2012 CBA Negotiations Thread

[L K]

Good thing those poor owners are not signing a bunch of guys to bloated contracts right before the lockout.  Because you know that they are poor and can't afford to pay guys.  Since the 14th, they have signed 114+ million dollars in contracts.

Why would they stop signing their players?

Say the owner get their way, we're still looking at a cap of $58 million (47%).

Because, if they are so set on how the financial system isn't working, they shouldn't be signing contracts under an old system with no intention of honouring them.  If they muck things up again and come out with little change in the system, they are just going to bitch and moan about how they aren't making money all over again.

 

[Frank E]

How does the current CBA process the circumstance of all the teams getting together and enacting an artificial cap of say $50 million last year, since they're guaranteed 57% of revenues?

The owners would have to pay the difference into escrow.

I figured it was in the escrow, thanks Busta.

The reason I bring it up is that some people keep suggesting that the owners shouldn't be making any signings, and that signing players = proof that they can afford to pay. 

It's really quite simple, they have to sign players to market a competitive team, and be between the floor and the cap.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

It's really quite simple, they have to sign players to market a competitive team, and be between the floor and the cap.

Almost all of these recent signings are for players with a year still left on their contracts though. There's no urgency to get them done in order to be competitive.

 

[Frank E]

Good thing those poor owners are not signing a bunch of guys to bloated contracts right before the lockout.  Because you know that they are poor and can't afford to pay guys.  Since the 14th, they have signed 114+ million dollars in contracts.

Why would they stop signing their players?

Say the owner get their way, we're still looking at a cap of $58 million (47%).

Because, if they are so set on how the financial system isn't working, they shouldn't be signing contracts under an old system with no intention of honouring them.  If they muck things up again and come out with little change in the system, they are just going to witch and moan about how they aren't making money all over again.

They are not 'so set that the entire financial system isn't working.'

They are suggesting that the % of revenues going to the players is too high to be properly profitable.

The owners have decided to leave the original definition of HRR alone, and so really now what we're waiting for is an agreement between the two sides of somewhere between 46% and 57%.

I think the contract length issues, as well as the period of time of "controlability" of a player are negotiating chips for each side to get to a % figure that is satisfactory.

Like I said, we'll likely see a cap of around $60 million decided upon.  It's not like the figures being negotiated are going to change the landscape here.

 

[Frank E]

It's really quite simple, they have to sign players to market a competitive team, and be between the floor and the cap.

Almost all of these recent signings are for players with a year still left on their contracts though. There's no urgency to get them done in order to be competitive.

I don't know Carlton, perhaps they're just trying to get their more important pieces in place longer term in order to map out filling out the roster under a smaller cap later.

Like I said, they still have to plan on icing a team sooner or later, and can estimate what that cap is going to look like more or less.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

One of these things is not like the other.

Matt Cockell ‏@mcockell1

Games lost due to labor strike/lockout since 1992 by sport NFL: 0, NBA: 504, MLB: 938, NHL: 1,698

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Found this to be an interesting read: http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/09/13/garys-game/

 

[hockeyfan1]

Massachusetts economist Andrew Zimbalist, and author of many books, no hockey follower himself but has assessed and studied sports economies,  had this to say of Bettman and the NHL's third lockout...

...what it means, exactly, when a professional sports league is facing its third lockout in as many collective bargaining agreements?

"It means it is poorly managed," said our frank, 64-year-old professor of economics at Smith College in Massachusetts, and author of 20 books, including May The Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy.

"Mr. Bettman, although he has some qualities that are admirable, has made a lot of bad decisions," Zimbalist said this week, before Thursday's confirmation that we are heading towards Bettman's third lockout since becoming the commissioner of the National Hockey League in 1993. "He has not promoted effective management at the team level, and he is unwilling to admit his mistakes and walk away from them."

"The teams below the Mason Dixon line in the United States are not profitable. Some of them are bleeding tens of millions of dollars a year,"..

To come to the table and say we want you guys to drop your share in revenues from 57 per cent of revenues to 42 per cent is a declaration of unreasonableness and irrationality."

"The bottom line is this: the league is not well managed, it's not well structured, and that has to change. Ownership and Bettman can't expect the players to assume the whole burden of those problems.

"Gary Bettman doesn't want to admit that his southern strategy was a bad strategy, back in the 1990s," Zimbalist said. "It is his intransigence around this issue that's created this problem."

...those poor markets are worth 25 jobs per team to the NHLPA. Contraction does not help the players one bit, so if it is to be avoided, then the PA must share some of the pain in other areas to preserve those jobs.

