An alternative way to get linkage

[hockeytown9321]

What if there were a league wide link between salaries and revenues with no individual team caps. Lets say they set it at 55% of total league revenue. If league wide player salaries exceed that amount, all contracts for the next season are rolled back the amount its over. Its a linkage and salaries could still be set in a quasi free market. Everybody wins.

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[SENSible1*]

What if there were a league wide link between salaries and revenues with no individual team caps. Lets say they set it at 55% of total league revenue. If league wide player salaries exceed that amount, all contracts for the next season are rolled back the amount its over. Its a linkage and salaries could still be set in a quasi free market. Everybody wins.

Great system. Not only do the big markets get to blow the small markets out of the water, when they push the league over the % they get rewarded with a reduction on all their contracts for the following year. Really well thought out!

"Everybody wins" ??? Too funny.

 

[hockeytown9321]

Great system. Not only do the big markets get to blow the small markets out of the water, when they push the league over the % they get rewarded with a reduction on all their contracts for the following year. Really well thought out!

"Everybody wins" ??? Too funny.

Just this once, I'll talk to you.

Wasn't the NHL's reason for rejecting the PA's last offer that it was just a band aid? If they guaranteed salaries would not go back up over that percentage, the league would have taken that offer and run. Does my proposal not guarantee salaries to stay at 55% of revenue, more or less?

 

[DocHolliday]

What if there were a league wide link between salaries and revenues with no individual team caps. Lets say they set it at 55% of total league revenue. If league wide player salaries exceed that amount, all contracts for the next season are rolled back the amount its over. Its a linkage and salaries could still be set in a quasi free market. Everybody wins.

It might work if you balanced it with some heavy, heavy revenue sharing

 

[hockeytown9321]

It might work if you balanced it with some heavy, heavy revenue sharing

NHL wants nothing to do with revenue sharing.

Why wouldn't it work without it?

 

[Crosbyfan]

What if there were a league wide link between salaries and revenues with no individual team caps. Lets say they set it at 55% of total league revenue. If league wide player salaries exceed that amount, all contracts for the next season are rolled back the amount its over. Its a linkage and salaries could still be set in a quasi free market. Everybody wins.

Hyperinflation of contracts by the big teams. Iginla would be signed for 50 million in Calgary only to find out Lindros has just signed for 50 billion in New York. Lindros later finds out that's well below the team average. After the smoke clears Lindros gets, say, 2 million a year and Iginla ends up with minimum wage.

 

[ceber]

The NHLPA wouldn't agree to it.

 

[hockeytown9321]

The NHLPA wouldn't agree to it.

Assume for a second they would. Is it a linkage betwen salary and revenue?

 

[hockeytown9321]

Hyperinflation of contracts by the big teams. Iginla would be signed for 50 million in Calgary only to find out Lindros has just signed for 50 billion in New York. Lindros later finds out that's well below the team average. After the smoke clears Lindros gets, say, 2 million a year and Iginla ends up with minimum wage.

So? Salaries won't be more than 55% of revenues.

 

[Crosbyfan]

So? Salaries won't be more than 55% of revenues.

Sorry. I incorrectly assumed you were against complete chaos.

 

[thinkwild]

Yes it sounds like you are talking about the escrow concept. All salaries are negotiated under the luxury tax or whatever cba, and then at the end of the year they decide if they were too high for the revenues. If so, an amount held back in escrow i returned to the owners, and all players take some sort of weighted cut in salaries. The problem with this though is again we are relying on rational decision making by the owners, something they are pleading incapable of. Which could lead to the situation Crosbyfan outlined.

But it does seem like a concept that could be a compromise somehow. From my fans perspective, this would make me accept the cap as the fundamentals I as a fan wish to preserve I think could be using this method. But its a cap. An external restraint on salaries. It would have to be big compromise from the players.

 

[hockeytown9321]

Sorry. I incorrectly assumed you were against complete chaos.

I'm for a solution that works for both sides. The owners get their linkage, the players don't get a cap.

 

[Epsilon]

Hyperinflation of contracts by the big teams. Iginla would be signed for 50 million in Calgary only to find out Lindros has just signed for 50 billion in New York. Lindros later finds out that's well below the team average. After the smoke clears Lindros gets, say, 2 million a year and Iginla ends up with minimum wage.

