2012 CBA Negotiations Thread

[Corn Flake]

I can't be the only one feeling this way.

Nope, you're not. A few of us have already expressed these kind of feelings. Maybe part of it is we've all just got (for better or worse) more stuff going on in our lives? Maybe there's just a ton of other things that help to keep our respective boats afloat? Perhaps social media and other easily attainable stimulants that weren't around 7 years ago are part of it? Could we watch just about any movie , TV show, or event for free at anytime back then? I just think the NHL just might have more competition for people's time and money then they did back then. - Or, I could be wrong. 

Anyway, it is really kind of dangerous for the league because as posters on a Leafs fan site, we're a little hardcore, right? I mean, if WE aren't all bent out of shape, what of the fringe guys?

Yeah for sure.  It seems to never matter why  you have free time but when you do it gets filled up pretty quick.  Trying to carve that time out again for hockey in 1/3/6/14 months will get harder and harder.  The motivation to drop everything when NHL hockey comes back and resume the 20-25 hours a week I used to spend watching it is slipping by the day.

If I wasn't on here chatting with you guys and the very odd interaction on twitter I have, I would be paying ZERO attention to this lockout and NHL hockey.  And yeah, the average fringe fan in the US is probably already firmly focused on other things, and with NFL in full gear and the NBA starting to crank up,  that could be it.

 

[mc]

I will have zero interest in a shortened season if it came to that.

 

[maplesyrup]

If I wasn't on here chatting with you guys and the very odd interaction on twitter I have, I would be paying ZERO attention to this lockout and NHL hockey. 

I officially got hooked on twitter earlier this year... Told myself I'd only follow but somehow just recently felt the need to tweet myself. So now I'm a twit, I guess.  :-[ 

 

[maplesyrup]

I will have zero interest in a shortened season if it came to that.

Can't agree there. I'll be ready when they are.

 

[Kin]

Anyway, it is really kind of dangerous for the league because as posters on a Leafs fan site, we're a little hardcore, right? I mean, if WE aren't all bent out of shape, what of the fringe guys?

But the fringe guys, as you put it, probably won't have their relationship with the game change at all. To them Hockey is a little like a rock concert, if it's in town they'll go see it and if not they won't.

A guy like my Uncle who probably couldn't name 5 guys on the team but who is nevertheless a contributor to the league's bottom line as a guy with all of the various cable packages and who goes to a few games a year through the company he works for isn't going to not go to games in February because they were locked out in November. He'll probably learn about the lockout ending by being asked if he wants to go to a game.

The sort of perspective some hockey fans have on the lockout that the game's absence will seriously impact their habit, I mean, I think that can only really be true if there's anything resembling a habit in the first place. To the people who see it as disposable entertainment this lockout will have the same impact on their future decisions as, say, the Foo Fighter's recent decision to go on Hiatus will affect my decision to see them in a couple years if they un-hiatus. It's not like their absence hurts me.

And the die-hards...I get the sense that most die-hards are in it for life. There's apathy around these parts now because the Leafs have been so bad but I get the sense that a good season or two will cure that pretty quick.

 

[crazyperfectdevil]

I keep catching myself not really caring about this much at all.  7 years ago, the last time we went through this, I was figuratively on the edge of my seat every day, sucking up every last bit of news, hoping it was the turning point in the lockout and the imminent return of NHL hockey.  Not this time.

It's feeling a lot like I did when baseball cut the 1994 season short. I stopped paying attention for a long time after that.  I moved on to other things, followed other sports, etc. etc.  Basically just wrote the Jays and the sport right out of my mind for over a decade. I sit here with my Maple Leafs season ticket holder "on hold" emails and letters and have a real hard time not just tossing it and telling them to shove it. 

Too much good local hockey out there to watch to be bothered sitting around waiting for the NHL.  When they finally do come back, will I watch? Yeah probably.  But will I care like I used to?  I'm really not sure I will.

I think they are playing a really dangerous game this time, effing with long-time fans like me who are getting pretty tired of this stuff... fans of teams that haven't been very good for a while are even more susceptible to apathy.

I can't be the only one feeling this way.

I think as leaf fans it also doesn't help that the team has sucked for years now.  It might be a little harder to drop them if they were on the verge of doing something, but they don't really appear to be.  I also tuned out baseball after that strike but again it probably helped that the Jays sucked from that point onward. 

I'm sure I'd still be frustrated with this strike no matter what but with the leafs in they state they've been in since the last strike it's more like..enh ...who cares...not making the playoffs and not playing a season doesn't seem all that dissimilar

 

[maplesyrup]

But the fringe guys, as you put it, probably won't have their relationship with the game change at all. To them Hockey is a little like a rock concert, if it's in town they'll go see it and if not they won't.

A guy like my Uncle who probably couldn't name 5 guys on the team but who is nevertheless a contributor to the league's bottom line as a guy with all of the various cable packages and who goes to a few games a year through the company he works for isn't going to not go to games in February because they were locked out in November. He'll probably learn about the lockout ending by being asked if he wants to go to a game.

