905 replies to this topic

[haroldsnepsts]

The new proposal is just another way for the dwarf to say screw you. Does this moron really believe Fehr would stupid enough to not see the rollback?
I am starting to think some owners gave out these huge contracts expecting the players to take less again.
They won't roll over this time Europe would be more than happy to welcome them back. We need a new commiSsioner asap.
Owners should be embarassed by this offer.

Sent from my BlackBerry

That's the thing. Bettman and the league keep saying how only 12 teams are profitable.

Are the Devils and their ridiculous contract for Kovalchuk profitable?
Are the Wild with the two giant contracts they just took on in Suter and Parise?
Or the Preds when they gave Weber $110 million over 14 years?
Or the Hurricanes who gave Semin a $7 million deal?

The owners are doing this to themselves and each other, yet expect the players to bear most of the burden for fixing their idiocy.

Reduce the players share by a few percentage points (keep in mind owners are reducing what constitutes HRR so even if the percentage were the same, the owners are getting more money). Put a reasonable limit on contract length of 7 or 8 years to make it harder for GM's to circumvent the cap like they have been. Increase revenue sharing if the owners really do want to help these struggling franchises. Minor tweaks to most other things. Play hockey.

[F.Michael]

I do not see how it is possible to players share of revenues to drop from 57% to 46% and not have salary rollbacks. Players are not going to get the full value from the contracts they have signed. They can name this process however they want but it amount to the same thing - less money for players.

With a "soft cap" in place, and a "luxury tax" some teams will most likely be over the cap season after season.

Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Philadelphia, NY Rangers, Boston, and Chicago are teams right off the top of my head that would most likely be "guilty" of going over the cap on a regular basis.

Personally I don't feel the players should have to take any "rollback"; there wasn't any firearm pointed at the noggins of the GM's who helped orchestrate these big contracts - therefore IMHO the team should bear the financial burden...If the team is over the cap - then trade the player, or pay the amount deemed appropriate for going over the cap.

Just my dos pesos.

[chrisdetroit]

That's the thing. Bettman and the league keep saying how only 12 teams are profitable.

Are the Devils and their ridiculous contract for Kovalchuk profitable?
Are the Wild with the two giant contracts they just took on in Suter and Parise?
Or the Preds when they gave Weber $110 million over 14 years?
Or the Hurricanes who gave Semin a $7 million deal?

The owners are doing this to themselves and each other, yet expect the players to bear most of the burden for fixing their idiocy.

Reduce the players share by a few percentage points (keep in mind owners are reducing what constitutes HRR so even if the percentage were the same, the owners are getting more money). Put a reasonable limit on contract length of 7 or 8 years to make it harder for GM's to circumvent the cap like they have been. Increase revenue sharing if the owners really do want to help these struggling franchises. Minor tweaks to most other things. Play hockey.

It should be pretty simple (in my mind anyway). Many of the owners are circumventing the cap that they won in the last go round. Stop the circumvention by prohibiting the "averaging" of the yearly salaries. If a player signs a 4 year contract and is paid $10M, $5M, and $4M and $1M respectively, the cap hit should be $10M, $5M, $4M and $1M. With the current system the cap hit is $5m, $5M, $5M, $5M. Chances are he retires in the last year so the team has paid him $19M in 3 years but only used up $15M of cap space in 3 years. In the common sense scenario cap hit = actual salary. Secondly, bonuses have to count as part of the salary.

[The Axe]

Get rid of the cap. The league has sucked since the cap. Share revenue to allow smaller markets to keep their teams. Allow bigger markets to spend at will to keep bigger markets with more fans winning.

[cusimano_brothers]

Twelve teams turning a profit means eighteen teams that are not. Why should the players be made to take less of an offer, just so the "fiscally irresponsible" group of eighteen can continue to pretend that they know what they're doing? "League money" is what has kept Glendale on life support for so long. The owners "love" Uncle Gary; no one else does.

