(How) The NHLPA Lost its way

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Not to mention the fact that the comparison continually seems to be spun as $42.5 million versus $36 million, when the actual cap being rumored is $34-36 million, WHICH IS ACTUALLY inclusive of benefits, so it is really $31.5-33.5 million.

Funny how they don't mention that the cap was soooo insignificant that the two sides themselves were negotiating it as the key issue at the 11th hour and 59th minute, and goodenow flushed the season because the NHL would not give in on this completely insignificant issue.

And how salaries which were marching steadily upward with more and more teams getting into the 40's and beyond (until the year before the lockout became a reality) but shall now make an about face and no one will be fored to pay the max by collusive agentry.

And how the entire focus of the NHLPA over the next six years will be to cap out as many teams as they could...

Funny how that happens...
 

Resolute

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me2 said:
Linkage is an NHL initiative, always has been. The NHLPA opposed proper linkage not supported it.

The NHL offered the unlinked $42.5m cap because the NHLPA didn't want linkage. It was seen by many pro-PAers as a win for the NHLPA at the time (under the "you can't trust the owners' numbers" argument).

Now the PA is accepting linkage, history seems to be getting a rewrite......

The irony is that the moment the NHL dropped linkage, the NHLPA accepted it. Their counter proposal to the owners $42.5 million was the $53.5 million cap, with it's growth linked to revenue growth. Though, the players being what they are, refused to link downward.

Of course, like the 24% rollback, once the players accepted linkage, it became extremely difficult to take it back. Such his their undoing.
 

nyr7andcounting

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The Iconoclast said:
WTF? Nice spin. So it was better to leave $10 million on the table in hopes of getting qualifying offers for players UNDER $1M bumped 10-15%? Okay Sparky, do the math. How many players does it take to equal $10 million when you are getting a 10% bump on your sub-$1M salary? I'll give you a hint. More than is on ANY NHL roster at one time. Its actually better than FOUR complete rosters. Wow! Big win! Leave the $10 million on the table for that 10% on something under a million! Brilliant!!!
How's it spin? Are you denying that QO's and arbitration are better for the players now than what was offered by the NHL? Talk about spin. And I dunno what $10M you are talking about.

Here is all the math you need. NHL was proposing QO's to be under 100% for the average player. Anyone making over 800k would automatically get a pay CUT. Now it is reported that QO's are back to raises for players under a certain amount and at least the same salary for players under a certain amount...whatever was proposed by PA in december is what they say is going to be in the deal.

And arbitration was two way, and at least in one offer, the NHL proposed that they could end arbitration all together by moving the UFA age to 28 (which is good for them anyway). Now it is reported that arbitration is more player friendly than that, something like they proposed in December.

And your also forgetting that the CBA is 5 or 6 years long. And extra 10-15% QO for every player every time he becomes an RFA might seem like nothing, but over the course of 6 years it adds up. Pretty clear the PA gained here as opposed to February, that's not spin.

The Iconoclast said:
Revenue sharing has always been in the mix. The NHL has been talking in the neighborhood of $60-90 million, so the deal being proposed now is going to have to equal that or better. Since payroll taxes are projected to be 1-for-1 on anything over $29 million, and a cap set at $36 million, that means that a maximum of $7 million will be generated for teams that hit the cap. Based on that figure the NHLPA has to see 9 teams hit the $36 million tax to hit the low number and 13 teams to hit the high. I just don't see many teams coming close to that cap number, so I think this is a loss as well. Color me crazy, but I think the NHLPA wanted to see a lot more money in the system than that, and have it distributed to greater audience as well.
Not always, actually the NHL avoided it for most of last season. $60-$90 million is not enough to keep small markets healthy while they are struggling to hit a salary floor.