Bettman ventured into the four corners of the USA for one reason: that mega-bucks U.S. TV contract that forms the economic pillar of all major North American sports. In the end, the NHL secured all the markets -- many of them weak -- but the league never did get that giant TV deal.

"That's the main difference," Zimbalist agrees. "In hockey, the U.S. contract is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $5-6 million a team. In football, it's $150 million per team. In basketball and baseball it's closer to $35 million a team."

...all those money-losers in Florida, Nashville, Phoenix, Carolina and the second teams in New York and Los Angeles. But their presence has never provided the TV revenues that would make those markets self-sustaining.

...the damage on those already wonky markets will be the most severe.

"If you have another work stoppage, hockey will bounce back in Canada. I don't think there is any question about that," Zimbalist said. "What happens in the United States is another question.

"Hockey is on a very thin string of popularity in the United States," he concludes. "Whether it can bounce back in the presence of all the competition that is springing up around it is another question. Soccer, for instance, is an ascendant sport here.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl-lockout/2012/09/13/nhl_lockout_cba_betmann_bad_for_business/

 

[brothert]

Prior to the last lockout I managed to get to one leaf game live per year and family bought me new leaf jerseys as the came out.

Since the last lockout, I've been to two leaf games and haven't had any new leaf merchandise.

Today, I regret forking out the dough for the two tix.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

You're still helping to support a lot of non-millionaire workers.

 

[Sudafederov]

Just curious to get people's thoughts on this, if the league halved ticket prices, would you support a Leaf team comprised of replacement players?

 

[hockeyfan1]

Just curious to get people's thoughts on this, if the league halved ticket prices, would you support a Leaf team comprised of replacement players?

Replacement players from where?

 

[bustaheims]

Just curious to get people's thoughts on this, if the league halved ticket prices, would you support a Leaf team comprised of replacement players?

Using replacement workers like that is illegal in Canada - or, at least, it was when MLB tried to back in 1995. I doubt anything's changed there.

 

[drummond]

I am rather curious whether the Leafs allow Marlies to play their home games in the ACC. Fans demand for hockey will be high, the Marlies line-up solid, overall qulity level in the AHL increased given the number of demotions due to the lockout - all that could produce interesting hockey.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

Just curious to get people's thoughts on this, if the league halved ticket prices, would you support a Leaf team comprised of replacement players?

Using replacement workers like that is illegal in Canada - or, at least, it was when MLB tried to back in 1995. I doubt anything's changed there.

I do know that there is no 'replacement worker' law in Ontario(There was one from 93 to 96 which would explain the baseball problem). So unless there's different rules for sporting teams, it would be ok. That being said, BC and Quebec still have replacement worker laws making it illegal to bring in scabs.(I'm not sure about the rest of the provinces).

 

[L K]

Not sure how that would be a viable option.  People on average don't go to see the AHL at far less than 50% of the NHL ticket price.  Why would they pay to see something that would be even lower quality than the AHL

 

[Omallley]

Anyone else think Watters is a nut?

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/17/replacement-players-could-solve-nhl-owners-problems-end-lockout

 

[jdh1]

Anyone else think Watters is a nut?

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/17/replacement-players-could-solve-nhl-owners-problems-end-lockout

Actually not...Watters is just saying that the  possibility is out there...I don't think that would happen,but if the New Years game is cancelled..lookout.

If the auto industry out here in Windsor cannot settle the companies have allready suggested they could take production out of Canada with in a few years..I hope not ..but it's possible.

 

[Kin]

Anyone else think Watters is a nut?

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/17/replacement-players-could-solve-nhl-owners-problems-end-lockout

Yeah. I had the misfortune to hear him ranting about this on the radio the other day and saying stuff like "Don Fehr is a crazy egomaniac, he wants to control the game and blah blah blah" before the other guys on the radio asked if he'd ever even met the guy and Watters said he didn't need to.

The guy's absolutely full of it. The sort who thinks volume can compensate for informed opinion.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

Anyone else think Watters is a nut?

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/17/replacement-players-could-solve-nhl-owners-problems-end-lockout

Yeah. I had the misfortune to hear him ranting about this on the radio the other day and saying stuff like "Don Fehr is a crazy egomaniac, he wants to control the game and blah blah blah" before the other guys on the radio asked if he'd ever even met the guy and Watters said he didn't need to.

The guy's absolutely full of it. The sort who thinks volume can compensate for informed opinion.

Watters still gets air time?