[Andy Pred 48]

im told the ave ticket price for the NHL is $47.82. So if the joe sells out the rev for a game is $977'615.52.
this gives the Wings and annual turnover of $40'082'236.32. In my view 75% of this should be a teams cap.
The yearly gate receipt's of each individual team should be the only finance that keeps the franchise operating. The other 25% should be for club staff's wages and the running of the arena. This would insure that teams are stable and can run independant of any sponsorship monies they may get from various companies. This maybe a to simple solution to it all, in my view the CBA just over complicates the running of the sport.
Any sponsorship money could go towards team bonus for that year.ie if the reach the playoffs each roster player gets a % of the total monies
and it rises with each round they advance.
So the Wings would have a roster of 23 players with a total of $30'061677.24 to play with. Nice and simple for any GM to work with eh?
I know that they'll be suggestions to get around it, putting up seat prices to increase a teams potential cap. But if you go on last seasons total
attendance is next years cap this would stop that happening for a year, and eventually stop it altogether. Bigger arenas the way to go then for
a bigger team cap? only if your confident you can sell the tickets. All 30 teams would be viable and no one offering a hand out to bail teams out.
Lets face it, the player wages are a problem the way things are going. The min wage for 11-12 was $525'000, now i dont no about you but that
would do most people as a 10 year salary let alone a year so its not as if the lowe tier players are living off scraps. So how the hell guys on $3m+
a year survive god only knows .

I'm not saying we should slash the players money, it just needs to be brought back into reality a little. This isnt suggesting that the owners should have it all either, as its their fault that the money being paid out in contracts has become obscene. Maybe the way to go would be to cap the max wage to $5m a year at a max 5 year deal. This would give everyteam a fair crack at UFA time each year, and put an end to the ridiculous contracts
that we have seen the past few years, Z and Mule inc. Anyway I hope you see what im getting at.

[The Axe]

Seat prices are only a small portion of what the team brings in. Television, merchandise, etc. all have to be factored in too.

[evilmrt]

T-minus 12 days to lockout

[sibiriak]

T-minus 12 days to lockout

It does seem sadly comical, when nhl.com and tsn.ca publish season broadcast schedules etc. like nothing everything is normal.

[AusWing40]

It does seem sadly comical, when nhl.com and tsn.ca publish season broadcast schedules etc. like nothing everything is normal.

They have to for if / when the season starts? Not really comical

[cusimano_brothers]

The release of the broadcast schedules is the doing of the League. This is their way of presenting the illusion that they really want the upcoming season to start on time. They don't; Uncle Gary has already tipped his hand.

[Z Winged Dangler]

That's the thing. Bettman and the league keep saying how only 12 teams are profitable.

Are the Devils and their ridiculous contract for Kovalchuk profitable?
Are the Wild with the two giant contracts they just took on in Suter and Parise?
Or the Preds when they gave Weber $110 million over 14 years?
Or the Hurricanes who gave Semin a $7 million deal?

The owners are doing this to themselves and each other, yet expect the players to bear most of the burden for fixing their idiocy.

Reduce the players share by a few percentage points (keep in mind owners are reducing what constitutes HRR so even if the percentage were the same, the owners are getting more money). Put a reasonable limit on contract length of 7 or 8 years to make it harder for GM's to circumvent the cap like they have been. Increase revenue sharing if the owners really do want to help these struggling franchises. Minor tweaks to most other things. Play hockey.

Bolded part pretty much drives the point home as to why fans are more behind the players. the owners and GM's have handcuffed themselves. the owners have no problem offering massive contracts to keep their stars, but then complain and cry to the NHL when they have to pay them and the CBA expires and they try to take 10 steps back when they are the one's to blame for salary inflation in the first place.

[drwscc]

That's the thing though, they HAVE to offer these contracts, or someone else will. If you want a top tier player, you have to pay for it, or someone like the Rags or Wings will steal them from you. If all the GMs got together and said "OK, no more contracts above X dollars," the players would sue the league for anti-trust violations due to collusion charges, and noone wants that.

The real problem is the salary floor. Your Florida and Nashville and Columbus teams all give out these ridiculous contracts to scrubs so they can make the floor. Then the upper tier players say "If Tomas Kopecky is worth 3 million a year, there is no way I'm not worth 6 million per," and it spirals from there. I think more than anything it's one of those unforeseen issues like the signing bonus/front loaded 30 year deals that needs to be fixed. If they did a salary rollback to something reasonable, and then lower the floor and close the frontloaded contracts loophole, it would put all the teams in much better financial position going forward, and prevent the type of salary escalation that happened since the last lockout.

I mean, the players are going to eventually accept a rollback of some sort, if it gets to a lockout. Not sure why they don't just bite the bullet and get it over with.

[Nightfall]

I am going to throw out my thoughts here on this since it has been about a week since I last did.

