Bob McKenzie's New Article: The "Possible" Proposal

Status
Not open for further replies.

Oilers Ent

Registered User
Aug 31, 2002
1,665
0
Burnaby, BC
robandgen.blogspot.com
I know it was talked about already on TV last night but Bob was nice enough to lay it all down:

from: http://www.tsn.ca/columnists/bob_mckenzie.asp?id=113414

Term: A six-year deal, not including the balance of this season (if there is to be one), with a provision that would allow the NHLPA to unilaterally terminate the CBA after four full seasons.

Salaries: The league is proposing cost certainty or a team-by-team salary cap, linked to 55 per cent of league revenues. The salary range would have a floor of $32 million and a cap of $42 million, although those figures are slightly misleading as the cost for player benefits (health care, insurance etc.) are also to be included in the salary range. Since the average costs per team for player benefits is in excess of $2 million per year, the actual range for player salaries would be between $30 million and $40 million. But if overall league spending on payroll and benefits exceeds 55 per cent of league revenues, the NHLPA would be obliged to pay back the league the overage from an escrow account. Likewise, if the league spent less than 55 per cent on player compensation, the league would be obliged to make a top-up payment to the NHLPA from the NHL's escrow account.

Luxury tax: The NHL is not proposing a luxury tax but said it would negotiate one if the players really wanted it, but there is apparently no implication that that the league would abandon cost certainty in favour of a tax proposal. Obviously, the players have no interest in a tax system if cost certainty remains in effect. That would change, of course, if the tax system replaced cost certainty, but there's no indication from the league that is about to happen.

Profit sharing: This is a new concept. The league apparently proposed that the NHL and NHLPA appoint a joint auditor to determine mutually agreeable league revenues and profits and that the owners and players would share all profits equally (50-50) in excess of $115 million. The NHL also proposed a heavy fine (using dollars and draft picks) system for teams found guilty of under-reporting revenues and profits.

Revenue sharing: The NHL did not outline a specific revenue sharing plan, but said it would commit whatever dollars are necessary to ensure that small-market teams are able to spend the required dollars to meet the $32 million floor of the payroll range. The expectation is that any NHL revenue sharing plan would be based on a redistribution of playoff monies, not regular season revenue to any great extent.

Salary arbitration: Not only would players be able to file for arbitration, teams would have the option of taking a player to arbitration. This two-way or mirror-image arbitration would have no limits on the size of the awards, but there would be a choice of having one or two or three year arbitration awards. Teams would have the right to walk away from one arbitration award in a specified period, which would make the player an unrestricted free agent. Players would have the right to walk away from one arbitration award in a specified time period, but the player would be obliged to take the team's qualifying offer of 75 per cent of last year's salary.

Qualifying offers: Teams would be obliged to offer 75 per cent of a player's salary from the previous season in order to keep that player's restricted free agent's rights. In the expired CBA, qualifying offers were either 100 or 110 per cent, depending on whether the player was making more or less than the league average annual salary.

Entry-level restrictions: The NHL proposed a four-year entry level system (up one year from the old ELS of three years) with a salary and signing bonus cap totaling no more than $850,000 per year. There is a provision for a maximum of $100,000 in A level bonuses and $250,000 in B level bonuses. Which is to suggest the absolute maximum any entry-level player could make would be $1.2 million per year.

Guaranteed contracts: Buyout provisions (at two thirds of remaining salary) would remain the same as the last CBA.

Unrestricted free agency: The age for unrestricted free agency would drop from 31 to 30.
 

Scoogs

Registered User
Jan 31, 2005
18,389
93
Toronto, Ontario
I just don't see the players rejecting this, just because it says "Salary Cap". I mean, this is surely it, the last ditch effort. There is no more trying to "save face"... If they choose to save face and reject this, then they wont be saving anything, they will be complete, stubborn Pejorative Slurs.
 

GKJ

Global Moderator
Feb 27, 2002
185,647
37,442
I think if a soft cap is put in at $42M and a hard cap at around $47M would be alright.
 

Peter

Registered User
Mar 1, 2002
3,680
1
Alberta
Visit site
nikeisevil said:
I know it was talked about already on TV last night but Bob was nice enough to lay it all down:

from: http://www.tsn.ca/columnists/bob_mckenzie.asp?id=113414

Term: A six-year deal, not including the balance of this season (if there is to be one), with a provision that would allow the NHLPA to unilaterally terminate the CBA after four full seasons.

