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.
Bettman and hockey’s owners clearly don’t believe in compromise. To them, compromise means the players accept exactly what they are offered without negotiating and thank them for allowing them to share the same room.
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Beyond that, even though the league’s hockey revenues have gone from $2.1 billion at the time of the last lockout to $3.3 billion now, some franchises are struggling financially — in part because of mismanagement but in part because the league put teams in cities where they didn’t belong so it could rake in lucrative franchise fees from prospective owners. All of which is why the owners are insisting they need a larger chunk of hockey-related revenue and a CBA that prohibits them from giving players the kind of long-term contracts they have been issuing with abandon in recent years.
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In spite of all this, the players have agreed to a 50-50 split of hockey revenues and to limits on the length of contracts. The owners have moved a little since their unreal opening offers but would still win a huge victory if they signed the offer the players have put on the table today.
But it isn’t good enough.
Instead of sitting down with the federal mediators who have been involved for almost a month now and hammering out the final details of the deal, the owners have gone home for the holidays — but not before taking the players to court to try to stop them from filing an antitrust lawsuit.
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Most fans really don’t care who is right and who is wrong and who is taking whom to court and why. They just want to see hockey again. Hockey fans are probably more loyal than fans of any of the other major sports. In 2005-06, the year after the lost season, NHL attendance actually upticked slightly.
And they do no investigative work to realize that the "50/50" deal really isn't 50/50. But then again, what do we expect from a newspaper these days? Push an agenda, sell papers.
These newspaper writers really like ganging up on the NHL owners, don't they. Do any of them ever make any real comparisons between the CBAs of the other major leagues and that proposed by the owners in the NHL?
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Originally Posted by Xref
And they do no investigative work to realize that the "50/50" deal really isn't 50/50. But then again, what do we expect from a newspaper these days? Push an agenda, sell papers.
Yep, that last owners' offer essentially meant that 50/50 wouldn't become a reality until after about 4 years. Really generous concession by the owners actually.
These newspaper writers really like ganging up on the NHL owners, don't they. Do any of them ever make any real comparisons between the CBAs of the other major leagues and that proposed by the owners in the NHL?
Par for the course from the US media. Lots of grandstanding and merging of opinion with fact.
Let alone the fact that the league and the PA remain wildly off on "50-50".
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"Here we can see the agression of american people. They love fighting and guns. when they wont win they try to kill us all." -HalfOfFame
The owners are the one that called the lockout and they got a bunch of compromise from the players and still want more. The owners should put in place a much better revenu sharing system and the poor teams in terrible hockey markets would do much better financialy.
And rightly so. Bettman had authored this lockout and driving the negotiations to the proverbal wall. How else do you expect the PA to respond? capitulation without any compromise? A reasonable commissioner would search for a compromise. This one can't see anything beyond making demands. Fehr and the PA will be driven to at least 2 years of litigation and arbitration in the courts before this is settled. By then some of you might finally see how Bettman has driven these negotiations to the worst possible scenario.
And rightly so. Bettman had authored this lockout and driving the negotiations to the proverbal wall. How else do you expect the PA to respond? capitulation without any compromise? A reasonable commissioner would search for a compromise. This one can't see anything beyond making demands. Fehr and the PA will be driven to at least 2 years of litigation and arbitration in the courts before this is settled. By then some of you might finally see how Bettman has driven these negotiations to the worst possible scenario.
Could not agree with you more. Bettman's only goal is to destroy the union. If he kills the season in the process he could not care less.
We've beaten this to death, but how would I have expected the PA to respond? I would have expected them to respond 18 months ago when they were asked to respond to the request to begin negotiations for a new deal to keep the game on the ice. But Fehr flipped the owners the bird, and now history is being written in the court room, where he always intended it to be, I'm sure of that.
These newspaper writers really like ganging up on the NHL owners, don't they. Do any of them ever make any real comparisons between the CBAs of the other major leagues and that proposed by the owners in the NHL?
Yep, that last owners' offer essentially meant that 50/50 wouldn't become a reality until after about 4 years. Really generous concession by the owners actually.
What concession are you talking about? No matter how you word it the players are the only ones giving anything in this entire negotiations. The owners going from 43% to 50% (doesn't matter how many years it takes to get there) is not a concession. Now going from 57
to 50% is a concession even if it takes 50 years to get to it.
What concession are you talking about? No matter how you word it the players are the only ones giving anything in this entire negotiations. The owners going from 43% to 50% (doesn't matter how many years it takes to get there) is not a concession. Now going from 57
to 50% is a concession even if it takes 50 years to get to it.
With talk like that, you'll never get an NHL P R gig.
