Bettman's Presser

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me2

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Jun 28, 2002
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I read somewhere that if the dispute is not solved in 12 months the teams can bypass the NHLPA and offer the players contracts directly. In 12 months, the NHL teams can implement their $31m har caps. It might be $25m by then if the fans aren't happy.

The players made a weak offer designed at maintining the status quo. The did agree to give up 5% though (about $2-3m per team).

The owners HAVE made offers too. Their salary cap deal offered $31m per team.

Both sides won't blink. Both sides don't care. Both sides offers are so crap that they aren't worth the other side dealing with.

The sooner teams fold the sooner the players come back.
 

DownFromNJ

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Mar 7, 2004
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The NHLPA's tax was incredibly weak. I think the league would accept a solid 45 million 2:1 tax. That, combined with the salary rolebacks and entry level restructuring (which will lower all salaries over time), would correct a lot of the league's problems.

But that proposal by the NHLPA was crap, and they know it. Its a good starting point though.
 

Seachd

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Mar 16, 2002
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Newsguyone said:
The players are willing to move in a direction that could at least BEGIN to straighten out the NHL.

Oh, yeah. They're real interested. The equivalent of that joke of a proposal from the NHL side would be a luxury tax starting at $2 per dollar over $15 million.

The players make one stupid offer that wouldn't do a damn thing, and all of a sudden they're the ones trying?

What floors me is all this stuff about the owners screwing themselves. If they did, who cares? The point of these discussions isn't to point blame, and I haven't heard Bettman or Goodenow say anything like that. Deciding whose fault it was isn't going to make the season instantly start up.

The point is that there are major problems with the league's economic situation. That much is a fact. There have to be big changes. The players want to change it enough so they can say it's different.

The league is in this for itself, for the teams, and for the fans, while still being extremely generous to the players. But it's painfully obvious the players are only in it for themselves, and that's really too bad.
 

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How come no GM has been fired for losing tons of money? Wouldn't you think the owners would take control of their teams if they were really losing that much money? It's a simple questions, if things we so bad for these teams the people make these mistakes would be out of a job. Yet i dont see many GM's looking for new jobs. And those who have been fired have been fired because of on ice performance.

Again it's easier for the owners to blame the players than look in the mirror. It's their mess yet they expect their employees to clean it up for them.
 

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DownFromNJ said:
The NHLPA's tax was incredibly weak. I think the league would accept a solid 45 million 2:1 tax. That, combined with the salary rolebacks and entry level restructuring (which will lower all salaries over time), would correct a lot of the league's problems.

But that proposal by the NHLPA was crap, and they know it. Its a good starting point though.



Then how comes the owners haven't proposed something like that?
 

Chelios

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JWI19 said:
Then how comes the owners haven't proposed something like that?

Because the NHLPA has already explicitly stated that it will not accept any luxury tax that acts at all like any sort of salary cap, in other words they have said that they would not accept any luxury tax that the owners would want. Hence the owners don`t even bothering offering any type of Luxury tax and stay with the salar cap.
 

Chelios

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JWI19 said:
How come no GM has been fired for losing tons of money? Wouldn't you think the owners would take control of their teams if they were really losing that much money? It's a simple questions, if things we so bad for these teams the people make these mistakes would be out of a job. Yet i dont see many GM's looking for new jobs. And those who have been fired have been fired because of on ice performance.

Again it's easier for the owners to blame the players than look in the mirror. It's their mess yet they expect their employees to clean it up for them.

The problem with the NHL right now is that it is a gamble. The GMs feel pressure from the fans, from themselves, from the team and from the owner to improve their team. I mean how many times at the trade deadline have playoff teams been chastized for not adding players for a stretch drive. It happens every year. So in the face of all this pressure the GMs sign UFAs, trade for more expensive veteran players etc.. and if, say, their starting goalie or star center or stud defenseman gets injured they miss the playoffs and lose money. Also, as in the case of Washington and JAgr, it is actually the Owner that is insistant on spending big money on players that will not help the team.