First off, I don't blame the owners for trying to fix the problem. Of course, the problem is caused by them. You have 30 owners, 20 of which want to win the cup or put a good team on the ice. When you have 20 owners all bidding for talent, the salaries of players have gone up. Maybe we do need to get more fiscally responsible owners, but I believe that these inflated contracts that are being signed are due also for a desire to win and puts butts in the seats as a result. The owners in every sport need to be protected from themselves. Look at most professional sports, where there are limits on contract length and in some cases amounts depending on the age of the player.

I am less in the public relations game and more in the "get the CBA finished" game. Lets analyze both deals.

The owners want to see a salary rollback, contract limits, no arbitration, and so on.
The players want to see a temporary rollback in salaries for the first couple years, but then it goes back up to 57%.

Which of these deals fix the overall problem?

Answer: None of them

The problem, as I have said before, is ownership, expanding into markets that can't sustain hockey, the salary floor, and the current financial state of the teams as a result. 12-13 teams are carrying the burden of the whole league when it comes to profits. The answer is not as simple though. The best answer would be to replace dumb ass owners who are not fiscally responsible, bring the salary floor down, move teams that are not financially stable, and limit contract lengths and amounts in some way so the owners don't kill themselves.

So, here we are. Neither side willing to budge. Lockout is 11 days away now.

So I say to the NHL and the NHLPA.....

Screw the league, and screw the players. Go ahead and strike. I won't be spending any more money on the NHL if there is a lockout. The owners or players don't deserve my money at this stage.

Edited by Nightfall, 04 September 2012 - 08:59 AM.

[RippedOnNitro]

I think key points are:

1) Lowering the cap floor. If you force teams to spend at least X-amount on player salaries when they simply can not afford them you are going to end up with a team that makes a loss every year.
2) Cap hit = actual salary. This would reduce the insane amount of 5+ year contracts that are signed. Would the Flyers really have sent in that offer sheet for Weber with a cap hit of 13 mln in his first year? No! Nashville did not have a choice to match the offer since Suter already left. (Well technically they had a choice) But in this case you force a team that can not take on such a contract to take on such a contract simply by a possible cap circumvention.

I wish both the owners and players will come to their senses and do what is the best for the league and the fans instead of just thinking about themselfs.

With a lockout soon to happen I am looking for alternative things to do / other leagues/sports etc. and I must say that I am going to care less and less about a lockout each day...

Edited by RippedOnNitro, 04 September 2012 - 09:47 AM.

[SwedeLundin77]

http://www.cbc.ca/sp...on-maclean.html

Interesting read... give a little glimmer of hope, but the headline is so damn misleading... kind of pissed me off as I first believed they somehow reached a deal today or something.

Anyway, hopefully this guy is right.

[RippedOnNitro]

http://www.cbc.ca/sp...on-maclean.html

Interesting read... give a little glimmer of hope, but the headline is so damn misleading... kind of pissed me off as I first believed they somehow reached a deal today or something.

Anyway, hopefully this guy is right.

That was indeed a very misleading title. And I unfortunately can't say I am as optimistic. But the nhl and nhlpa can proof me wrong...

[sleepwalker]

Screw the league, and screw the players. Go ahead and strike.

We know you are pro NHL/GMs and anti-NHLPA, but it has been pointed out to you multiple times already that this is a LOCKOUT, and yet you keep saying strike regardless. The players aren't striking, the owners are locking them out. Last CBA, was also a lockout. The one before that? Yep, also a lockout.

[F.Michael]

I'm still a firm believer of my earlier predictions from a post in a similar thread; 60/40 in favor of a lock-out.

[Nightfall]

We know you are pro NHL/GMs and anti-NHLPA, but it has been pointed out to you multiple times already that this is a LOCKOUT, and yet you keep saying strike regardless. The players aren't striking, the owners are locking them out. Last CBA, was also a lockout. The one before that? Yep, also a lockout.

Says the "NHLPA can do no wrong" fan. I suppose anyone who stands up against the NHLPA is a league apologist in your mind. Both sides are accountable here. I have said that at the beginning and I will say it until the end. Anyone just blindly kissing the NHLPA's ass in this is an idiot.

That was indeed a very misleading title. And I unfortunately can't say I am as optimistic. But the nhl and nhlpa can proof me wrong...

I am in the same boat. The two sides refuse to acknowledge the problems of the league right now. That alone means that we are in for a 2-3 month lockout, and I am a glass half full kind of guy normally.