The problem is that's impossible since you would actually have to be able to pay the contracts initially under the plan he laid out; the rollbacks only happen later on.

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

I'm for a solution that works for both sides. The owners get their linkage, the players don't get a cap.

Linkage is a cap. The only solution that works for this fan that lets the owners get what they want is similar. Leave the CBA as is, but add escrow. If the owners are owed a piece of the amounts held back from the player paycheque, it is divided 30 ways. Thus the owners who force the player share up, who have the most salary escrowed, pay a penalty if the result exceeds the player share of the revenue.

The players would reject it because the result still places an arbitrary cap based on a peercentage of arbitrary revenue. IIt doesn't matter to the players whether teams are actually capped. Linkage is a cap.

A more interesting question is whether the owners would accept something like that. I think probably not.

For the revenue side, the owners want a lot more player movement and earlier free agency. This is critical to them because small markets have most of the good players and big markets have hardly any on the right side of 30. More player movement has to move talent from the small markets to the large because the small markets have talent and the large ones don't.

Since my favoured solution that links revenues to salaries doesn't do much for the big markets except make them more profitable, I don't think it would fly with the owners. I think free agency at 27 is as important - perhaps more so - to the owners as cost certainty.

Tom

 

[Crosbyfan]

The problem is that's impossible since you would actually have to be able to pay the contracts initially under the plan he laid out; the rollbacks only happen later on.

Then one year contracts would prevail unrestricted. New York could have steady 100m payroll and anyone who signed for more than 1 year would be royally screwed.

 

[SENSible1*]

Then one year contracts would prevail unrestricted. New York could have steady 100m payroll and anyone who signed for more than 1 year would be royally screwed.

As long as his beloved Red Wings get to keep their spending advantage "hockeytown" will be satisfied. Looks like he's deathly afraid of a fair fight.

 

[hockeytown9321]

Linkage is a cap. The only solution that works for this fan that lets the owners get what they want is similar. Leave the CBA as is, but add escrow. If the owners are owed a piece of the amounts held back from the player paycheque, it is divided 30 ways. Thus the owners who force the player share up, who have the most salary escrowed, pay a penalty if the result exceeds the player share of the revenue.

The players would reject it because the result still places an arbitrary cap based on a peercentage of arbitrary revenue. IIt doesn't matter to the players whether teams are actually capped. Linkage is a cap.

A more interesting question is whether the owners would accept something like that. I think probably not.

For the revenue side, the owners want a lot more player movement and earlier free agency. This is critical to them because small markets have most of the good players and big markets have hardly any on the right side of 30. More player movement has to move talent from the small markets to the large because the small markets have talent and the large ones don't.

Since my favoured solution that links revenues to salaries doesn't do much for the big markets except make them more profitable, I don't think it would fly with the owners. I think free agency at 27 is as important - perhaps more so - to the owners as cost certainty.

Tom

The escrow or rollback option is a cap, but I think at this point the PA would accpet it because it allows them to save face somewhat in that it is not a team by team cap.

And I think you're right about them being as interested in making it easy for the big market teams to get superstar FA's in their prime.

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

The escrow or rollback option is a cap, but I think at this point the PA would accpet it because it allows them to save face somewhat in that it is not a team by team cap.

The NHLPA isn't interested in saving face. They are interested in winning the labour dispute. It's really simple: Salary cap = no players, and no players = no league. Therefore salary cap = no league.

We're going to wait until the owners accept that as a reality or a new league starts.

Tom

 

[grego]

if we are using math how about this idea

The players are being stupid in their demands, since the owners and NHL own every right to the league and have all the power

players = stupid

stupid people work jobs like McDonalds

stupid = McDonalds

Therefore we can know that

players = McDonalds

Let those idiots go flip burgers, if they need some money. I know they won't all find jobs in Europe. And not all of them were fiscally responsible enough to set enough money aside to live for 5 or more years with no other source of income.

Even the union will only have so long that they can give 700 players 5000 a month or so. Before that well will run dry.