Luxury tax has nothing to do with it. I don't know where you read that luxury taxes would be all or part of revenue sharing, but I definetly don't think those facts have come out. I am talking about pure revenue sharing. The more there is, the better it is for the players as well as the small markets. This deal is going to have a lot more revenue sharing going on than what the NHL was talking about in February. That, with a decent amount of payroll taxes, is going to strengthen the small markets while allowing the big markets to easily reach the cap anyway. Again it's pretty clear that is a better situation for the PA, that's not spin.

The Iconoclast said:
NEWS FLASH! The league has always has a ground floor level for teams to spend to. That's how banding works and that's how guaranteed revenues works. Try and spin it into a brilliant victory if you like, but when it was always in the proposal its not much of a give. Its not like they got something they didn't already have. And the players don't lose much money? Hmmmm, the players are going to get 54% of revenues versus 76% of revenues from the last deal. Again, spin all you want, but that is a 22% hit in BASE revenues. Include the likely decrease in revenues and you see a huge hit. From $1.5 billion (76% of $2.1 billion) down to $810M (54% of a projected $1.5 billion). That's a substantial hit.
No, the league has not always had a floor. The $42.5M offer DID NOT have a floor.
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story.asp?ID=126559&hubName=nhl
"The NHLPA is probably willing to bite the bullet on a low cap figure to start off next season as long there's room to grow in future years with bigger revenues leading to a higher salary cap, something that the league wasn't willing to do before. Also, the union feels strongly about having a minimum payroll figure, which the league did not have in its February proposals."

The last deal has absolutely nothing to do with anything AT ALL. Comparing what the PA could have had to save the season and what they can have now, they didn't lose that much money despite the cap going down.

No one expected the deal to have the same results for the players as the last one, nor was it ever offered by either side. No kidding the PA lost money compared to the last CBA, that's why we had a lockout in the first place. But that has no relevance when comparing February deals to what is reported now.

The Iconoclast said:
More spin! Man, cut it out. You gota be getting dizzy by now! All along the NHLPA repeated the mantra, "NO CAP! NO LINKAGE!". They were not going to take ANY deal with those conditions in any shape or form. Ooooops, looks like they're getting that rammed right down their throats after all. To add to that, the NHL had offered the NHLPA profit sharing of 50% of anything over $115 million. That profit sharing opportunity is lost. That is money right out of the NHLPA's pockets that they could have had.
And if you are comparing the February offers to now, it doesn't matter one bit what they said in October. If at any point linkage becomes a better option than the hard cap you are being offered, than you can take it. It's debateable wether or not revenues will increase enough for the linkage cap to reach $42.5M, but when you look at what the PA got back for taking that linkage than it really doesn't matter because the deal can be just as good anyway.

The Iconoclast said:
Yup, the NHLPA only lost 3 months salary. Keep telling that to yourself. Forget the $1.5 billion they pissed away with the whole lost NHL season. Hell, they'll lose 1/3 of what they could have made last season just in the drop in revenues from not taking the deal earlier. Its been a cluster foul-up from go for the NHLPA. All the spining you want to do is not going to change how badly they are getting boned.
Yep, they did. Because guess how many months they would have worked for had they accepted a $42.5M hard cap to save the season. Yes, 3 months. I dunno where you get $1.5B from, salaries weren't that high before the lockout, but if you think it was a mistake to negotiate rather than just lay down from the start and say 'at least we are getting this years salaries' than fine. But that's now how unions work, they don't exists to get their members some money, they exist to get their members the most money they can get. And 750 players giving up 1 year of salaries was obviously worth it to get the most money they could get. Obviously they lost on the whole, but it doesn't make any sense to blame them after we know the outcome. If they knew the outcome do you think they would have sat out a year? Don't think so.
 

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nyr7andcounting said:
How's it spin? Are you denying that QO's and arbitration are better for the players now than what was offered by the NHL? Talk about spin. And I dunno what $10M you are talking about.

