people shutting down the game in constant greed grabs should start lobbying politicians that any kind of break, any even whiff of a break, will be met with a recall notice.
Billionaires and millionaires suckling at the taxpayer teat because why exactly? And still having lockouts? Taxpayer money should have huge poison pills attached if theres another lockout. Have an NHL fan association start organizing face book and other political campaigns against this while organizing and managing the software to buy all tickets centrally through them so that some will be held in escrow to ensure no lockout and that would be a fan association with an awful lot of leverage that could provide the insurance fans want.
It's an extreme idea(that will never happen) but it's what it should be. I mentioned in earlier posts that the Big 7(Flyers, Wings, Hawks, Leafs, Habs, Rangers, Bruins) could stay independent, not being bought by the corporation but create an association with it. And the anti-trust law has never been proven to work in that situation. And if 100 thousand is too low, go to 500 thousand as base salary. Then you earn more in bonuses depending on how you produce.
You are either a Single Entity or you're not - an "almost single entity" plus any independent teams would be almost certainly be subject to challenge under the Sherman Act.
The league must have thought so, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are.
The league seems to feel that frequent, prolonged lockouts will not hurt the game. Donald Fehr has called their bluff.
So the fact that the owners want a 10-year CBA, and Fehr wants a 6-year CBA is proof that the owners want frequent lockouts? Maybe in some strange Bizarro World, but not here.
Fundamentally, the needs of the two sides are incompatible.
The owners want financial stability (growth) and competitive balance. There are only 2 ways to achieve this: The first is to artificially cap team payrolls and thereby players earnings, the second is to pool all team revenues so that there are no rich or poor teams. The owners will never accept the second one, the players despise the first.
From a negotiation perspective, one of the problems is that from the end of the CBA, up until the season is cancelled, the owners have all the leverage. They orchestrate the cancelling of week after week of games - each announcement means pay cheques the players are missing. Why do you think the NHL led off with a nuclear proposal? They had no intention of playing nice. As long as there is potential to restart the season, the owners have the hammer.
But once the season is cancelled, the players have nothing to lose until the following October. You can expect the NHLPA to harden its stance. If a deal is not done in the next few days and the whole season is cancelled, the parties will likely go silent for quite a while and the fight will switch to the courts. They will play out the disclaimer of interest / anti-trust scenario - i think the players will lose this as it is very clear that it is a bargaining tactic. I think the anti-trust tactic will fail, but the players will gain leverage either way.
Once the season is cooked, the players will be in no position to compromise. They will want to scrap the salary cap and liberalize free agency, and forget about term limits on contracts. And if this thing drags into a second season, the anti-trust case will be back in the courts and things will get really nasty.
Even if they come to an agreement and save the 2012-13 season, when the new CBA expires I expect another lockout.
The owners will be looking for non-guaranteed contracts and greater restrictions on free agency. The players will be looking to reclaim what they gave up in the 2012 and the 2004 negotiations.
The NHL BoG structure is another problem. The Executive Committee is very powerful and generally leads the negotiations. The Chairman of the Executive Committee is Jeremy Jacobs, by all accounts, a nasty, stingy old git who thinks minimum wage is too much to pay players. He is supported by the teams that are losing money. As long as it takes only 8 votes to kill any deal, and as long as there are 8 teams or more losing money, the NHL is going to take a hard line.
On the players side, one of the things they took away from the 2004 negotiation is the need for solidarity. Since the divisions that lead to the sacking of Bob Goodenow and then Ted Saskins, then Paul Kelly, the NHLPA has restructured its governance, strengthened the grass roots over the executive committee and hired an experienced executive director. They are unlikely to cave in for the good of the game again.
You are either a Single Entity or you're not - an "almost single entity" plus any independent teams would be almost certainly be subject to challenge under the Sherman Act.
Fundamentally, the needs of the two sides are incompatible.
The owners want financial stability (growth) and competitive balance. There are only 2 ways to achieve this: The first is to artificially cap team payrolls and thereby players earnings, the second is to pool all team revenues so that there are no rich or poor teams. The owners will never accept the second one, the players despise the first.
From a negotiation perspective, one of the problems is that from the end of the CBA, up until the season is cancelled, the owners have all the leverage. They orchestrate the cancelling of week after week of games - each announcement means pay cheques the players are missing. Why do you think the NHL led off with a nuclear proposal? They had no intention of playing nice. As long as there is potential to restart the season, the owners have the hammer.
But once the season is cancelled, the players have nothing to lose until the following October. You can expect the NHLPA to harden its stance. If a deal is not done in the next few days and the whole season is cancelled, the parties will likely go silent for quite a while and the fight will switch to the courts. They will play out the disclaimer of interest / anti-trust scenario - i think the players will lose this as it is very clear that it is a bargaining tactic. I think the anti-trust tactic will fail, but the players will gain leverage either way.
Once the season is cooked, the players will be in no position to compromise. They will want to scrap the salary cap and liberalize free agency, and forget about term limits on contracts. And if this thing drags into a second season, the anti-trust case will be back in the courts and things will get really nasty.