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

The players are being stupid in their demands, since the owners and NHL own every right to the league and have all the power

All the "power" the owners have means dick unless they can figure out a way to present a hockey game without hockey players.

players = stupid

Calling the players stupid doesn't change anything. They are probably stupid to put principle before money, and the interests of the collective ahead of the individual, but there you go. The owners can't understand that and apparently neither can the owner apologists.

I think the Bettman poodles decided the players would just have to cave because everybody said they had to cave. Well, they haven't caved and from all indications they are not going to cave.

Got a Plan B?

Tom

 

[PecaFan]

I think the Bettman poodles decided the players would just have to cave because everybody said they had to cave. Well, they haven't caved and from all indications they are not going to cave.

Got a Plan B?

All indications? :lol Goodenow has to put out more fires each week than Smokey The Bear.

And please, spare us the "needs of the many" speech. This is all about the needs of the few, imposing on the rest. The vast majority of players do better under the NHL offer than the PA offer, and you know it.

Don't need a Plan B, by the way. The longer the players refuse Plan A, the more entertainment I get from watching the players literally toss away several billion dollars. For nothing.

Frankly, that's more entertaining than recent NHL seasons.

 

[grego]

Tom what is the players plan to just wait for the owners to cave or a new league starts.

And if the players all move over to the new league that has no capital support and bad pay. What gives the NHLPA the right to continue holding the NHL hostage over labour discord. If the players all leave the NHL should have the right to form a new CBA in the absence of players and to form a new PA for those players that want to join the real hockey league the NHL.

I have never heard of anyone having perpetual eternal rights to sole bargaining with any company, given a situation where they have obviously taken up employment elsewhere.

And if the NHL then got to make a new PA and CBA to go along with it, they would be able to dominate once again. Since they have all the collective money and history to retain its standing as professional hockey in NA.

 

[Lanny MacDonald*]

All the "power" the owners have means dick unless they can figure out a way to present a hockey game without hockey players.



Calling the players stupid doesn't change anything. They are probably stupid to put principle before money, and the interests of the collective ahead of the individual, but there you go. The owners can't understand that and apparently neither can the owner apologists.

I think the Bettman poodles decided the players would just have to cave because everybody said they had to cave. Well, they haven't caved and from all indications they are not going to cave.

Got a Plan B?

Tom

Yup. Wait them out. What are they going to do for work with the NHL shelved? The owners don't have to worry about money, they're billionaires and have revenue sources elsewhere. The players? Its find a limited job in Europe, or find another job in another industry. The players have an education equal to that of a WalMart greeter. They are never going to get a sniff of a job making big time money. This is their once in a lifetime opportunity to set themselves up. They are cutting their noses off to spite their faces. Pride is awfully had to feed to your family or use to pay the mortgage company.

 

[grego]

Actually if I had an NHL player in town as the local Walmart greeter that would be kind of cool. I normally happen to hate the greeters at Walmart.

 

[Tom_Benjamin]

Yup. Wait them out. What are they going to do for work with the NHL shelved? The owners don't have to worry about money, they're billionaires and have revenue sources elsewhere. The players? Its find a limited job in Europe, or find another job in another industry.

There will be another league next year. Maybe just in Canada, maybe not. All the league will have to do is top European salaries. If major league hockey goes back to being mickey mouse and the players only get a few hundred thousand, they'll play. The WHA will have a lot less trouble raising money in a few weeks. Cancel the season and it is almost certain next season doesn't start either. That's an opportunity.

If they get the best North American players scattered in ten cities they'll put on a really good product and the money will grow from there. They'll get a TV deal. All this labour dispute can do is wreck the business of NHL hockey. It won't wreck hockey or the business of hockey. That represents a fabulous opportunity for some other billionaires to invest a few million for a chance of knocking off the NHL. If the NHL stays out and the league produces a credible product they will get their money back in spades by selling expansion franchises.

Meanwhile those fat bleeps who tried to foist an unfair deal on them are out $3 billion and many have worthless empty ice palaces on their hands. If they want to risk that, well it's their choice. Are the players willing to kill the goose who lays the golden eggs? Well, it isn't their goose, is it? They are apparently willing to forego their golden eggs to win a fight. Whatever it takes.

Tom