What color is the sky in your world? As I mentioned in another thread its time for you pro-PA folk to get something through your heads. The deal which you like to hold up as your shining example of the PA negotiating a stunning victory is a joke. Not only do you boneheads like to point to this phantom deal, but you also misquote what it was supposedly worth, decreasing the dollar amount to make it look better than it really was (it was a take it or leave it $42.5 million PLUS benefits, which placed it closer to $45~46 million). This "deal" was a last minute "in-your-face-Bob" offer that met the conditions that Goodenow was demanding. It was substantially worse than anything the NHL had been offering up to that point and lacked many of the things that made the deal worthy of signing. What it did offer was exactly what Goodenow was demanding and on his terms, only 6~7 million less than the number he was proposing. This was the NHL saying, "Bob, you're lying SOB and we're going to prove it to your membership." They called his bluff and he fold his hand.

Now if you NHLPA types were working in the real world you'd be pointing to the last serious off the NHLPA turned down. The one that had a cap at $39 million AND included 50% profit sharing. That's the one that the NHL continued to work from, not the bogus $42.5 million offer that existed for eight hours right before the season was cancelled. That's the one you should be comparing to as it is the one that has many of the same mechanisms you are talking about. But no, we don't want to talk about that one as the player sare now facing a deal with less money at the cap level and NO profit sharing.

You don't know what $10 million I'm talking about? Gee, I guess you stayed home sick the day they taught subtraction at the kiddy-garten you went to. $45~46 million minus $34~36 million equals about $10 million dollars. That's the money they left on the table. Now you can play dumb (maybe you're not playing?) and say that the deal is better because of the 10% qualification for players making less than a million under this proposal, but the bottom line is that the ceiling has been dropped dramatically and that is going to hurt the NHLPA and the top money earners hard, and the trickledown will hit the lesser lights even harder. Think about it Sparky. How many teams spent above $45 million last season? How much do those teams have to lop off their salary structure? How many teams spent below $24 million? How much do they have to add? I'll throw the numbers at you and you can tell me which is better? The big spenders will now have to trim about $180 million from their payrolls. The small spenders will have to ratch up their spending by $30 million to his the floor. The players just lost at a minimum $150 million just in that reduction alone. So they gave up $180M to get $30M, and 10% raises for guys making less than $1M. Brilliant negotiating!

Here is all the math you need. NHL was proposing QO's to be under 100% for the average player. Anyone making over 800k would automatically get a pay CUT. Now it is reported that QO's are back to raises for players under a certain amount and at least the same salary for players under a certain amount...whatever was proposed by PA in december is what they say is going to be in the deal.

Yeah, EVERYONE would get a pay cut. I mean, NO ONE would get a raise if they played well! God knows we would want a system where performance was the key to getting paid?

This is another area that makes me laugh. Again, you're comparing to a phantom offer that was pie-in-the-face to Bob Goodenow. He painted himself into a corner and the NHL shoved a big fluffy creme pie into his kisser with a deal structured exactly like he had been asking for, knowing he wouldn't take it. Just like the NHL did when they said they would agree to the December 9th NHLPA proposal with triggers. They called Goodenow's bluff and he blinked, saying he no longer liked the framework he proposed and wanted to work from a new one. They had him and cut one of his legs out from underneath him. The last minute proposal proved him to be a fraud again and they cut the other leg out from underneath him. Bob lost all credability from that point forward and that is why Linden and Gartner are leading the charge now.

If you really want to talk about comparisons the ONLY comparison you can use is what is is on the table right now versus what the players had in the last CBA. What they had versus what they are going to have. You proudly talk about the 10% QO's, but the players had that before and had it better as it covered players up to the league average of $1.8 million. So the NHLPA lost that one as well, having QO's reduced by almost half. Ooops.

Oh, and as I pointed out, how many NHLPA members does it taking getting qualified at 110% to make up the $150 million they left sitting on the table? More players than there are in the "association" by a factor of 2. Great negotiating!

:biglaugh:

And arbitration was two way, and at least in one offer, the NHL proposed that they could end arbitration all together by moving the UFA age to 28 (which is good for them anyway). Now it is reported that arbitration is more player friendly than that, something like they proposed in December.