Even if they come to an agreement and save the 2012-13 season, when the new CBA expires I expect another lockout.
The owners will be looking for non-guaranteed contracts and greater restrictions on free agency. The players will be looking to reclaim what they gave up in the 2012 and the 2004 negotiations.
The NHL BoG structure is another problem. The Executive Committee is very powerful and generally leads the negotiations. The Chairman of the Executive Committee is Jeremy Jacobs, by all accounts, a nasty, stingy old git who thinks minimum wage is too much to pay players. He is supported by the teams that are losing money. As long as it takes only 8 votes to kill any deal, and as long as there are 8 teams or more losing money, the NHL is going to take a hard line.
On the players side, one of the things they took away from the 2004 negotiation is the need for solidarity. Since the divisions that lead to the sacking of Bob Goodenow and then Ted Saskins, then Paul Kelly, the NHLPA has restructured its governance, strengthened the grass roots over the executive committee and hired an experienced executive director. They are unlikely to cave in for the good of the game again.
Great post.
To add a few things.
The reason the salary caps system in the NBA and NFL work is that they have large TV deals that supplement the owners bottom line now in the NBA some teams end up failing to make a profit due to going over the salary cap in the name of trying to win a championship and willing to put big money into the luxury tax like the Mavericks who lost 8.9 million last year but was charged a 22 million tax bill which when to the small market teams.
Hockey should have never gone to the salary cap system cause without the big TV deal the revenue generated from that is minimal and forces teams to be a gate generated league. So when teams like CBJ, PHO, DAL among others don't draw they don't make money and without meaningful revenue sharing from the big boys they fail as a franchise.
What is fundamental the reason for the lockout is not the players 50-50 share its about big market vs small market teams and the fact there is a huge rift among those groups.
If you implemented the baseball system it would be way better for hockey. It would allow the big market teams to act like big market teams and if they chose to go over the luxury tax then the smaller markets would reap the benefit of huge tax bills.
I ask you this. Why should the Leafs, Habs, Rangers, Redwings be forced to into a system where they have no advantage of a ****** market like Pho, CBJ. Why should those teams be forced to spend like big market teams and spend up to a floor that makes them lose money.
What is great about baseball is big market teams are always the target. When the Yanks lose everyone is happy a big market got knocked off "the Evil Empire" and it makes for rooting for underdog franchises to knock of the big boys. What is even funnier is when say the Rays knock off the Yanks its in part due to the revenue sharing they received from the Yanks that went into player development which helped them get better to beat the Yanks.
Hockey needs to follow that same model and allow franchises to compete at their own economic level so the big boys act like big boys and the small markets play within their means and not forced into a economic level they cannot sustain.
Okay, here's what happens. New commissioner locks out the playoffs at the expiration of the next CBA as per the will of the owners. NEW SCAPEGOAT ACQUIRED!
Only way to break the cycle of lockouts is for the owners to actually get the CBA they want.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryno23
Great post.
To add a few things.
The reason the salary caps system in the NBA and NFL work is that they have large TV deals that supplement the owners bottom line now in the NBA some teams end up failing to make a profit due to going over the salary cap in the name of trying to win a championship and willing to put big money into the luxury tax like the Mavericks who lost 8.9 million last year but was charged a 22 million tax bill which when to the small market teams.
Hockey should have never gone to the salary cap system cause without the big TV deal the revenue generated from that is minimal and forces teams to be a gate generated league. So when teams like CBJ, PHO, DAL among others don't draw they don't make money and without meaningful revenue sharing from the big boys they fail as a franchise.
What is fundamental the reason for the lockout is not the players 50-50 share its about big market vs small market teams and the fact there is a huge rift among those groups.
If you implemented the baseball system it would be way better for hockey. It would allow the big market teams to act like big market teams and if they chose to go over the luxury tax then the smaller markets would reap the benefit of huge tax bills.
I ask you this. Why should the Leafs, Habs, Rangers, Redwings be forced to into a system where they have no advantage of a ****** market like Pho, CBJ. Why should those teams be forced to spend like big market teams and spend up to a floor that makes them lose money.
What is great about baseball is big market teams are always the target. When the Yanks lose everyone is happy a big market got knocked off "the Evil Empire" and it makes for rooting for underdog franchises to knock of the big boys. What is even funnier is when say the Rays knock off the Yanks its in part due to the revenue sharing they received from the Yanks that went into player development which helped them get better to beat the Yanks.
Hockey needs to follow that same model and allow franchises to compete at their own economic level so the big boys act like big boys and the small markets play within their means and not forced into a economic level they cannot sustain.
I largely agree with this but how do you prevent NHL equivalents of the royals ? I think the league needs parity, the NHL is the league most likely to have 8 vs 1 upsets. I don't think the NHL should take another leagues model verbatim because there are very big differences between the teams. Even if teams are not perpetual basement dwellers, I'm not sure having teams go boom to bust is great for the league.
