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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 19, 2012 13:29:25 GMT -5
Ryan Kennedy þ@THNRyanKennedy
Re: Flyers offer sheet to Shea Weber, note that Philly owner Ed Snider is one of the most important voices to Gary Bettman in CBA talks
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 20, 2012 13:14:26 GMT -5
THIS is the best article I have read on the subject. Big kudo's to James Mirtle and the Globe and Mail! It's really best to read it on the Globe Website, since you can see the very helpful graphs: www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/globe-on-hockey/why-nhl-teams-cry-poor-despite-the-leagues-record-growth/article4429817/Why NHL teams cry poor despite the league’s record growth JAMES MIRTLE The Globe and Mail Published Friday, Jul. 20 2012, 11:54 AM EDT Last updated Friday, Jul. 20 2012, 1:14 PM EDT Time for another by the numbers look at the money fight that is the NHL and NHLPA’s current collective bargaining negotiations. First of all, you’ll note there’s a decidedly different tone this time around than there was in 2004-05. Back then, there were cost overruns, endless losses and the Levitt Report. MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY NHL representatives and the players association resume peaceful talks DAVID SHOALTS NHL ownership, union philosophies far apart BLOG A closer look at the NHL’s new CBA wish list Now, commissioner Gary Bettman can’t stop trumpeting just how wildly successful the league has been over the last seven seasons. Revenues have risen from roughly $2.2-billion to $3.3-billion – or an average of about $160-million a season – over the length of the current CBA, pushing the average revenue-per-team figure to $110-million. Overall, the league is profitable, too. Take that imaginary average team making $110-million a season. Their player costs would be 57 per cent of that figure, or $62.7-million, and their other, non-player related expenses are likely to be in the neighbourhood of $35- to $40-million, depending on their lease arrangement and various other complicating factors. What’s left is the profit – which according to these rough estimates here would be between $7- and $12-million per team. Sounds good, right? For as many as a dozen teams, it is. On the high end in the NHL, the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens are all pulling in more than enough revenue to be very profitable and they don’t lose all that much of it to revenue sharing. What’s not exactly news is that many teams on the low end struggle, and it’s that vast revenue disparity which is to blame for a lot of the problems the owners are once again making noise about correcting. That’s why we can have a team like the Philadelphia Flyers sign a free agent defenceman like Shea Weber to an enormous, $110-million deal even as owner Ed Snider is part of talks to eliminate those long-term contracts. These deals make sense for some teams and not others – just as the system is “working” for some and not others. Below are two graphs I’ve put together that highlight how vastly different revenues are for the high and low teams in the NHL. Note that these figures are all estimates from the 2010-11 season and that they rely on the data provided by Forbes as part of their annual Business of Hockey series. Their revenue estimates are not perfect, but they are a usable approximation and illustrate why we’re in another labour war, seven years after the last one: Estimated NHL team revenues (2010-11) Before revenue sharing, the NHL's top 10 revenue generating teams are believed to averaged close to $150-million in revenue the 2010-11 season. The bottom 10 teams are likely closer to $70-million each. SOURCE: Forbes (with alterations made for estimated revenue sharing figures) Now, the way the NHL’s current CBA works, it’s not that difficult to come up with a general estimate of the profit levels of the 30 teams as a group. In 2010-11, for example, the league made roughly $3.1-billion and, as per the CBA, 57 per cent – or $1.76-billion – of that went to the players. That then leaves 43 per cent for the owners or about $1.33-billion ($44-million per team). Expenses beyond what teams pay players then take a big bite out of that figure, with those costs going to things like executive and staff salaries, minor league operations, arena operations, travel and marketing, etc. According to the Levitt Report in 2002-03, these operating costs were roughly $26-million per team nearly a decade ago. Accounting for inflation and rising costs in several areas, we can probably safely assume they have since risen into the $35-million range. Multiplied by 30 teams, that would have eaten up roughly $1-billion of that owners’ share mentioned above. So in terms of our roughed out numbers here that leaves about $280-million as our “profit” estimate. The NHL as a whole, in other words, now makes money – and if revenues were 100 per cent shared among owners, they’d all be profitable. (That’s looking at only hockey-related revenues, by the way. Getting into non-HRR sources such as increases in franchise values and the like is a whole new topic.) The major issue, however, is that the $280-million profit margin (or whatever the precise figure is) is going almost entirely to the league’s top teams. The Leafs, for one, likely make up $100-million or more a season of that figure, even after giving up the league’s largest revenue sharing donation to the less fortunate teams. Add in the Rangers, Habs, Canucks, Red Wings, Bruins, Blackhawks and Flyers – all healthy franchises – and there’s another $240-million or so. So there’s eight franchises and we’re already well over the $280-million profit figure we’ve estimated for 2010-11. The NHL model: Profitable for some Using Forbes' figures for team revenues, here are some estimated revenue and expense figures for the three wealthiest and three of the poorest teams in the 2010-11 season. "Difference minus expenses" uses an estimate of $35-million for non-player costs such as staff Where the league is suffering and why we may have yet another lockout (the third under Bettman) is (a) the bottom 10 teams have revenues so low they can’t cover their expenses and (b) those at the top have little intention of helping them do so more than they already are. It’s an owner versus owner problem more than it is an owner versus player one, with Thursday’s massive offer sheet the perfect example of how a high spending team can go after one receiving revenue sharing and just hanging on. The fact the players are again being asked to save the stragglers rubs many on the PA side the wrong way. “Under the current CBA, NHL teams have received over $3-billion in revenue that would have previously gone towards player salaries,” one such source said this week. “The issue is not whether the players should now give up more revenue, it’s what did the owners do with this $3-billion? “We know what they didn’t do. NHL clubs did not meaningfully revenue share between the big and small markets. After accepting a salary cap, a 24 per cent rollback and making other significant concessions last time, with revenues up over 50 per cent since 2005, why look to the players again?” The answer is easy: Bettman and Co. believe they will have far more luck prying $200- or $300-million out of the players than the big moneyed teams, the owners of which feel they’ve given up enough of their advantage by agreeing to a cap, some limited revenue sharing and greater parity. But even under the league’s recent proposal, which would cut the players’ share to 46 per cent, many teams on the low end would continue to lose money. You simply can’t turn a profit while bringing in $80-million or less unless we’re talking about a cap of $45-million or less, which at current revenue levels would require giving players only a 37 per cent share. To make a team like Phoenix profitable, they’d have to take closer to 25 per cent. Neither of those will come to pass. In a lot of ways, this CBA negotiation is still tied directly to the NHL’s path down the overexpansion road in the 1990s, one it hasn’t fully recovered from. Yes, revenues are way, way up, but they are up in large part due to its biggest hockey markets (including Canadian teams). Those that have struggled in the past for the most part continue to do so. The frustration on the players’ side is that in many instances this is more a revenue problem than a player salary problem – and they have little say in how to correct the vast revenue imbalance in the league. Relocation is one option – going from Atlanta to Winnipeg alone had to have boosted league revenues $30-million or more – but there really aren’t many places to go beyond perhaps franchises in Toronto, Quebec City and Seattle. Another is to drop the salary floor and allow teams to simply spend what they can afford, giving up on forced parity when it means forced losses for those on the low end. More robust revenue sharing could also certainly help – and I expect that’s what union leader Donald Fehr eventually pushes for – but how willing are the Leafs, Habs, Rangers et al to bail out the league’s perennial problem children? “Not very” has always been the word, and that’s why they currently share only a tiny fraction (rumoured to be roughly 7 per cent) of their share of revenues. But pushing the players to fix this can only take them so far here. For the rest of the solution, this is a league that needs to look in the mirror at what’s really happening and why some of its teams are losing this much money. Or give up the ruse that that’s what they’re fighting to correct in the first place. “I know other leagues have meaningful revenue sharing,” one agent said this week of the NHL’s revenue gap dilemma. “The NHL hopes that the media and fans ignore that fact. Owners would rather try to pound on players than pound on each other.” |
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 21, 2012 8:05:51 GMT -5