The sort of perspective some hockey fans have on the lockout that the game's absence will seriously impact their habit, I mean, I think that can only really be true if there's anything resembling a habit in the first place. To the people who see it as disposable entertainment this lockout will have the same impact on their future decisions as, say, the Foo Fighter's recent decision to go on Hiatus will affect my decision to see them in a couple years if they un-hiatus. It's not like their absence hurts me.

And the die-hards...I get the sense that most die-hards are in it for life. There's apathy around these parts now because the Leafs have been so bad but I get the sense that a good season or two will cure that pretty quick.

Fair enough. Can't say I disagree with any of that but either way, no NHL isn't exactly going to help whatever interests they had/have in drawing new fans.

 

[Kin]

Fair enough. Can't say I disagree with any of that but either way, no NHL isn't exactly going to help whatever interests they had/have in draw new fans.

No, that's true. The reality is that the best advertisement the game has is the game itself and for a lot of American fans, people who like the game and follow their teams but who would probably rank their NHL team as #4 or #5 in their affections, the lack of the game's presence probably will affect their interest if they go an extended period without.

That's why the whole thing just seems so self-destructive on the league's part. Unless things are teetering on the brink of collapse, I mean, a lockout should be a very last resort.

 

[Deebo]

There's apathy around these parts now because the Leafs have been so bad but I get the sense that a good season or two will cure that pretty quick.

I think this has alot to do with how we feel around here this time, this lockout is a reminder that the Leafs have been terrible for the length of entire CBA that just expired and expectations are pretty low for this team again, if they ever get this season started.

Going into the last NHL lock out, we had one of the best Leaf teams in recent memory.

 

[Omallley]

I thought this was interesting: are the owners going to cave at some point? The most interesting bit:

"The takeway is that no matter what revenue growth is, the owners are financially better off taking the players' offer, or even the old CBA , than canceling the 2012-2013 season and getting everything they want out of negotiations."

http://nhlnumbers.com/2012/10/1/why-the-nhl-lockout-wont-cancel-the-2012-2013-season

 

[Rebel_1812]

The idea that some people put forth during the whole Balsillie mess that moving a team to Canada would be a terrific boon for both the league and that owner just doesn't seem to be true. Canada may very well be tapped out as a market.

It wasn't Canada he was trying to move to.  He was trying to move to southern Ontario.  The most populated, and used to be richest part of Canada.  That market is not topped out since there are plenty of people there that would buy tickets to the leafs if they weren't sold out all the time.  Another team within driving distance of these people would serve that unserved demand.  Quebec City would be like Winnipeg a gamble that would have to be managed well to make money.

 

[Kin]

It wasn't Canada he was trying to move to.  He was trying to move to southern Ontario.  The most populated, and used to be richest part of Canada.  That market is not topped out since there are plenty of people there that would buy tickets to the leafs if they weren't sold out all the time.  Another team within driving distance of these people would serve that unserved demand.  Quebec City would be like Winnipeg a gamble that would have to be managed well to make money.

Two things:

1) I'm pretty careful with how I phrased what I said there. I'm referring specifically to the idea that people made during that whole time(and remember that for a while during the Pittsburgh process speculation was that Balsillie might move to Winnipeg) that a team in Canada, in just about any market, would be a good thing for the league.  I'm not talking about Balsillie's specific plans. If you want proof of that argument existing, I mean, in this very thread a while back someone put forth the idea of moving a struggling US team to Moncton.

2) As to the specific points you make the problem is that it relies on the idea, also largely trumpeted by Balsillie supporters, that the really make or break factor in terms of revenues/profitability in the NHL is ticket sales and that just doesn't sync up with the Forbes numbers at all. The top 8 revenue teams in the NHL according to Forbes are(in no particular order)Toronto, Montreal, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Vancouver, Boston and Detroit. Those are places that sell a lot of tickets, yes, but they're also all large markets that can draw on a lot of corporate money/TV territory.

Look further down the list and you see the problem with moving a team to a small Canadian market. Winnipeg sold every seat in the house with the third most expensive ticket prices in the league and Forbes has them as taking in only a million dolllars more in revenue than the Phoenix Coyotes. Dallas had the third worst attendance in the league but generated 6 million dollars less in revenue than Edmonton, also selling out every game. Calgary and Ottawa, selling 19,000+ tickets a night were barely profitable. Ottawa, again with good attendance numbers, lost money according to Forbes the season before.

That supports what the Balsillie skeptics were saying all along. The real factors that go into making a team a big revenue generator in the NHL aren't ticket sales. The TV market in Southern Ontario is well-served with NHL hockey and may well be tapped out and the idea that there'd be a lot of sponsorship/corporate money for a team in Hamilton is almost entirely speculative.

 

[Hampreacher]

I get a little tired of Bettmans we are waiting for NHLPA offer. His idea of an offer is accept what we propose. He is idea of negotiation is We tell you what we offer. You accept it. You have owners who offer rediculous contracts and then whine teams are losing money. Who offered the contracts. You put teams in areas that they will not support hockey and wonder why they lose money.  I suggested moves of teams and they might not be able to sustain a team but they would support their team better, attendance wise.