Hmmmm, the NHL had no arbitration rights prior to this negotiation, and now they do. Who wins here? Oh right, the NHLPA because they got something that they already had! Brilliant negotiating!!!

:biglaugh:

And your also forgetting that the CBA is 5 or 6 years long. And extra 10-15% QO for every player every time he becomes an RFA might seem like nothing, but over the course of 6 years it adds up. Pretty clear the PA gained here as opposed to February, that's not spin.

Ah, okay I see where you're going. All of those RFA's being paid under $1 million are going to sign only one year deals and will continue to do so while they nickle and dime the NHL to death! Are you really as stupid as you're sounding or do you not know how a calculator works? Try out this math problem.

If Jack makes $800K a year, and is guaranteed a 10% raise, how much of a raise does Jack get? And if Billy makes $1.5 million and he's supposed to get a 10% how much of a raise would Billy get? Now Billy doesn't get that raise any more because the NHLPA negotiated that away. So how much do the two players actually make on the base offers? (HINT: It's a negative amount)

Not always, actually the NHL avoided it for most of last season. $60-$90 million is not enough to keep small markets healthy while they are struggling to hit a salary floor.

No, the NHL has always had revenue sharing in every proposal but the pie-in-the-face offer. It was not defined as to what the exact numbers were, but the band they were aiming at was the $60-90M range. And you kill me. You say that that number is not enough. Guess what genius, the NHLPA just negotiated a worse number than that. As I pointed out you're going to need at least 8 teams hitting the max cap to generate $60 million in tax dollars for revenue sharing, 13 to hit the $90 million mark. That's almost half the league. Not going to happen. Again, billiant negotiating by the NHLPA.

Luxury tax has nothing to do with it. I don't know where you read that luxury taxes would be all or part of revenue sharing, but I definetly don't think those facts have come out. I am talking about pure revenue sharing. The more there is, the better it is for the players as well as the small markets. This deal is going to have a lot more revenue sharing going on than what the NHL was talking about in February. That, with a decent amount of payroll taxes, is going to strengthen the small markets while allowing the big markets to easily reach the cap anyway. Again it's pretty clear that is a better situation for the PA, that's not spin.

Where do you think the revenue sharing is coming from? The NHL was going to set up a percentage that the big spenders would have to contribute for distribution, but the NHLPA wanted something easier to track. In came the whole "tax" system, which is much easier for the 10th graders running the NHLPA to understand. That's where the revenue sharing component is coming from. Anything else will have to come from increased revenues. The NHLPA put themselves in this corner because they didn't like the undefined nature of the promise the league had written into their offers. Oh well, it sure looks like the PA did a brillaint job making sure they forced them big spenders to help the poor folk out!

No, the league has not always had a floor. The $42.5M offer DID NOT have a floor.
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story.asp?ID=126559&hubName=nhl
"The NHLPA is probably willing to bite the bullet on a low cap figure to start off next season as long there's room to grow in future years with bigger revenues leading to a higher salary cap, something that the league wasn't willing to do before. Also, the union feels strongly about having a minimum payroll figure, which the league did not have in its February proposals."

That's right. The offer did not have a floor. And how many teams spent UNDER the floor put in place? Three. How many spent well beyond the cap suggested? A dozen. Another brilliant move. Cut your nose off to spite your face.

The last deal has absolutely nothing to do with anything AT ALL. Comparing what the PA could have had to save the season and what they can have now, they didn't lose that much money despite the cap going down.

No one expected the deal to have the same results for the players as the last one, nor was it ever offered by either side. No kidding the PA lost money compared to the last CBA, that's why we had a lockout in the first place. But that has no relevance when comparing February deals to what is reported now.

Keep sticking to that "magical" February deal. It was a bear-trap and it seems every knows it except for the die-hards here. Goodenow was at least smart enough to walk away from it, but you guys are still running full speed into it.