offsidesportsblog.blogspot.ca/Thursday, July 19, 2012 Would The NHL Season Ever Start Without a CBA In Place? NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr has said that the Union would have no problem with the NHL season starting without a negotiated CBA. Here's what Fehr said: "The law is that if you don't have a new agreement, and as long as both sides are willing to keep negotiating, you can continue to play under the terms of the old one until you reach an agreement. All I know is that in baseball, there were any number of occasions in which we played while the parties were continuing to negotiate." Assuming the sides are fine with it, Fehr is correct in that the old terms of the CBA would govern the terms of employment until such time as the sides agree to a new deal. However, the real question is this - would the owners allow the season to start without a new deal in place? As a lawyer, I'm totally fine making things far more complicated than they need to be. It pays my mortgage and lets me buy lots of golf balls. If there is a grey area, I'm happy to pitch a tent and hang out there for a while. In this case, there is no need to qualify my response. The answer is this - there is no chance that the owners would ever start the NHL season without a new CBA in place. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Nill. Zip. Niente. Noll. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, the owners would never give up the leverage associated with locking out players. Being able to deprive NHL players of their employment and income can be pretty powerful. To forfeit that option would be to undermine your own negotiating position (I'm sure this is covered somewhere in the first couple of chapters in Getting to Yes). Second reason is this - if the season ever started without a new CBA, the NHLPA would suddenly gain some leverage. If the owners did start the season without a CBA, their expectation would of course be that the entire season and playoffs would be played. The owners would not, for example, lockout the players mid-season and risk losing the playoffs. However, without a new CBA it would be open, in theory, for the NHLPA to strike mid-season if it feels that things are not going well. That could wipe out the final part of the season and the playoffs. This approach would apply tremendous pressure on the NHL to get a deal done. Want a precedent? MLB owners started the season in 1994 without a CBA. The same Donald Fehr was unhappy with the offer on the table (which included a salary cap and rollback on free agency eligibility), and the players went on strike on August 12. The rest of the season, including the World Series, was called off by Bud Selig on September 14. The move to cancel the rest of the season meant the loss of $580 million in ownership revenue and $230 million in player salaries. There is simply too much to risk for owners to start the season without a new CBA. That scenario is just unlikely. No grey here. Posted by Eric Macramalla at 10:01 AM No comments: Links to this post
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 21, 2012 20:32:08 GMT -5
www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/story/2012/07/21/spf-labour-dispute-players-perspective-collective-bargaining-agreement.htmlNHL labour dispute: A player's perspective CBC Sports Posted: Jul 21, 2012 11:46 AM ET Last Updated: Jul 21, 2012 11:41 AM ET Read 38 The following essay was submitted to cbc.ca Saturday morning. Its author — who wishes to remain anonymous — is a 10-year pro who has played in the NHL, the AHL and overseas. These are his thoughts on the current labour situation:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" — Charles Dickens Hockey has never been better. The skill and speed with which today’s game is played is unparalleled. Both the on-ice and off-ice product have soared to new heights, and players and ownership are making more money than they ever have collectively. But here we are, once again staring right into the teeth of another ugly labour dispute. After the 2004 lockout, the fans came back and forgave the unthinkable skipped season. This time, we shouldn’t be so presumptuous. The NHL’s initial offer includes a decrease in HRR from its current 57 per cent – 43 per cent in favour of players, down to 54 per cent – 46 per cent in favour of the owners. Coupled with a 22 per cent rollback in player salaries, their shot across the bow leads me to think this doesn’t look good. We certainly can’t be foolish enough to think that this initial offer will be accepted, but really, what can players do? If owners want to stand pat, eventually players would be forced to cave, or take their chances with another league. (Not going to happen. Ever.) We are hockey players, and that’s all we really want to do. Players aren’t trying to gouge anyone. Really, how can they? There is nothing to be gained from a player’s perspective. At least nothing that is worth arguing over given the shape our game is in. Players were raked over the coals in the last CBA negotiation and we came out with our heads above water. The NHLPA membership as a whole, has survived and thrived under the resulting labour system. The owners had every opportunity to do the same. Let me pose this question: When was the last time a player held out? Not once in the last seven years has a player under contract to an NHL team held out for more money (CBC note: Nick Boynton missed five games in 2005 and Kyle Turris missed the first two months of the 2011-12 NHL season). It’s not about greedy players. Players just want to play and be compensated fairly in accordance with the money our services generate. What else can we do? Our careers do not span very long, so why not make as much as you can while the time is right? Contracts are offered by team general managers and honoured dutifully by players. No one holds a gun to anyone’s head during negotiation. So, why now, do we find ourselves in the same boat as 2004-2005? In the season following the last lockout, the salary cap ceiling was set at $39 million US, while the floor was $23 million. Keep in mind this is all tied directly to hockey related revenue. This past season, the cap ceiling was set at $68 million, with a floor of $52 million. THE FLOOR WAS NINE MILLION DOLLARS HIGHER THAN THE CEILING ONLY SEVEN YEARS EARLIER!! How can this happen to a game that is in such disarray?! Unthinkable concessions In the negotiations of 2003-2004, players made what were initially thought to be unthinkable concessions. A hard cap was implemented. All player salaries were rolled back 24 per cent. (Think about that for a second; you have a guaranteed contract for $500,000, and someone is going to reach into your pocket and take back $120,000?? Insanity in theory, right?). And entry-level salaries and signing bonuses were drastically reduced for the most part. These were the major tipping points for last negotiation. When combined with escrow that reached up to 22 per cent of player salaries, the thought was that digging in to player salaries would put at least some portion of ownership’s largest expense back into their pockets. Players only ask to be paid what is fair in relation to what is being generated. Seven years ago we took a tough pill and swallowed it. The game came out of it better (thankfully, and luckily) and together, teams and players have grown revenues to previously unattainable levels. But what has changed? Why is that deal now so unfair? There is no give and take. It is looking more and more like take-take-take. Owners have proposed another 22 per cent rollback on player salaries, but what does that really do?? “Take more money from players” isn’t a viable solution for a successful business model. The owners don’t want to fix what are the real issues at hand. My real solution (which will never happen); soft-cap/luxury tax system. Let the Leafs, Rangers, Habs, and Flyers spend at will. They can subsidize the Carolinas and Nashvilles of the world. That way, it also isn’t so uncomfortable when the owners sit down at their meetings and have to justify their 13-14yr/$100 million contract they have just offered, while crying poor out of the other sides of their mouths. In an article written by an anonymous NHLPA member last week on Yahoo! Sports Puck Daddy, the author quotes, “In any negotiation things tend to proceed amicably until one side offers something the other side finds completely unacceptable. Then all bets are off.” I don’t see that as being an option players can accept at this point. Players want to play and get paid. And they want to do so in the best league in the world. Trust me. Europe is not the option that it once was. The money and lifestyle are nowhere near comparable to what a high-end NHL player is used to, and for most players the pro versus con argument is heavily weighted to North America. Can you remember what the last lockout was like?? I can. I was still on my entry-level contract and I will tell you it was horrible from a players’ perspective. I had enough of an understanding to realize that this was going to be harder on the players than it would be on the owners. I was also trying to wrestle with the fan within, craving to watch a hockey game after dinner. Inside perspective Greedy players and greedy owners ruining my game. But now that I’ve seen it from the inside, I’ll tell you that’s the last thing players want. Players then were constantly waiting for the inevitable axe to drop. They were told that if they held their resolve and stuck together, all would be fine. “Save your money, we’ll need that war chest.” “You’ll be fine with stipends”. Bullcrap. One owners’ war chest is as big as ours combined. The mantra should have been; “Take your medicine and choose what’s really important”. They want HRR to go from 57 per cent to 46 per cent?! No thanks, you’ve already got parking, concessions, and who knows what else generating income that is not considered as part of HRR. Owners aren’t stupid, they don’t continue to run businesses that bleed red ink. At a certain point, this just becomes gouging. We are supposed to be partners in this; a working relationship. It isn’t slavery, players are well compensated and should be for the time and commitment we put in to our craft, combined with the risk that comes with playing a dangerous game. We are highly trained and highly skilled in what we do, and are only asked that we be compensated fairly considered the revenue that doing our job generates.