 

[bustaheims]

I suggested moves of teams and they might not be able to sustain a team but they would support their team better, attendance wise.

But, if they can't sustain the team financially, what's the point? You'd just end up with those teams either going bankrupt or moving somewhere else within 5-10 seasons. Being able to financially sustain a team is much more important in terms of location than having a more passionate fan base.

 

[Peter D.]

I get a little tired of Bettmans we are waiting for NHLPA offer. His idea of an offer is accept what we propose. He is idea of negotiation is We tell you what we offer. You accept it. You have owners who offer rediculous contracts and then whine teams are losing money. Who offered the contracts. You put teams in areas that they will not support hockey and wonder why they lose money.  I suggested moves of teams and they might not be able to sustain a team but they would support their team better, attendance wise.

While I agree with this general premise, I'd like to see the PA take some of the onus and put forth a few things themselves.  They obviously have things in their mind, so why not throw them out there, regardless of the reception it'd receive by the league?  Unless they are steadfast in their initial proposal, in which we won't be seeing any NHL hockey this season if that is the case.

What this negotiation needs first and foremost is dialogue and there is little of that going on right now.  If they can't even do that, then how the heck is a deal going to be made?

 

[Frank E]

I can't be the only one feeling this way.

Nope, you're not. A few of us have already expressed these kind of feelings. Maybe part of it is we've all just got (for better or worse) more stuff going on in our lives? Maybe there's just a ton of other things that help to keep our respective boats afloat? Perhaps social media and other easily attainable stimulants that weren't around 7 years ago are part of it? Could we watch just about any movie , TV show, or event for free at anytime back then? I just think the NHL just might have more competition for people's time and money then they did back then. - Or, I could be wrong. 

Anyway, it is really kind of dangerous for the league because as posters on a Leafs fan site, we're a little hardcore, right? I mean, if WE aren't all bent out of shape, what of the fringe guys?

Who are you guys kidding?  As soon as they come to an agreement in 2014, you?ll all be back debating which fourth line centre should be taking the draw in the latter half of the third period in a 2 goal lead game, on the second night of a back to back, on the road, on a Thursday.

The right answer is Steckel. 

I just don?t know if half the players will come back given the average salary will likely be in the neighbourhood of $2million dollars guaranteed vs. $2.45 million bucks a year guaranteed last year.  They?ll certainly have to implement some pretty intense austerity measures.  I kid, but I don?t think anyone should work for less than what they feel their value is?if you can?t get what you think you?re worth then go work elsewhere for your proper value.

The reason these union solidarity things usually fall apart in these NHL negotiations is because the average player has a career of, what, 5-6 years?  Burning off a year sitting on the couch, or coaching peewee, or whatever the hell the player chooses to do whilst ?fighting the good fight for fairness and for future NHL players? is likely going to cost that guy a couple of million bucks and maybe a roster spot next year because that kid in the minors is really coming along. 

If Fehr can keep them in line longer term, well then, my hat will be off to him.  I?ll tell you right now, that player?s union brothers will be nowhere when he loses his roster spot.  It?s easy for entrenched guys making $4mil on a nice term deal to preach patience, but most of the guys in the league aren?t set for life unless they can play 4-5 years worth of games.  These guys need to play, and play right now, and the NHL has the best pay plan and benefits available anywhere in the world to a pro hockey player, even at the 47% deal that was offered to the players a few weeks ago.  Flying on chartered jets and staying at the Ritz Carlton, NHL life is pretty good according to friends of mine that played for years.  KHL offering competitive big money?  There?s a catch there, you have to play hockey in Russia, with all the safety and security that goes along with that.

The owners however are looking at franchise values that can be affected by $40-$50 million bucks if they can get a CBA that?ll dial back their labour by 20% and get a bunch of them out of the red operationally.  That?s a lot of cake to hang tight for, and plenty of incentive to wait them out.  Hell, I'd wager at this point, half the teams in the league likely won?t lose much more money by shutting down for the year.  They think this lockout is worthwhile, so long as they can rely on the fans coming back when it?s over?and they likely will.

 

[Kin]

The owners however are looking at franchise values that can be affected by $40-$50 million bucks if they can get a CBA that?ll dial back their labour by 20% and get a bunch of them out of the red operationally.  That?s a lot of cake to hang tight for, and plenty of incentive to wait them out.  Hell, I'd wager at this point, half the teams in the league likely won?t lose much more money by shutting down for the year.  They think this lockout is worthwhile, so long as they can rely on the fans coming back when it?s over?and they likely will.

The Stewardship of the Game!

 

[Deebo]

The NHL are cancelling the first block of games today.

 

[maplesyrup]

I heard they'll cancel 2 weeks at a time every 2 weeks. I'm guessing they'll probably burn the entire season if nothing is done by the holidays.

 

[bustaheims]

I heard they'll cancel 2 weeks at a time every 2 weeks. I'm guessing they'll probably burn the entire season if nothing is done by the holidays.

The 40 or so game point was where the put the kibosh on last time, so, I imagine it would be the same here - which would put the last chance date in late January.