And if you are comparing the February offers to now, it doesn't matter one bit what they said in October. If at any point linkage becomes a better option than the hard cap you are being offered, than you can take it. It's debateable wether or not revenues will increase enough for the linkage cap to reach $42.5M, but when you look at what the PA got back for taking that linkage than it really doesn't matter because the deal can be just as good anyway.

And they turned down several that were more lucrative leading up to the termination of the season. If the NHLPA's heads were anywhere but up their keisters they would have jumped on the deal that had profit sharing attached to it. That's where the money was and the NHLPA in its infinite wisdom walked away from that offer. Brilliant!!!

Yep, they did. Because guess how many months they would have worked for had they accepted a $42.5M hard cap to save the season. Yes, 3 months. I dunno where you get $1.5B from, salaries weren't that high before the lockout, but if you think it was a mistake to negotiate rather than just lay down from the start and say 'at least we are getting this years salaries' than fine. But that's now how unions work, they don't exists to get their members some money, they exist to get their members the most money they can get. And 750 players giving up 1 year of salaries was obviously worth it to get the most money they could get. Obviously they lost on the whole, but it doesn't make any sense to blame them after we know the outcome. If they knew the outcome do you think they would have sat out a year? Don't think so.

What a twisted way of looking at things. So should you lose your job and you have to explain to the wife why you're living in a fridge crate you can trot out the logic that you haven't lost much earning potential in the long run because you didn't have any offers you liked. You only start counting when you see an offer you like and start counting from there! Gotcha.

The 750 players in the NHLPA pissed away close to $1.5 billion in money this past year (moneys lost plus what they paid out themselves). That is money they will never have the opportunity to get back. All the spin you want to throw at it will not change a damn thing. A player gets on average five years to make the most he can and he just lost a year of that salary. As well, the player had to dip into his own reserves to pay himself during the last year. That is all loses. Any way you slice it this has been a disasterous lockout for the NHLPA. They have got killed at the negotiating table. They have got killed in the losses (losing more in one year than the league did in 10). They have got killed in the public eye. I don't see how anyone with an IQ above that which would fit on a hockey jersey would argue they came away with anything constructive from this lockout.

:shakehead
 
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Mothra

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nyr7andcounting said:
How's it spin? Are you denying that QO's and arbitration are better for the players now than what was offered by the NHL? Talk about spin. And I dunno what $10M you are talking about.

Here is all the math you need. NHL was proposing QO's to be under 100% for the average player. Anyone making over 800k would automatically get a pay CUT. Now it is reported that QO's are back to raises for players under a certain amount and at least the same salary for players under a certain amount...whatever was proposed by PA in december is what they say is going to be in the deal.

Of course....and as we all know the PA was fighting this battle to protect the future earnings of younger and mid-level talents

/SARCASM
 

tantalum

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Well I don't think much needs to be added from what Iconoclast wrote but I would also add that the whole revenue sharing thing is a complete red herring. All the PA needs to negotiate is the number of jobs and get it in writing that the league will have enough revenue sharing to get the porrer teams healthy. They do not actually need to know what that revenue sharing is or how it is done. Get the guarantee and that is all that is needed. As well the Pa proposed three revenue sharing programs in the Dec 9th offer, all of which seemed acceptable to the union based on how the proposal was written. From the press release on the PA site:

4. Revenue Redistribution Plan

A revenue redistribution plan that will transfer money from the high-revenue clubs to the low-revenue clubs, and encourage low-revenue clubs to increase their own revenues. The redistribution will inhibit spending on players by the clubs that have formerly spent the most. This plan offers three alternatives to the NHL with amounts ranging from $65M, to $124M and $190M, respectively.