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 23, 2012 9:02:48 GMT -5
www.thehockeynews.com/articles/48092-Shea-Weber-contract-magnifies-disparity-in-NHL-markets.htmlADAM PROTEAU'S COLUMN | FEEDHome COLUMNS Adam Proteau's Column Shea Weber contract magnifies disparity in NHL markets Shea Weber signed a 14-year, $110-million offer sheet with the Philadelphia Flyers early Thursday morning. (Photo by Bill Smith/NHLI via Getty Images) Adam Proteau 2012-07-19 15:00:00 In one sense, the Philadelphia Flyers did the Nashville Predators a favor by signing superstar defenseman Shea Weber to a mammoth restricted free agent offer sheet. The Preds now know what it takes to retain Weber – matching Philly’s 14-year, $110-million deal with Nashville’s franchise cornerstone – and with the new investors the organization has brought in recently, Tennessee’s NHL team has little choice but to match (unless it’s prepared to totally alienate the fan base it’s worked diligently to build). However, at a time when NHL team owners are in full tantrum/clawback mode over the league’s labor relations with the Players’ Association, Flyers owner Ed Snider has just taken the Predators’ corporate head and turnbuckle-smashed it into the glass with a furious intensity that would make Weber proud. Predators fans looking for somewhere to focus their collective stink-eye are advised to direct it at Snider and the band of big-market owners, not Weber or former Preds blueliner Ryan Suter. The multi-millionaire and billionaire owners, including Minnesota’s Craig Leipold, who acquired Suter and star left winger Zach Parise via separate 13-year, $98-million unrestricted free agent contracts, are the ones who control all the NHL’s meaningful reins of power and have the ultimate authority on any contract offered to a player. And if initial reports are accurate, Snider signed off on a contract that will pay Weber a $1 million salary in each of the first four seasons…and $52 million in bonuses. Fifty-two. Million. Philadelphia’s offer sheet isn’t exactly the same circumvention as Ilya Kovalchuk’s first contract with New Jersey, which was rejected by the NHL for violating the “spirit of the salary cap,” but it is a blatant “spiritual” circumvention nonetheless and a giant middle finger from Snider to all small-market teams. That’s why owners such as Snider (a notorious hawk in all previous negotiations with the NHLPA) and Leipold (who got a sweetheart deal that removed him as Predators owner and gave him the keys to the much more profitable Wild) are such monstrous hypocrites when it comes to collective bargaining negotiations. They haughtily demand NHLers tighten their financial belts each and every time the league needs a new labor deal, then proceed to make a mockery of the agreement from the minute after it’s signed to the second before it expires. Snider must know what will happen if the Predators fail to match their offer sheet for Weber. He has to be aware crestfallen Nashville fans will be justifiably soured on the way the NHL conducts its business and as a consequence will be less likely to invest their time, emotion and money in the league. He can’t be ignorant of the fact small-market teams functioning as de facto feeder systems and farcical versions of parity will be a drag on large markets and the overall profitability of the game. He also has to know if Nashville does match his offer, the financial strain on the franchise will make it next to impossible for the Preds to improve the team around Weber. Related Links Weber offer sheet puts Preds in corner POLL: Should the Predators match? Snider didn’t care. He did it anyway. It didn’t matter to him that if Weber departs, most dyed-in-the-wool Preds fans will feel like their collective heart had been ripped out, thrown on the floor and had an Irish Riverdance performed on top of it. He is a cold-blooded competitor who will use every available tool to give himself an advantage without any concern for the ramifications. To be fair, Snider is not the owner of the entire league and his primary responsibility is to his franchise. If he didn't offer Weber this deal, another owner surely would. But he cannot operate in a vacuum of self-interest throughout the life of a CBA and then turn around at the end of it and complain about an inflationary process he and his fellow owners basically crafted themselves in the previous labor negotiations. Given these big-money payouts – and it isn’t just this year; Brad Richards, Chris Pronger, Roberto Luongo and other star players in both big and small markets have benefitted from owners frothing at the mouth during the current CBA and paying whatever they deem necessary to land a player –why are NHLers being asked to help the owners save themselves from themselves? Clearly, it can’t be done. Clearly, regardless of the new labor landscape, owners who are pressured by their own egos and/or ongoing investment in a franchise, such as Snider, or by a perceived need to keep up with the Joneses, like Leipold, will always find ways to flex their financial muscles a-la vintage Hulk Hogan. But it’s beyond shameful they view the NHLPA and the league's budget-conscious franchises as the Hulkamania shirt that has to be ripped off their torso and torn to ribbons before the megalomaniacal pose-down begins. Adam Proteau is writer and columnist for The Hockey News and a regular contributor to THN.com. His Power Rankings appear Mondays during the regular season, his column appears Thursdays and his Ask Adam feature Fridays. For more great profiles, news and views from the world of hockey, subscribe to The Hockey News magazine.