It is so annoying when all you NHLPA lovers drop the big line "its all the owners fault, its them paying the players", frankly it really doesn`t matter who`s fault it is. The fact is that the NHL is in absolutely horrible financial trouble and a salary cap would fix that, it really is that simple. As the league stabilizes and the revenues begin to grow, the salary cap and player salaries will begin to grow as well. As Bettman said in his press conference, the nhl has been losing money for quite some time now, but, mostly because of expansion, has extended the CBA to ten years. They stuck it out and the players profited tremendously. But the CBA is now over and change is desperately needed.
 

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Chelios said:
The problem with the NHL right now is that it is a gamble. The GMs feel pressure from the fans, from themselves, from the team and from the owner to improve their team. I mean how many times at the trade deadline have playoff teams been chastized for not adding players for a stretch drive. It happens every year. So in the face of all this pressure the GMs sign UFAs, trade for more expensive veteran players etc.. and if, say, their starting goalie or star center or stud defenseman gets injured they miss the playoffs and lose money. Also, as in the case of Washington and JAgr, it is actually the Owner that is insistant on spending big money on players that will not help the team.

It is so annoying when all you NHLPA lovers drop the big line "its all the owners fault, its them paying the players", frankly it really doesn`t matter who`s fault it is. The fact is that the NHL is in absolutely horrible financial trouble and a salary cap would fix that, it really is that simple. As the league stabilizes and the revenues begin to grow, the salary cap and player salaries will begin to grow as well. As Bettman said in his press conference, the nhl has been losing money for quite some time now, but, mostly because of expansion, has extended the CBA to ten years. They stuck it out and the players profited tremendously. But the CBA is now over and change is desperately needed.


I wouild think if your running you team 20 million dollars the pressure from ownership would be to figure how not to lose money.

Not one of you pro owner guys have answered my question. Why aren't these GM's being fired for losing so much money? Heck if i lost my company 10k a year i would expect to be looking for a new job. Sometimes actions speaks more than words.
 
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Legolas

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Fault shouldn't be a real issue here, but from the NHLPA perspective, if owners keep offering them tons of money and suddenly they say we can't do that anymore so you just have to deal with it, I wouldn't be too eager to agree to a deal either. The NHLPA still doesn't believe (rightly or wrongly) that the NHL is actually in as bad a financial position as it says. In fact, if they hadn't signed confidentiality agreements before looking at the league's books, you can bet Saskin and Goodenow would be going on and on about how the league is outright lying about how dire their finances are. The problem with agreeing to a hard cap is that it allows teams to make huge profits off the players and none of that money will be passed on. The players are in a unique position where as long as there's no salary cap, they can at least maximize how much money they can get, by just locating that small group of owners who are willing to pay any price. If there's a hard cap in place, they obviously can't do that. While I don't particularly sympathize with either side right now, I can at least understand why the players are so adamant about not having a cap.
 

A Good Flying Bird*

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Other Dave said:
I'm interested to know how you are able to lump these four teams together, when their circumstances are in no way comparable. (I'm also interested in knowing what teams you mean by 'etc').

Specifically, I'm keen on hearing how Denver, in particular, has managed to 'slit the other owners' throats'.

How much does Sakic, Forsberg, and Blake make?
WHat did Roy make?
Surely, $8 to $10M salaries aren't doing anything to help the small market teams.
These guys are usually predators at the trade deadline, picking up big salaried players for next to nothing only because they are willing to pay the salary.
Just like Detroit. Just like Philly. Just like the Rangers.
 

A Good Flying Bird*

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Protoman said:
to go off that if these 4 owners don't care about the other 26 owners why did they too vote for a work stopage?

supporting someone to hurt them? :dunno:

Well these four owners, along with a few more, directly contributed to the outrageous salaries that have now brought our game to its demise.
 

