So the players are wealthy. Big deal. So are the owners -- in most cases many many times more so. Your argument that that somehow justifies a bogus initial offer is like me coming to you and saying "hey, I see you just paid off your mortgage -- now that you can afford it I'm raising your property taxes by a couple grand a year".
I'm not saying these guys aren't lucky and or tremendously blessed. I was just saying that anyone who can casually say that the players should have just chuckled at the first low ball offer and not been offended is not operating in reality -- and I don't care how little or much you make.
And as far as the bolded goes, this is a lockout, not a strike.
Bottom line is the NHL came in with an obnoxious offer at the outset. Either they are fools (perhaps this is true given how badly they screwed the math in the last CBA despite wide acceptance that they "won" that round) or they wanted the lockout in place for several months or the whole year to begin with. Either way, it paints them in an entirely unpleasant light.
this whole argument about the owners being wealthy i think is ultimately whats clouding the issue. somehow everyone expects them to just lose money on owning sports teams or at the very least settle for very meagher profit returns.
sure theres a handful of teams that obviously make tons of money but in general in the world of sports most teams lose money on a regular basis or barely break even.
i always try to come up with easy unemotional ways to make an example point of how i see things. so im going to try again.
so lets all agree that most sports owners/nhl owners are rich and even billionares... and all own other successful businesses that help them get rich. DO ANY OF US THINK that these owners should be FORCED to operate a blacksmith in their home town or operate a typewriter buisness or even a hamburger stand where they have to sell the burgers at half price? I mean logically, these billionares are rich enough that they could easily operate a variety of money losing buisnesses for us and still have money but really?
hockey isnt a typewriter business or even a hamburger stand... owning sports teams is VANITY for the owners. So, i dont think anyone is saying that the owners deserve a guarantee of huge profits. Even they themselves arent asking for that. I think they know if owning sports teams became too profitable, that every tom dick and harry would start up rival leagues to cash in on the golden cow. So, i dont think these VAIN EGOTISTICAL men want to make their league too profitable. I also KNOW due to the human nature of the people involved, that no matter what system they put inplace... they will still very happily spend OBSCENES AMOUNT OF MONEY to get the best players on their teams. That is what they own teams for anyhow... to show off their wealth and power.
so thinking that the players are going to be hurt in the long run... is just wrong. So what this battle is really coming down to is the owners want protection against the other owners and against the fans DEMANDS/expectations when the numbers just get too INSANE even for ego to deal with.
Owners are willing to lose some money to satisfy their ego.. but they have a limit in their own minds what that number is. They will spend OBSCENE money on the home they live... the car they drive... the wine they drink... but there is always a limit how much. The limit is way more then you and I would spend, but it still exists.
In a club/league like the NHL... you are in competition against your most STUPID competitor when it comes right down to it. The way arbitration works... and the way fans revolt if they dont feel their team is keeping up with the Jones and Smiths... you end up having to compete against your most stupid competitor SO GETTING PROTECTION AGAINST 'THEMSELVES' actually is a valid hill to die on.
again... even with so called protection... many owners will still EGOTISTICALLY attempt to get around the rules to showoff and play god with their own vanity toys. The players will still end up very very very very very very well looked after.
this int 1950 where 6 grumpy old men were the only people interested in owning a hockey team. Unions may have outlived their purpose in todays world, but in 1950 the fights were still needed to be fought. Players were taken advantage of in the 1950s and maybe even the 1960s and 1970s to but its been over 30 years since anyone can argue that the owners were abusing any players.
i mean just think about our own reactions whever we hear a player signs a new deal. Is it more then 1 out of 100 contracts were we say... wow i thought he would get more? And how often do we say that the owners paid the player too much? maybe 50% of the time? 60%?
the players are not being abused anymore...
we all laugh and say how stupid it is when an owner hands a player a contract for 10-12 years or whatever... we laugh at roberto louongo because of his long term deal but the dude is actually a good goalie with a low annual cap hit... but we laugh because how long his contract is.
as fans... we laugh... we know long term deals are insane and stupid. we laugh at the rick dipietro situation not because of the annual payout but because of the length of the deal.. we laugh... we know long term deals are stupid. we laugh at alex rodriguez in baseball now... we laugh because we know long term guaranteed deals are insane...
so this is the battle hill the owners are willing to die on... and YES they do want protection against themselves because if the most stupidests owners are willing to hand out long term deals then all the other owners MUST do it too or lose the most choice shinniest players from their teams.
owners could afford to lose the money and keep going... or they just sell off the bottom 10-12 teams in the league every 5-7 years and sucker some new owner into losing money on those teams for the next 5-7 years like they have been doing for the past 20-30 years now. It could keep going this way...
but there is BETTER ways to go. The players DONT NEED an average salary of 2.5 mill per year. Other then the top 50-100 superstars in the league... no other players sell tickets/merchandise on the strength of their own individual name/likeness. Whether they are better players then the guys in the AHL or KHL or Swedish Elite league or not... doesnt matter. If the middle class of players were suddenly all replaced by the lowest class and then the lowest class got replaced by the AHL... it wouldnt matter at all to most of us fans and ticket buyers.