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Post by NHLJets2point0 on Jul 23, 2012 12:29:31 GMT -5
Why NHL teams cry poor despite the league’s record growth JAMES MIRTLE THE GLOBE AND MAIL Last updated Friday, Jul. 20 2012, 1:14 PM EDT m.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/globe-on-hockey/why-nhl-teams-cry-poor-despite-the-leagues-record-growth/article4429817/?service=mobile Time for another by the numbers look at the money fight that is the NHL and NHLPA’s current collective bargaining negotiations. First of all, you’ll note there’s a decidedly different tone this time around than there was in 2004-05. Back then, there were cost overruns, endless losses and the Levitt Report. NHL representatives and the players association resume peaceful talks DAVID SHOALTS NHL ownership, union philosophies far apart Now, commissioner Gary Bettman can’t stop trumpeting just how wildly successful the league has been over the last seven seasons. Revenues have risen from roughly $2.2-billion to $3.3-billion – or an average of about $160-million a season – over the length of the current CBA, pushing the average revenue-per-team figure to $110-million. Overall, the league is profitable, too. Take that imaginary average team making $110-million a season. Their player costs would be 57 per cent of that figure, or $62.7-million, and their other, non-player related expenses are likely to be in the neighbourhood of $35- to $40-million, depending on their lease arrangement and various other complicating factors. What’s left is the profit – which according to these rough estimates here would be between $7- and $12-million per team. Sounds good, right? For as many as a dozen teams, it is. On the high end in the NHL, the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens are all pulling in more than enough revenue to be very profitable and they don’t lose all that much of it to revenue sharing. What’s not exactly news is that many teams on the low end struggle, and it’s that vast revenue disparity which is to blame for a lot of the problems the owners are once again making noise about correcting. That’s why we can have a team like the Philadelphia Flyers sign a free agent defenceman like Shea Weber to an enormous, $110-million deal even as owner Ed Snider is part of talks to eliminate those long-term contracts. These deals make sense for some teams and not others – just as the system is “working†for some and not others. Below are two graphs I’ve put together that highlight how vastly different revenues are for the high and low teams in the NHL. Note that these figures are all estimates from the 2010-11 season and that they rely on the data provided by Forbes as part of their annual Business of Hockey series. Their revenue estimates are not perfect, but they are a usable approximation and illustrate why we’re in another labour war, seven years after the last one: Estimated NHL team revenues (2010-11) Before revenue sharing, the NHL's top 10 revenue generating teams are believed to averaged close to $150-million in revenue the 2010-11 season. The bottom 10 teams are likely closer to $70-million each. SOURCE: Forbes (with alterations made for estimated revenue sharing figures) Now, the way the NHL’s current CBA works, it’s not that difficult to come up with a general estimate of the profit levels of the 30 teams as a group. In 2010-11, for example, the league made roughly $3.1-billion and, as per the CBA, 57 per cent – or $1.76-billion – of that went to the players. That then leaves 43 per cent for the owners or about $1.33-billion ($44-million per team). Expenses beyond what teams pay players then take a big bite out of that figure, with those costs going to things like executive and staff salaries, minor league operations, arena operations, travel and marketing, etc. According to the Levitt Report in 2002-03, these operating costs were roughly $26-million per team nearly a decade ago. Accounting for inflation and rising costs in several areas, we can probably safely assume they have since risen into the $35-million range. Multiplied by 30 teams, that would have eaten up roughly $1-billion of that owners’ share mentioned above. So in terms of our roughed out numbers here that leaves about $280-million as our “profit†estimate. The NHL as a whole, in other words, now makes money – and if revenues were 100 per cent shared among owners, they’d all be profitable. (That’s looking at only hockey-related revenues, by the way. Getting into non-HRR sources such as increases in franchise values and the like is a whole new topic.) The major issue, however, is that the $280-million profit margin (or whatever the precise figure is) is going almost entirely to the league’s top teams. The Leafs, for one, likely make up $100-million or more a season of that figure, even after giving up the league’s largest revenue sharing donation to the less fortunate teams. Add in the Rangers, Habs, Canucks, Red Wings, Bruins, Blackhawks and Flyers – all healthy franchises – and there’s another $240-million or so. So there’s eight franchises and we’re already well over the $280-million profit figure we’ve estimated for 2010-11. The NHL model: Profitable for some Using Forbes' figures for team revenues, here are some estimated revenue and expense figures for the three wealthiest and three of the poorest teams in the 2010-11 season. "Difference minus expenses" uses an estimate of $35-million for non-player costs such as staff Where the league is suffering and why we may have yet another lockout (the third under Bettman) is (a) the bottom 10 teams have revenues so low they can’t cover their expenses and (b) those at the top have little intention of helping them do so more than they already are. It’s an owner versus owner problem more than it is an owner versus player one, with Thursday’s massive offer sheet the perfect example of how a high spending team can go after one receiving revenue sharing and just hanging on. The fact the players are again being asked to save the stragglers rubs many on the PA side the wrong way. “Under the current CBA, NHL teams have received over $3-billion in revenue that would have previously gone towards player salaries,†one such source said this week. “The issue is not whether the players should now give up more revenue, it’s what did the owners do with this $3-billion? “We know what they didn’t do. NHL clubs did not meaningfully revenue share between the big and small markets. After accepting a salary cap, a 24 per cent rollback and making other significant concessions last time, with revenues up over 50 per cent since 2005, why look to the players again?†The answer is easy: Bettman and Co. believe they will have far more luck prying $200- or $300-million out of the players than the big moneyed teams, the owners of which feel they’ve given up enough of their advantage by agreeing to a cap, some limited revenue sharing and greater parity. But even under the league’s recent proposal, which would cut the players’ share to 46 per cent, many teams on the low end would continue to lose money. You simply can’t turn a profit while bringing in $80-million or less unless we’re talking about a cap of $45-million or less, which at current revenue levels would require giving players only a 37 per cent share. To make a team like Phoenix profitable, they’d have to take closer to 25 per cent. Neither of those will come to pass. In a lot of ways, this CBA negotiation is still tied directly to the NHL’s path down the overexpansion road in the 1990s, one it hasn’t fully recovered from. Yes, revenues are way, way up, but they are up in large part due to its biggest hockey markets (including Canadian teams). Those that have struggled in the past for the most part continue to do so. The frustration on the players’ side is that in many instances this is more a revenue problem than a player salary problem – and they have little say in how to correct the vast revenue imbalance in the league. Relocation is one option – going from Atlanta to Winnipeg alone had to have boosted league revenues $30-million or more – but there really aren’t many places to go beyond perhaps franchises in Toronto, Quebec City and Seattle. Another is to drop the salary floor and allow teams to simply spend what they can afford, giving up on forced parity when it means forced losses for those on the low end. More robust revenue sharing could also certainly help – and I expect that’s what union leader Donald Fehr eventually pushes for – but how willing are the Leafs, Habs, Rangers et al to bail out the league’s perennial problem children? “Not very†has always been the word, and that’s why they currently share only a tiny fraction (rumoured to be roughly 7 per cent) of their share of revenues. But pushing the players to fix this can only take them so far here. For the rest of the solution, this is a league that needs to look in the mirror at what’s really happening and why some of its teams are losing this much money. Or give up the ruse that that’s what they’re fighting to correct in the first place. “I know other leagues have meaningful revenue sharing,†one agent said this week of the NHL’s revenue gap dilemma. “The NHL hopes that the media and fans ignore that fact. Owners would rather try to pound on players than pound on each other.†|
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 23, 2012 19:18:00 GMT -5
www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/nhl-executives-players-set-to-resume-labour-talks/article4436652/NHL executives, players set to resume labour talks DAVID SHOALTS MILTON, Ont. — The Globe and Mail Published Monday, Jul. 23 2012, 6:59 PM EDT Last updated Monday, Jul. 23 2012, 7:11 PM EDT The NHL Players' Association will sit down with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and some of the owners Tuesday but the union is still not ready to make its first counter-proposal of the labour negotiations. However, when the union is ready, NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr says it will have no problem proposing a new economic system for the league if the players decide that is the best course. So far, those on the management side of the negotiations for a new collective agreement to replace the one that expires Sept. 15 say the salary cap based on league revenue that was introduced after a season-long lockout in 2005 is here to stay. MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY NHL LABOUR TALKS Media reports: NHL makes offer to union as labour negotiations begin NHL, union meet twice; agree to talk next week Accountant urges NHLPA to help fight tax ruling DAVID SHOALTS NHLPA draws line in the dirt ahead of contract talks STATE OF HOCKEY Here’s hoping general managers can rescue hockey "When and if we come to the conclusion we want to suggest a new way of doing things, whether it's on [the salary cap] area, changing the system, scrapping it or [introducing] increased revenue sharing. we won't have any problem in making that suggestion just as they did the last time," Fehr said Monday at the NHLPA's annual charity golf tournament. Fehr was also skeptical about the owners' assurance the salary-cap system, which has limited revenue sharing among the NHL's 30 teams, was here to stay. He said their assertions have "the suggestion of a poll-tested phrase, a focus-group-tested phrase." This week's meetings will be more about gathering information for the union rather than negotiating. Fehr and other union officials said they requested more information from the league in the wake of its first proposal to the players, which called for a 22-per-cent rollback in the players' share of league revenue, five-year limits on contracts and an increase in eligibility for unrestricted free agency from seven to 10 years among other clawbacks. The NHLPA and NHL will meet Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday in Toronto with further meetings scheduled for next week. At this point, Fehr can not predict when a counter-proposal will come from the players. "We've asked for a bunch of additional financial information; they've indicated the preparation [to deliver it] is under way," Fehr said. "We'll have to review that before we come to any final conclusions." When the union is ready to submit its proposal, it is expected to suggest much more revenue-sharing among the teams, something most of the wealthier teams resist.