Three alternatives any of which was fine for the PA. By the February the league had offered over $90 million in revenue sharing, an amount in between two of the acceptable alternatives, and continually told the union that there would be enoguh revenue sharing to ensure all teams could spend within cap limits. Now some would say, including myself, that the league should have detailed a plan to the union but in the end the union shouldn't get a say in any owner based system. Unless as they go to a luxury tax system as they are using now. The union never truly wanted a huge amount of revenue sharing. If they did they would have proposed something significant in the Dec 9th proposal instead of the paltry amounts they did.
 

nyr7andcounting

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tantalum said:
Well I don't think much needs to be added from what Iconoclast wrote but I would also add that the whole revenue sharing thing is a complete red herring. All the PA needs to negotiate is the number of jobs and get it in writing that the league will have enough revenue sharing to get the porrer teams healthy. They do not actually need to know what that revenue sharing is or how it is done. Get the guarantee and that is all that is needed. As well the Pa proposed three revenue sharing programs in the Dec 9th offer, all of which seemed acceptable to the union based on how the proposal was written. From the press release on the PA site:



Three alternatives any of which was fine for the PA. By the February the league had offered over $90 million in revenue sharing, an amount in between two of the acceptable alternatives, and continually told the union that there would be enoguh revenue sharing to ensure all teams could spend within cap limits. Now some would say, including myself, that the league should have detailed a plan to the union but in the end the union shouldn't get a say in any owner based system. Unless as they go to a luxury tax system as they are using now. The union never truly wanted a huge amount of revenue sharing. If they did they would have proposed something significant in the Dec 9th proposal instead of the paltry amounts they did.

That was offered in a proposal without a cap OR a floor. Revenue sharing has more importance when there is a cap, so both sides might have changed their view on it.
 

nyr7andcounting

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The Iconoclast said:
What color is the sky in your world? As I mentioned in another thread its time for you pro-PA folk to get something through your heads. The deal which you like to hold up as your shining example of the PA negotiating a stunning victory is a joke.
No. As I said in this thread and many other ones, this deal IS NOT a "stunning victory" for the PA. Not once have I ever said that nor will I ever say it, get that through your head. It is simply a more favorable deal than what they could have gotten in February. Some people don't realize that there is more to it than a cap number, so to say this is a worse deal than another one because of the cap is ridiculous...and that's what I was replying to. But this is not a "stunning victory" for the PA. Goodenow's strategy was terrible from the start and by February it was clear who was going to win, because the owners weren't going to fold. But that doesn't mean the PA should take whatever the owners want to give them, they still need to negotiate the best deal they can even if it's an overall loss. And that's what they are doing now.

The Iconoclast said:
Now if you NHLPA types were working in the real world you'd be pointing to the last serious off the NHLPA turned down. The one that had a cap at $39 million AND included 50% profit sharing. That's the one that the NHL continued to work from, not the bogus $42.5 million offer that existed for eight hours right before the season was cancelled. That's the one you should be comparing to as it is the one that has many of the same mechanisms you are talking about. But no, we don't want to talk about that one as the player sare now facing a deal with less money at the cap level and NO profit sharing.
Dunno much about it, it was offered after the season was cancelled so wasn't much attention given to it. It's pretty much the same idea as the $42.5M, right? Only difference is the cap was moved down 3 million?

The Iconoclast said:
You don't know what $10 million I'm talking about? Gee, I guess you stayed home sick the day they taught subtraction at the kiddy-garten you went to. $45~46 million minus $34~36 million equals about $10 million dollars. That's the money they left on the table. Now you can play dumb (maybe you're not playing?) and say that the deal is better because of the 10% qualification for players making less than a million under this proposal, but the bottom line is that the ceiling has been dropped dramatically and that is going to hurt the NHLPA and the top money earners hard, and the trickledown will hit the lesser lights even harder. Think about it Sparky. How many teams spent above $45 million last season? How much do those teams have to lop off their salary structure? How many teams spent below $24 million? How much do they have to add? I'll throw the numbers at you and you can tell me which is better? The big spenders will now have to trim about $180 million from their payrolls. The small spenders will have to ratch up their spending by $30 million to his the floor. The players just lost at a minimum $150 million just in that reduction alone. So they gave up $180M to get $30M, and 10% raises for guys making less than $1M. Brilliant negotiating!
Jesus, stop comparing it to what the last CBA was. It's competely unrealistic to think the PA could have gotten the old CBA extended had they negotiated well. I am comparing this deal to the one they could have had in February, not the old CBA that has nothing to do with it. So they did not lose $180M because they never were going to make that in the first place.