We would get used to it very quickly. Its not the quality of the middle class of players that makes the game something we enjoy... and actually if the coaches were willing to open up the play... most of us would enjoy the game more with lesser skilled players playing an open game then we do higher skilled players playing a trap anyhow...
so its not the middle class of players that generate revenues anyhow... anyone wearing NHL uniforms would create just as much revenue as the middle class players do now.
thats the thing... the superstars deserve their money... absolutely
and the lowest class deserves a good mininum wage for their years of sacrafice
gut its the middle class tht is really screwing the economics of the NHL and most the other sports leagues too... and they dont really help the owners get an ego rush either... so when an owner is losing money or trying to be happy with a profit of 1-3 million dollers on his 200 million dollar investment and players like Shawn Horcorff and David Jones are making 4-6 mill a year... that is why we have a lockout.
if fans understood this... i think fans would finally understand why there is a lockout and why the owners would be happy to have a chance to void all the contracts and get a do-over
sure its all scary scary issues coming since there is antitrust consdierations if there are unions... and right to work laws... and such involved...
a draft wouldnt be legal without a union signed cba. nor would restricted free agency. so... its a scary world to be entering into...
but if the owners had a chance to break the current union... redo all the contracts... then get a new union to form.... im sure theyd love it.
they do have other businesses to live on in the meantime...
the players do not. Ultimately the players can go to europe for non guaranteed jobs that pay a fraction of the money here... or they can come with their tails between their legs to whatever the owners are willing to give them once the new league starts up...
it would still be good money... cause the owners still wont want to leave the door open for competitors... but it wont be anywhere near what the MIDDLE CLASS gets now. Superstars might very well get 25-30 mill a year under a deregulated system but middle class players sure as hell wont.
so thats what the players are dying for right now... so that the top 10-15% of them can get more money and the rest can take HUGE PAY CUTS...
i wish they were a bit more educated so they could see the real battle they are dying on the hill to fight
and all the while us fans suffer...
the owners ultimately will be able to come out of this successfully no matter how it ends up. They are billionares as we all say. They do have other businesses to live off while they get their hockey league fixed. We dont have to agree with them... they can do this with/without our agreement. It is their choice to make. They have decided they dont want long contracts to players anymore and need a 50/50 split in revenues.
since there is no legitimate rival league for the players to go to... ultimately the owners have ALL the power to keep the NHL shut down until the players eventually break. The players only weapon is disolving the union which will hurt the vast majority of them.
eventually its the owners who own the buildings. When the dust all settles it will be the owners that own the new league that rises from the ashes. The owners currently lose money or make no profit so if they create a new league 2-3-4 years down the road where they are suddenly making a 10% return or better on their investments... the down time will not matter at all to them. They will come out to the good before the decade is over.
billionares can take the long view picture.
players with average careers 5-7 years or whatever they have... cant.
if anyone was saying that the players had to take like a 50% pay cut then I suppose they might get some sympathy... or even another 24% might do it. But we all know that despite taking a 24% one time hit last cba their average yearly contracts actually doubled over the next 6 years anyhow.
so its real real real real hard to find sympaty for the poor hard done by players when we know the owners are going to give them such crazy money anyhow.
let the owners have their protection against their most stupid competitors and get the game playing again. 5 year contracts that are guaranteed are way more then anyone else in the world ever gets. Other then the Crosby/Toews/Stamkos of the league... us fans dont want our teams to be giving guys like Gomez/Diepitro/Horcorff and company 5 year deals anyhow. How many of us wanted Ryder to have his deal until we won the cup? We kept saying send him to the minors because hes untradable and killing our cap and has too much time left to be deal...
long term deals in general suck more often then they work out unless a player is legitimately a top 50 player in the league.
anyhow... rambled and made my post too long again. sorry... but i sure wish that people could get it. Owners might be billionares, but the points they are fighting for here are in reality the points that the majority of us fans would also be fighting for. The owners are in the right again
and the players... are going to win reguardless of the outcome because their salaries will continue to go up... and there isnt a place on the earth they could go to where theyd get even half as much money anywhere else.