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 23, 2012 19:52:40 GMT -5
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 23, 2012 19:55:28 GMT -5
Todd Cordell @toddcordell
Dreger also said Flyers are still in on Doan and Weber.
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Post by jamiequirk17 on Jul 24, 2012 7:27:10 GMT -5
Somebody please explain to me how the owners can cry poverty, a need to fix the system, when...
Income has gone from $2 to $3 Billion...
Two teams sign a total of three players to contracts totalling #350 million.
It is hard to find an ounce of sympathy for the owners.
...and Donald Fehr is holding all the cards right now.
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 24, 2012 8:17:56 GMT -5
@renlavoierds
NHL labor talks will resume today in Toronto. Brendan Shanahan should make a presentation on player safety matters.
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 24, 2012 8:27:12 GMT -5
Somebody please explain to me how the owners can cry poverty, a need to fix the system, when... Income has gone from $2 to $3 Billion... Two teams sign a total of three players to contracts totalling #350 million. It is hard to find an ounce of sympathy for the owners. ...and Donald Fehr is holding all the cards right now. It seems fairly clear at this point that the owners have failed to do something that is very fundamental to their business. They have failed to articulate why their proposal is best for the fans, and for the game of hockey. There are many potential solutions. The public relations battle will be about which solution makes the most sense for the fans and for the game. If the players/NHLPA can do a better job of explaining how their proposal (still to come) solves the NHL's business issues in a fan-friendly way, then they will win that battle for public support. Did you see the picture of Donald Fehr in the Globe article?  He looks like the cat that swallowed the canary: beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/8a1/sports/hockey/article4436651.ece/ALTERNATES/w220/Fehr24.jpgI wish I knew how to put the picture directly into this post! But have a look! How about we start a little fun, by making up captions (bubble comments) for Don Fehr, based on that photo???!!!!  lol! |
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Post by jamiequirk17 on Jul 24, 2012 9:04:06 GMT -5
That picture just says: "Hee hee hee, this is going to be so much fun!"
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 26, 2012 9:40:29 GMT -5
www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/globe-on-hockey/nhl-makes-another-proposal-to-nhlpa-but-enormous-gap-remains/article4441211/NHL LABOUR ISSUES NHL makes expanded proposal to NHLPA but enormous gap remains DAVID SHOALTS TORONTO — The Globe and Mail Published Wednesday, Jul. 25 2012, 7:00 PM EDT Last updated Wednesday, Jul. 25 2012, 7:03 PM EDT The NHL made another proposal to the players on Wednesday that concerned a host of lesser issues in a new collective agreement. But unless they close the enormous gap created by the owners’ opening proposal on the major economic issues two weeks ago, another lockout looms when the collective agreement expires on Sept. 15. MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY Fehr says NHLPA close to counter-proposal Why NHL teams cry poor despite the league’s record growth NHL executives, players set to resume labour talks Now that the NHL Players’ Association has had time to analyze the owners’ first proposal, it is more unsettling than it first appeared. If the owners’ demands to re-define the hockey-related revenue that makes up the economic pie they share with the players were implemented a year ago, the NHL’s 740 players would have seen their total compensation reduced by $450-million (all currency U.S.). Last season, the players received 57 per cent of the league’s $3.3-billion in revenue, trumpeted by management as a record for the seventh year in succession since the 2004-05 lockout, which worked out to $1.88-billion. However, the effect of the owners’ demands would have taken the players’ amount to less than it was in 2004 when the lockout began. Since then, however, NHL revenue has grown by more than $1-billion. What was interesting to the NHLPA’s analysts was the owner’s first proposal would have reduced player salaries by 24 per cent, the same percentage the players voluntarily took after the lockout seven years ago. This would be accomplished by not only reducing the players’ share of hockey-related revenue (HRR) from 57 per cent to 46 but also excluding some revenue from HRR to shrink the source of the players’ compensation. The overall effect, the analysts discovered, would actually shrink the players’ share of the revenue to 43 per cent from 57 once the effect of reducing the HRR was added. Under those numbers, for example, the salary cap last season would have been $50.8-million, rather than $64.3-million, and the floor or minimum payroll would have been $38.8-million rather than $48.3-million. To the individual player, this meant if he made a salary of $1-million, it would have been cut back to $760,000. The union is still working on its counter-proposal to the NHL owners’ opening demands. NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said this could come in the next two weeks but did not want to commit to a date. In the meantime, the players and the owners will finish off this week’s negotiations by breaking into smaller groups Thursday to discuss the owners’ proposals on the lesser issues. These are the housekeeping issues that make up the bulk of a collective agreement, or what NHL commissioner Gary Bettman called “the nuts and bolts proposals.” They concerned things like grievances, training camp procedures, medical care, methods of communication, roster moves and injuries. “The vast bulk of our proposals are now on the table,” Bettman said. Fehr said the players have already made some proposals on these issues to the owners and there is relatively little disagreement on some of them. “What we have to do is analyze,” Fehr said of the proposals. “On a lot of things I don’t think there will be a big difference of opinion – you can use e-mail rather than faxes for stuff now. “On some things we have to analyze what the actual effect of moving from A to B would mean for the individual players means. I don’t think that’s a terribly long process but it’s not a five-minute turnaround either.”
