shnagle said:
While I agree with you that the cap will put all teams on a more financial level playing fileld my issue is with the floor specifically. About a third of the league can be considered small revenue. Can we agree that on ice success is what will make a franchise more financially successful? If so, how many of the 12 teams will enjoy enough long term success to meet the floor in a cap era?
The problem with the floor as I see it is that if you are a small revenue team of 53 million and the floor is 32 milllion than your cost ratio is about 60%. The point of the article is that post lockout this ratio is likely to get worse for most small revenue teams because they are not as likely to recapture the casual fan. To me, this should not be the cost certainty the league is looking for.
the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4 years ago had a payroll of 34 million and they made money
5 years ago they had a payroll of 32 million and they made money
Lemieux and the Penguins made a small amount of profit the first three to four years he owned the team
the problem came when they had to give raises to all their players...Jagr, Straka, Kasper, Lang, Kovy, Boughner...ect...ect..
they could not afford to raise payroll over 34 million and not lose a ton of money
they were forced to unload these players for less value than they are worth because the big market teams knew they could not hang onto them
the fans went from making the conference finals to watching a minor league team on the ice all because of money
if big market teams cannot give Lang 5 million a year, Jagr 11, Kovy 6, Boughner 3, Kasper 4 and the players price range fell to where it is reasonable...the Pens would have been able to at least keep a core together and build around them
but why keep Kovy's 6 million when you lose the rest of your all-stars and your probably going to lose anyways
look at the Pens attendence when they win or are in a race for the playoffs, its very good for the arena they have
the NHL will revenue share to get every team to 32 million....once they get to 32 million, with good hockey moves they should be able to compete
once they can compete year in and year out then they should be able to aquire a fan base
its like a domino effect....but they must be able to compete