A Good Flying Bird*

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triggrman said:
The NHLPA defines a cap as anything that ties salaries to revenue.

I'm sorry but isn't associating revenues to salary just good business?

Correct. We already have that on a team by team basis.
But we've got a huge difference in team revenues.
Therefore, we have a huge difference in team salaries.

The problem isn't that players can be free on the market.
The problem is the disparity in revenues.
The Wings can afford a much higher payroll than the Sabres. So they can bid more for players, which drives everyone's costs up.

Sounds to me like rich owners aren't willing to share their revenue with the less rich owners.
And that is the problem.

My guess is that a deal was made between richer and less rich owners.
Rich owners stay committed to the salary cap and the less rich owners won't demand revenue sharing.

The owners refuse to touch the revenue sharing.
Until they present a plan with major revenue sharing, I'm going to laugh off any salary cap proposals as disingenuous.
 

Legolas

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Newsguyone said:
Correct. We already have that on a team by team basis.
But we've got a huge difference in team revenues.
Therefore, we have a huge difference in team salaries.

The problem isn't that players can be free on the market.
The problem is the disparity in revenues.
The Wings can afford a much higher payroll than the Sabres. So they can bid more for players, which drives everyone's costs up.

Sounds to me like rich owners aren't willing to share their revenue with the less rich owners.
And that is the problem.

My guess is that a deal was made between richer and less rich owners.
Rich owners stay committed to the salary cap and the less rich owners won't demand revenue sharing.

The owners refuse to touch the revenue sharing.
Until they present a plan with major revenue sharing, I'm going to laugh off any salary cap proposals as disingenuous.


I agree. The salary cap idea is not a cure-all the way that Bettman is describing it. I think it's a valid option and not the disaster that Goodenow portrays it as being, but it has to be tied to some sort of revenue sharing system. If memory serves me correctly, there are teams in the NHL who have payrolls below $31 million or whatever the cap number is anyway so it isn't like putting in a cap will suddenly allow those teams to make money. It will perhaps help them compete for players, but if they can't even afford to pay the cap number anyway, what's the point?
 

djhn579

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Newsguyone said:
Correct. We already have that on a team by team basis.
But we've got a huge difference in team revenues.
Therefore, we have a huge difference in team salaries.

The problem isn't that players can be free on the market.
The problem is the disparity in revenues.
The Wings can afford a much higher payroll than the Sabres. So they can bid more for players, which drives everyone's costs up.

Sounds to me like rich owners aren't willing to share their revenue with the less rich owners.
And that is the problem.

My guess is that a deal was made between richer and less rich owners.
Rich owners stay committed to the salary cap and the less rich owners won't demand revenue sharing.

The owners refuse to touch the revenue sharing.
Until they present a plan with major revenue sharing, I'm going to laugh off any salary cap proposals as disingenuous.

There was just a thread that Russian Fan started that said that at least two teams with high payrolls were losing some of the most money, but they were not concerned about the loses. These teams are a big part of the problem. Sure the owners of these teams have money from outside hockey, and are willing to spend it, but they are setting up a salary structure that very few teams NHL revenue can keep up with. For many owners, spending non-hockey revenue to support a hockey team is not an possible.
 

Russian Fan

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My concern is that the FANS take 100% of the NHL problems directly relating to players-CBA.

The Owners did a damn good job to make them think that.

I BELIEVE 75% of the Owners may lose some money.

My problem is always the same.

I think only 25-40% of the FRANCHISE that lose money is related to players-CBA issues.

60-75% is not CBA issue & it's more of management problem. I won't put a 2 pages descriptions , everything has been said here & everyone got their sides.

My problem is that when I speak my mind : I'M DIRECTLY PUT IN THE NHLPA's SIDE which is not the case but like so many said, how an owner can forget management problems & only think it's only a players problem.

They want to break the union to make huge profit later on if you ask me.
 
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