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 27, 2012 8:21:48 GMT -5
www.thehockeynews.com/articles/48146-NHL-and-NHLPA-continue-to-talk-discuss-pensions-ice-conditions-training-camp.htmlNHL and NHLPA continue to talk; discuss pensions, ice conditions, training camp 2012-07-26 17:36:00 TORONTO - A day after tabling the remaining elements of its opening contract offer, it was the NHL's turn to listen. The NHL Players' Association made a number of presentations to owners Thursday, including ones addressing pensions, training camp and ice conditions. Mathieu Schneider, special assistant to NHLPA executive director Don Fehr, says the two sides were involved in collective discussion and also broke into smaller groups. "Today was another good day," said the former NHL defenceman. "I think we had a lot of good, open discussion and it was certainly one of the days where we had a lot of player involvement and to me that's the most important thing." Schneider adds that benefits have not been updated since the 1990s, while training camp issues include the schedule, player testing and the amount of pre-season games in which veterans would be expected to participate. "There are a lot of these issues (where) we have the same common goal," Schneider said. "It's (about) coming to agreement and how we get to that goal and that's a lot of what happened today." NHL commissioner Gary Bettman says both sides want the same thing on a number of the issues discussed Thursday. "On things relative to the game such as ice conditions, we all want the best ice possible," Bettman said. "These were really more discussion points than anything else at this stage." Schneider says players are taking a keen interest in a number of issues and adds that union members are more involved in the process than in the last round of labour negotiations, which led to the cancellation of the 2004-05 season. "We've had guys that are very interested in the retirement benefits. We've had guys that are real interested in supplemental discipline ... (and) the core economics of the game," Schneider said. "So I wouldn't say that one thing is specific to all players. We have a wide range of players and a wide range of interests." The owners presented the remaining components to their opening proposal on Wednesday, an expansion on the one the league delivered July 13, which included a decreased share of hockey-related revenue, term limits on contracts and a 22 per cent salary rollback. The NHL and the NHLPA are scheduled to resume negotiations on Monday in New York, the sixth straight week the two sides will meet. The players say they are waiting for specific financial information from the owners before submitting a counter-proposal. The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire Sept. 15. Although both sides could continue talking past that date, Bettman has made it clear the NHL would prefer to have a new agreement in place by then.
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Post by jamiequirk17 on Jul 27, 2012 10:34:51 GMT -5
It's going to be a dance all summer...
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 28, 2012 9:37:21 GMT -5
NHL season slowly slipping away BY JACK TODD, SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE JULY 27, 2012 1 STORYPHOTOS ( 5 ) What happens next in the dispute could depend on the dynamic between NHL Players’ Association leader Donald Fehr and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman (above). Photograph by: Dave Sandford , Getty Images MONTREAL - In the mad, mad, mad, mad world of the National Hockey League, this is what now passes for sanity, as hockey fans from coast to coast wait to see whether there will be a season: A few days after the details of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s proposal for drastic cuts to player salaries (delivered to the players’ union, with appropriate theatre, on Friday the 13th) the Philadelphia Flyers made an offer to defenceman Shea Weber of the Nashville Predators, a restricted free agent: 14 years, $110 million U.S., an average annual salary of $7.86 million from the 2012-2013 season through 2025-2026, when Weber, if he’s still playing, will be 40 years old. The Philadelphia offer put the Nashville team in a very difficult position. Because Weber was a “restricted” free agent in terms of the basic agreement with the National Hockey League Players’ Association, the Predators would receive a compensatory package of draft picks if they let Weber go. But Nashville had already lost its other star defenceman, Ryan Suter, who went to the Minnesota Wild for a mere $98 million over 13 years, the same amount Minnesota will pay its other free-agent acquisition, forward Zach Parise, who jumped from the New Jersey Devils. With their standing in their own market already shaky, the Predators decided this week that the team had no choice. Tuesday afternoon, Nashville announced that it would match the Philadelphia offer. Weber, the Predators captain, will be staying in Nashville, albeit for a king’s ransom. The cash-poor Predators, one of the small-market American franchises Bettman claims he has to protect through a new agreement with the NHLPA, will be on the hook for $68 million in signing bonuses through the first six years of the contract – including a $13-million bonus before the coming season, which Nashville will have to pay even if the players are locked out and the season does not begin. Rather than attempting to gouge the players, then, it would seem that Bettman’s first task would be to urge some form of sanity on the 30 owners who are largely responsible for this madness, to box a few of the owners around the ears, urge them to use a little reason in awarding contracts and force a more equitable revenue-sharing plan among the teams rather than to shut down all or part of another season – but the wealthier teams represent a significant roadblock to any such arrangement. With the current collective bargaining agreement set to expire Sept. 15, the most likely scenario appears to be a lockout, which would cost the NHL, its players and its helpless fans anything from a few weeks to another entire season of hockey. It is against this background that negotiators for the league and the NHLPA met in Toronto this week. On the table (if media reports are accurate) are Bettman’s proposals, which hockey columnist Larry Brooks of the New York Post described as a “declaration of war” on the union: The players share is to drop from 57 per cent to 46 per cent of overall league revenue (actually 43 per cent, given the changes in the way NHL revenue is defined), players would have to wait 10 years rather than the current seven to become unrestricted free agents, the poorer teams will no longer have to meet a minimal salary-cap “floor,” entry-level rookie contracts would be for five years rather than the current three and players will no longer be entitled to salary arbitration. And the maximum term for any contract would be five years, the most sensible of Bettman’s proposals – but nine years short of the term just granted to Weber. On the surface, it seems to be little more than a blatant money grab, especially after Bettman’s boast that league revenues increased to $3.3 billion this past season, up from $2.2 billion over the seven seasons since the last lockout. At the very least, the league’s offer constitutes an attempt to roll the status quo back a couple of decades. And no one can doubt his determination: We are only eight years removed from the beginning of the lockout that cost the league and its players the entire 2004-2005 season. Whether Bettman gets away with it depends largely on the leadership of the NHLPA itself. The union has a new executive director in Donald Fehr, former head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, one of the foremost figures in the frequently contentious battles between billionaire owners and millionaire players over how to carve up an increasingly lucrative pie. Fehr took over in late December 2010. From the beginning, he has worked hard to build a consensus among the players – support he will need if the lockout goes deep into the winter and players with mortgages to pay on their newly acquired mansions see their careers melting away and begin to get restive, and worried about their long-term futures. But Fehr is an able, experienced executive, a good listener who impresses his constituency in face-to-face meetings throughout the league. Fehr is not a popular figure in Montreal because of his role in the 1994 baseball strike that cost the Expos their shot at a World Series title but he is universally respected and he is one of the reasons that baseball, among all the four premier North American sports leagues, is now the only one that enjoys labour peace. How this plays out will depend, to some degree, on the dynamic between Fehr and Bettman. Last time around, the personal enmity between Bettman and former NHLPA Bob Goodenow seemed to add fuel to the fire – and the acrimonious negotiations would eventually cost Goodenow his job. The two sides are now like 19th-century armies arraying themselves for battle: Fehr and Bettman are the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte deploying their troops before Waterloo, surveying one another through spyglasses, politely refraining from untoward violence until the infantry squares have been formed and the cavalry aligned for the initial charge. The low-key, amiable Fehr (who so far has been offering somewhat more information on the talks than Bettman) described the talks going