Fun facts about Washington:
- First year was 1974-75
- First year with 70% attendance was 1984-85 (11th season)
- In those first 10 years, Washington played 40 home games per season. The total number of sellouts in those first 10 years was 34 of a possible 400.
- The first year they sold out more than half of their home games was 1988-89, with 23 of a possible 40.
- The first year that they sold out an entire season was 2009-10, which was their 35th season on the ice. In terms of both franchise year and actual calendar year, that puts them behind every single other team in the league with the exception of New Jersey (who's never had a 100% year) and Nashville (who started 24 years later).
In other words, excuse me while I laugh at the inherent ridiculousness of a Washington-based writer complaining about the passion and finances of others.
What concession are you talking about? No matter how you word it the players are the only ones giving anything in this entire negotiations. The owners going from 43% to 50% (doesn't matter how many years it takes to get there) is not a concession. Now going from 57
to 50% is a concession even if it takes 50 years to get to it.
Every CBA is essentially new, starting from scratch, with what came before essentially being residue that has to be cleaned up. So, starting anew, the owners stated what they believed they needed, the players stated what they wanted (which was something basically similar to what the old CBA had been). From that starting point, both sides have made some concessions, but from what I see the owners have conceded more. Just 50/50, which is half way between the 43 and the 57, wasn't really even 50/50 any more with the owners' last two offers; it wouldn't be 50/50 until after about 4 years.
So as long as you (and the players, I suppose) choose to look at the realities going into the last CBA and treat them as the same realities going into this CBA, then I suppose you'll think that the players have conceded the most. However, based on the realities going into these CBA negotiations, the players really haven't conceded much at all.
These newspaper writers really like ganging up on the NHL owners, don't they. Do any of them ever make any real comparisons between the CBAs of the other major leagues and that proposed by the owners in the NHL?
Yep, that last owners' offer essentially meant that 50/50 wouldn't become a reality until after about 4 years. Really generous concession by the owners actually.
Only hfboards is pro owner. Everyone else is raging at the League right now. Maybe if this was a strike it would be different. Stix and Stones call tell you.
The NHL hasn't only asked for 50/50, but it should be pointed out that getting there would mean massive pay cuts for players with contracts.
And Fugu, I can't remember who here pointed this out, but someone over a month ago pointed out that for the owners to honor all those contracts in full to the letter, it would take something (can't remember the exact number given) like 15 years to finally get to 50/50.
I too argued at the beginning that the owners needed to make some effort to live up to, in some degree, some portion of those contracts, as a concession of a sort. However, a 15-year wait, or hell even a 5-year wait to get to 50/50 just isn't economically realistic for the League. So when the League's first offer to Make Whole meant that essentially 50/50 would be postponed for about 2 years, I said... Ok, the League is moving in the right direction. When the owners came back the next time and extended the Make Whole to postpone 50/50 until after about 4 years, then I said (and still think) they're offering too much (and apparently there were many owners not happy with that offer, and it may not be seen again).
But hey, I know that you know all of that (probably better than I do), but it's repeated here for anyone who still might not have grasped all of that.
Well something has to give eventually. I am growing tired of seeing these Twitter pictures of Evander Kane with a money phone or Carey Price with the "audacity" to hunt a coyote (by the way Kane just looked silly and out of touch, but he's young). Bring the real news back to us, oh, like who got a hat trick last night. Thank God for the World Juniors for the next week. How bad is it now? I actually watched some Spengler Cup highlights. Lord, I need a bath now.
You can push an anti-owner message without sounding analytically like a child, but this guy can't. Push some more demeaning adjectives into your otherwise empty analysis and maybe we'll get it.
You can push an anti-owner message without sounding analytically like a child, but this guy can't. Push some more demeaning adjectives into your otherwise empty analysis and maybe we'll get it.
you can't push an anti-player message without sounding like a pickle, o wait.
Surprise, surprise, another prominent organization pins the blame on the owners. Wonder if it can actually get through the echo chamber; the HF bubble is pretty thick.
Probably not. I eagerly await hearing how wrong they are and how only the truly 'informed' here at HF know the truth.
You can push an anti-owner message without sounding analytically like a child, but this guy can't. Push some more demeaning adjectives into your otherwise empty analysis and maybe we'll get it.
Go figure.
Just like that airhead from Time magazine. Kind of makes you wonder how these guys get it so wrong when the NHL is so right, doesn't it? Doesn't anybody understand what's really going on?
As the article doesnt tie into the NBA or NFL with regards to its criticism, it can be considered worthless. If the NHL wins now, doesnt that mean the players had won previously? The commentary is blatantly transparent. Bottom line, sacrifice in the cap or contract away.