Six years is too short IMO. The league should be asking for 8 years BUT I think allowing the NHLPA to unilat erally terminate the CBA after 4 full seasons is an excellent 'give back'.

Salaries: The league is proposing cost certainty or a team-by-team salary cap, linked to 55 per cent of league revenues. The salary range would have a floor of $32 million and a cap of $42 million, although those figures are slightly misleading as the cost for player benefits (health care, insurance etc.) are also to be included in the salary range. Since the average costs per team for player benefits is in excess of $2 million per year, the actual range for player salaries would be between $30 million and $40 million. But if overall league spending on payroll and benefits exceeds 55 per cent of league revenues, the NHLPA would be obliged to pay back the league the overage from an escrow account. Likewise, if the league spent less than 55 per cent on player compensation, the league would be obliged to make a top-up payment to the NHLPA from the NHL's escrow account.

This whole salaries issue (cap?) is a little puzzling to me. What would prevent a team from breaking the 42 million dollar ceiling? What would happen if a team doesn't mee the 32 million minimum? Who pays the extra money to the NHLPA if the league spends less than 55% on player compensation? Too many questions left unanswered and it is these points that are probably holding things up.

Luxury tax: The NHL is not proposing a luxury tax but said it would negotiate one if the players really wanted it, but there is apparently no implication that that the league would abandon cost certainty in favour of a tax proposal. Obviously, the players have no interest in a tax system if cost certainty remains in effect. That would change, of course, if the tax system replaced cost certainty, but there's no indication from the league that is about to happen.

No real need for a luxury tax if the agree to the above cap system. In fact, there is no need for luxury tax in any sort of hard cap system...it is simply redundant.

Profit sharing: This is a new concept. The league apparently proposed that the NHL and NHLPA appoint a joint auditor to determine mutually agreeable league revenues and profits and that the owners and players would share all profits equally (50-50) in excess of $115 million. The NHL also proposed a heavy fine (using dollars and draft picks) system for teams found guilty of under-reporting revenues and profits.

I like this a lot. Once the identify the revune streams that they will share all the money needs to be immediately funneled into a joint NHL/NHLPA account to be managed by a 3rd party.

Revenue sharing: The NHL did not outline a specific revenue sharing plan, but said it would commit whatever dollars are necessary to ensure that small-market teams are able to spend the required dollars to meet the $32 million floor of the payroll range. The expectation is that any NHL revenue sharing plan would be based on a redistribution of playoff monies, not regular season revenue to any great extent.

Revune Sharing is different from profict sharing how??

Salary arbitration: Not only would players be able to file for arbitration, teams would have the option of taking a player to arbitration. This two-way or mirror-image arbitration would have no limits on the size of the awards, but there would be a choice of having one or two or three year arbitration awards. Teams would have the right to walk away from one arbitration award in a specified period, which would make the player an unrestricted free agent. Players would have the right to walk away from one arbitration award in a specified time period, but the player would be obliged to take the team's qualifying offer of 75 per cent of last year's salary.

The league is going to have to have a two way arbitration system - no doubt. But the qualifying offer at 75% is a little too low - the 'give back' here is to raise it to at least 90%.

Qualifying offers: Teams would be obliged to offer 75 per cent of a player's salary from the previous season in order to keep that player's restricted free agent's rights. In the expired CBA, qualifying offers were either 100 or 110 per cent, depending on whether the player was making more or less than the league average annual salary.

Entry-level restrictions: The NHL proposed a four-year entry level system (up one year from the old ELS of three years) with a salary and signing bonus cap totaling no more than $850,000 per year. There is a provision for a maximum of $100,000 in A level bonuses and $250,000 in B level bonuses. Which is to suggest the absolute maximum any entry-level player could make would be $1.2 million per year.

Excellent. The NHLPA wants unlimited bonuses on top of a cap salary but that is crazy.

Guaranteed contracts: Buyout provisions (at two thirds of remaining salary) would remain the same as the last CBA.

A given.

Unrestricted free agency: The age for unrestricted free agency would drop from 31 to 30.

Another area where the league can 'give back' to the union - drop the UFA to 28.
 

i am dave

Registered User
Mar 9, 2004
2,182
1
Corner of 1st & 1st
I think "Revenue Sharing" would be monies shared among the 30 NHL teams (proper) whereas "Profit Sharing" would be monies shared among the players, be it in cash, or in a more traditional "retirement fund" or applied to their pensions. Something along those lines.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->