on in Toronto this past week as “clearing the underbrush.” The union has asked for supplementary financial information in support of Bettman’s position, the NHL is gathering the information, and the NHLPA has promised to table its own proposal once the information is in hand. On Thursday, Bettman and the league provided information to fill in the gaps in the original proposal and the two sides held friendly discussions on non-monetary issues. Former Canadiens defenceman Mathieu Schneider, now a special assistant to Fehr, was upbeat after Thursday’s session. Schneider made it clear that Fehr is working to keep the players more involved in the process than they were during the negotiations that led to the lockout in 2004-2005. “We’ve had guys that are very interested in the retirement benefits. We’ve had guys that are real interested in supplemental discipline … (and) the core economics of the game,” Schneider said. “So I wouldn’t say that one thing is specific to all players. We have a wide range of players and a wide range of interests.” Few doubt there will be a battle once the two sides get down to the nitty-gritty economic issues. The line Bettman has already drawn in the sand, terms to which no sane union boss could agree, pretty much guarantees a conflict and a delayed start to the season. The only sure bet is that the NHL will resume play some day: The question is when, and under what terms. Much depends on Fehr and the approach he takes to negotiations. On the whole, despite the gains they have made since the first attempt to form a union in 1957, NHL players have not been well-served by their leaders and the history of labour battles in the league has been noteworthy primarily for the bitterness and tenacity with which team owners have attempted to keep the players in thrall. Obviously, those bonds have long since been broken – Shea Weber could tell you a thing or two about that – but at least some of the bitterness remains. If there is a face for the NHLPA, it’s the battered mug of Ted Lindsay, the legendary tough guy of the Detroit Red Wings whose lonely struggle to form a players’ union during the 1950s was as heroic as his battles with Canadiens enforcer John Ferguson. Lindsay’s fight began at a time when the league’s superstars earned $25,000 a year, when ordinary players took off-season jobs to make ends meet, when a star of the magnitude of Rocket Richard could find himself selling fishing line and home heating oil to pay the bills when his career was done. The league of the Original Six was controlled by a handful of millionaires who held absolute power. Players were chattels, who played where they were told, when they were told, for salaries determined by the owners. Beginning in 1957, Lindsay and star Montreal defenceman Doug Harvey led a handful of players determined to form what they called an “association,” because they thought the word “union” might be too strong. For their efforts, Lindsay was traded from Detroit to Chicago and Harvey from the Canadiens to the New York Rangers. The owners, led by Conn Smythe, fought dirty. Union certification votes failed, Lindsay was defeated and it would be another decade before the union took hold under Alan Eagleson. Eagleson, who gained a foothold by acting as Bobby Orr’s agent, was able to form the NHLPA in 1967. The flamboyant, fast-talking Eagleson, never one to worry about conflict of interest, was able to carry on as an agent while running the union. Within 10 years he was representing a dozen members of the Toronto Maple Leafs and in head-to-head conflict with Toronto owner Harold Ballard. Ironically, the union’s first boss was also its worst, by far: Eagleson ruled the NHLPA for the benefit of Eagleson, compiling a record of misdeeds that would end with Eagleson in prison and the NHLPA in disarray. Eagleson would become the only union official elected to a major sports Hall of Fame (an honour still denied to the far more deserving Marvin Miller in baseball) and he would receive the Order of Canada before it all began to fall apart. Now he is a disbarred lawyer and a convicted felon in both the U.S. and Canada – but Eagleson’s 25-year reign as head of the NHLPA left an unfortunate legacy with the players, who had paid too little attention while Eagleson ran the union for his own ends. From placing too much trust in Eagleson, the players veered in the other direction, refusing to place sufficient trust in his successors. When Bob Goodenow took over from Eagleson in 1991, he worked long and hard to restore the players’ faith in their union. Goodenow led the NHLPA during the 1994 lockout that resulted in the strike-shortened, 48-game 1995 season and again during the knock-down, drag-out battle 10 years later that made the NHL the only major sports league to lose an entire season. Two weeks after signing the new collective bargaining agreement that ended the lockout on July 13, 2005, Goodenow was forced out, challenged from within by the players and by NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin, who was able to orchestrate Goodenow’s ouster and his own accession to the post of executive director. It was a singularly bad choice. During the Turin Olympics in 2006, one hockey journalist boasted that Saskin had taken him out for a 400-euro lunch. Saskin and union executive Ken Kim had their contracts terminated the following year, following allegations that they were spying on players’ email accounts. The next executive director, Paul V. Kelly, was undermined by warring player cliques and lasted less than two years on the job before he, too, was fired in August 2009. That began the long search for a boss capable of leading the NHLPA in what was sure to be another head-to-head battle with Bettman. This time, the NHLPA took its time and found the right man. Fehr’s approach to date has been cautious and inclusive. He has had a large group of players with him at the negotiations in New York and Toronto and he has taken great pains to act according to the players’ wishes, understanding that while Bettman has to ride herd on only 30 owners, he has to keep some 700 players unified to have any chance at all in negotiations. If there is a bright side in all this, it’s the existence this time of a significant network television contract, the league’s deal with NBC. There are two drop-dead dates when the network is going to want its television properties on the air: The first is Black Friday on Nov. 23, the day after American Thanksgiving. The second and more significant date is New Year’s Day, when the biggest of all Winter Classics is scheduled for the Big House in Ann Arbor, home of the Michigan Wolverines football team. The Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs are expected to draw 115,000 fans for an event that is both a rotten hockey game and a spectacular television attraction. Donald Fehr, in other words, has a lot of ammunition this time around, from the league’s much-ballyhooed $3.3 billion in revenues to Bettman’s need to get the league up and running in time for the Winter Classic. But he can’t possibly settle for anything less than a 50/50 revenue split with the league, something along the lines of the recent agreements concluded by the NBA and the NFL. Losing an entire season while going for more does not make sense – but Bettman has shown in the past that he can stick to an untenable position for years out of sheer stubbornness, like keeping the Phoenix Coyotes in the desert long after it has been conclusively shown that the franchise is not financially viable. To win this thing, the union is going to have to be a lot like Ted Lindsay: tough, courageous, unyielding, determined. Earlier this week, Lindsay left on vacation after spending the day at NHLPA headquarters in Toronto. Hopefully, he was able to imbue the current players with some of his fighting spirit. jacktodd46@yahoo.com © Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette Read more: www.montrealgazette.com/business/season+slowly+slipping+away/7002619/story.html#ixzz21vb2SGht |
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 31, 2012 18:04:02 GMT -5
www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?NoCache=1&Dato=20120731&Kategori=SPORTS04&Lopenr=207310336&Ref=ARNHL proposes expanded revenue sharing in talks Jul. 31, 2012 | NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman speaks to reporters about on going labor talks with the NHL Players Association outside the league's headquarters in New York, Tuesday, July 31, 2012. The current collective bargaining agreement ends on Sept. 15, and the NHL season is scheduled to open on Oct. 11. / (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)Written by LYNN DeBRUIN Associated Press Filed Under Sports Flyers NEW YORK — NHL players and their union began examining the league's proposed expansion of revenue sharing as labor talks continued Tuesday. NHLPA executive director Don Fehr says he can't make a counterproposal on the league's full package until his group receives and examines the requested team financial reports. The first batch -- 76,000 pages -- arrived late Monday night. The meetings will continue Wednesday at the league offices in New York. More talks are scheduled next week when Fehr returns from a meeting with NHL players in Russia. Fehr says players are "not enamored" with proposed limitations on contract lengths and a clause that would force them to wait longer before becoming unrestricted free agents. Commissioner Gary Bettman says "ample time" remains to make a deal before the current CBA expires Sept. 15.
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Post by swervinmervin on Jul 31, 2012 18:06:55 GMT -5
www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/nhl-proposes-expanded-revenue-sharing-in-labour-talks/article4453158/NHL proposes expanded revenue sharing in labour talks Add to ... Lynn Debruin NEW YORK — The Associated Press Published Tuesday, Jul. 31 2012, 6:42 PM EDT Last updated Tuesday, Jul. 31 2012, 7:02 PM EDT Revenue sharing was discussed at the NHL labour negotiations Tuesday but what dominated the session in New York was paper work. At the end of the first of two days of discussions, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the owners turned over 76,000 pages of information to the NHL Players' Association. The players asked for the mostly financial information a few weeks ago after the owners made their first proposal for a new collective agreement, which was full of clawbacks from the players. More Related to this Story •DAVID SHOALTS Is revenue sharing the NHL's only answer to avoiding lockout? •NHL Labour issues NHL and NHLPA discuss pensions, ice conditions and training camp •Fehr says NHLPA close to counter-proposal In addition to the paper work the owners turned over, they also made their first proposals on revenue sharing. There is some revenue sharing in the current agreement, which expires Sept. 15, but the players are expected to demand much greater revenue sharing between the NHL's wealthy and poorer teams in the new agreement. NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said the players are not yet in position to make a counterproposal to the owners. They need to study the owners' proposal on revenue sharing as well as the large amount of information they turned over first. "We haven't evaluated the changes from current revenue sharing to determine whether we think it's the appropriate thing to do or if it misses the mark in some respect," Fehr said Tuesday. The talks will continue Wednesday and then adjourn for the week. In their first proposal, the owners demanded the players' cut their share of league revenue to 57 per cent to 46, which actually drops to 43 because they also want hockey-related revenue redefined to be smaller. They also want five-year limits on contracts, to extend the eligibility for unrestricted free agency from seven years to 10 and to eliminate salary arbitration. Bettman said he still thinks there is time to get a new agreement before the season starts in early October. Fehr once again pointed out the players are willing to work even after the current agreement expires. "All I've said is Sept. 15 is not a magic date unless someone wants to make it so," Fehr said. "There's nothing that happens on Sept. 15 if we don't have an agreement, provided nobody says we're going to go on strike or says we're going to lock the doors."
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Post by swervinmervin on Aug 1, 2012 13:53:37 GMT -5
sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/trending-topics-extra-let-not-worry-cba-talks-145949904--nhl.html......Trending Topics Extra: Let’s not worry about CBA talks . .By Ryan Lambert .PostsWebsiteEmailRSS .By Ryan Lambert | Puck Daddy – 3 hours ago ....Email ..... AP I am at peace with the idea of a lockout. I should say first that I don't want a lockout to happen, obviously. But I honestly don't think there will even be one. And if there is one, I'm okay with it, because I don't think anyone is stupid enough to let it last for more than a few weeks. The reason for my steadfast belief in this is simple. You can probably say a lot of things about the either side of the aisle in this tête-à-tête — they're greedy, they're power-hungry, they're looking only for what's fair, they're trying to increase their share of the pie — but one thing they're definitely not is stupid. Yes, the owners' initial offer to the Players' Association was an insult and no grounds at all for any kind of labor peace but they also know what's ultimately at stake here. No one benefits from a lengthy lockout, or indeed, any amount of work stoppage because everyone is currently doing great. The salary cap has pretty much exploded to nearly double its original post-lockout number, meaning that hockey-related revenues have done so as well. Hockey-related revenues also don't include a whole bunch of things that owners make money on as a result of running hockey teams. No one is getting clobbered here, as they were prior to the 2004-05 lockout, when the lack of a salary cap allowed big market teams to spend an insane amount of money on whatever players they wanted and small-market teams were left scratching in the dirt with the meager few talented players they drafted and not much else. As Charles Pierce presciently pointed out a week or so ago, what the owners want more than anything is the ability to say they broke the players' backs in yet another collective bargaining agreement. Nothing more, nothing less. That kind of pre-lockout inequity is, to an extent, rearing its head once again, though, and that could throw a lot of things into chaos. Ownership also seems not to be nearly as strong in its unity because the current revenue sharing system (hey! Revenue again!) can't begin to make sense for anyone involved except — you guessed it — the top teams, who simply know they're going to end up losing some amount to it. Your Maple Leafs, your Rangers, your Flyers, your Red Wings, your Bruins. These teams make boatloads of money and kick that down to a smaller number of teams that largely do not, and it probably won't surprise you to learn that it's a few of these richer teams' owners are reportedly the ones trying to bludgeon the NHLPA into taking that bad first deal they offered. Meanwhile, poorer teams are still left wondering what, exactly, becomes of their revenue sharing money. Hawks in ownership aside, though, the Players' Association simply isn't the kind of mewling mess it was last time around. They came prepared to play hardball by taking up Donald Fehr on his "Shut up and let me handle this," proposal, and Fehr isn't a man to get bullied in labor negotiations. Arguably the strongest players' union in North American professional sports is that of Major League Baseball, and it's no coincidence that Fehr is largely the architect thereof. He's not going to get bullied by anyone sitting across from him. He is a bit of an old hand at this. The NHLPA's counter-proposal is expected to come at some point this week as long as they can get a closer look at some teams' financials (and, by the time you read this, may have already done so). The simplest proposal is pretty clear: Stick with this basic CBA, at least for a little while. That's an option that some have hinted at being possible, and would give everyone a significant amount of time to work toward a more workable long-term solution. Again, no one's taking some sort of big hit under the current system — ask Shea Weber, Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, who all signed jumbo deals agreed to by actual small-market NHL owners — and therefore it must be doing something in a way that all sides find agreeable. Now, it should be pointed out that lots of people think Weber locked in his massive contract, with its huge bonuses in the first two years, this summer so that he would not be at the mercy of whatever CBA is eventually agreed upon by next summer, when he would have been an unrestricted free agent. That shows a little bit of pessimism as far as a salary rollback is concerned, and possibly also that those owners didn't think they'd have to dole out nearly as much money as the initial contract stated. But nonetheless, this is huge money being tossed around, with huge commitments from players. We know the current CBA works. It vindicates Bettman's plans for the league, and it's getting players both great and less so paid. I understand this is the National Hockey League we're talking about, but I'm going to say this next sentence anyway: Logic has to win out. Why blow everything up? Why risk that much uncertainty? There are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake and that's impossible to look past because this is a business. But everyone is getting rich already. With a season at stake, or even part of one, allowing that to continue in lieu of another lamentable, counterproductive work stoppage, during which no one makes money, is extraordinarily sensible. Maybe I'm asking too much in hoping that both the league and the union err on the side of reason and continual money-making, but I firmly believe that a bunch of businessmen can figure it out. Ryan Lambert is a columnist for Puck Daddy. Follow him on Twitter or whatever. ..
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Post by jamiequirk17 on Aug 1, 2012 15:56:38 GMT -5
Pretty good article...sure hoping his positive outlook comes to fruition.  |
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Post by swervinmervin on Aug 4, 2012 7:50:58 GMT -5
NHLPA @nhlpa
RT @mbacklund11: Nice to be done another week of training. Flying to #Barcelona tomorrow for the @nhlpa meetings there!! #IWantToPlay
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Post by swervinmervin on Aug 4, 2012 9:06:32 GMT -5
Adam Proteau @proteautype
I have no idea why the NHLPA would be skeptical of the NHL's financial info. This is a league that vetted John Spano & Boots Del Biaggio!
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Post by swervinmervin on Aug 9, 2012 22:42:40 GMT -5
horaxhorax @horaxhorax
The #WinnipegJets play in the smallest market in the #NHL and don't lose money. The current system works for actual hockey markets.
1h C. Knapp @hockeynightdoc
@horaxhorax Very true and well said.
1h horaxhorax @horaxhorax
@hockeynightdoc I'm not really excited about missing hockey games to help Phoenix.
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1h C. Knapp @hockeynightdoc
@horaxhorax Thats probably the best CBA related tweet I've seen yet! You need to put that on a T-Shirt - Should be the mantra of fans!
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Post by swervinmervin on Aug 9, 2012 22:44:51 GMT -5
Spector's Hockey @spectorshockey
All this freaking out over Bettman today saying NHL owners won't work under current CBA. Folks, he said that months ago! This ain't news!
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He looks like the cat that swallowed the canary:
lol!