They left $10M on the table only from the teams who were going to spend it this year. If you are talking about QO and arbitration, they get better arbitration and 10-15% more of a QO offer (that's every player, every time they become an RFA). Over 6 years that adds up, most of the league is going to be an RFA at least once over the next 6 years. I mean this year alone how many RFA's are there going to be?? How many free agents are there right now, like 500? A lot of them are RFA, let's say they get an extra 60k on average from the increased QO, that's a lot of money that offsets SOME of what the lose on the cap.

It won't hit the lesser lights even harder because the floor enforces the bottom part of the market.

The Iconoclast said:
Yeah, EVERYONE would get a pay cut. I mean, NO ONE would get a raise if they played well! God knows we would want a system where performance was the key to getting paid?
Unfortunetly, unions want as much as they can get no matter what. So yes, the union doesn't want an automatic pay cut where you have to perform well just to achieve the same salary you had the previous year. It would be nice to pay players only on performance if you could measure it...but unions aren't going to take that.

The Iconoclast said:
If you really want to talk about comparisons the ONLY comparison you can use is what is is on the table right now versus what the players had in the last CBA. What they had versus what they are going to have. You proudly talk about the 10% QO's, but the players had that before and had it better as it covered players up to the league average of $1.8 million. So the NHLPA lost that one as well, having QO's reduced by almost half. Ooops.
No. I was replying to someone talking about the February offers, and that is what I am talking about. As I have said, this is an overall loss for the PA if you want to compare it to the last CBA.

The Iconoclast said:
Hmmmm, the NHL had no arbitration rights prior to this negotiation, and now they do. Who wins here? Oh right, the NHLPA because they got something that they already had! Brilliant negotiating!!!
February. The PA now has better arbitration than they would have had by taking one of the deals in February.

The Iconoclast said:
Ah, okay I see where you're going. All of those RFA's being paid under $1 million are going to sign only one year deals and will continue to do so while they nickle and dime the NHL to death! Are you really as stupid as you're sounding or do you not know how a calculator works? Try out this math problem.

If Jack makes $800K a year, and is guaranteed a 10% raise, how much of a raise does Jack get? And if Billy makes $1.5 million and he's supposed to get a 10% how much of a raise would Billy get? Now Billy doesn't get that raise any more because the NHLPA negotiated that away. So how much do the two players actually make on the base offers? (HINT: It's a negative amount)
No. Again, not talking about the big picture or the last CBA. Not at all. Do the math again with what the PA would have had in February and compare it to now. It's a positive amount which contributes to offsetting the drop in the cap.

The Iconoclast said:
No, the NHL has always had revenue sharing in every proposal but the pie-in-the-face offer. It was not defined as to what the exact numbers were, but the band they were aiming at was the $60-90M range. And you kill me. You say that that number is not enough. Guess what genius, the NHLPA just negotiated a worse number than that. As I pointed out you're going to need at least 8 teams hitting the max cap to generate $60 million in tax dollars for revenue sharing, 13 to hit the $90 million mark. That's almost half the league. Not going to happen. Again, billiant negotiating by the NHLPA.

Where do you think the revenue sharing is coming from? The NHL was going to set up a percentage that the big spenders would have to contribute for distribution, but the NHLPA wanted something easier to track. In came the whole "tax" system, which is much easier for the 10th graders running the NHLPA to understand. That's where the revenue sharing component is coming from. Anything else will have to come from increased revenues. The NHLPA put themselves in this corner because they didn't like the undefined nature of the promise the league had written into their offers. Oh well, it sure looks like the PA did a brillaint job making sure they forced them big spenders to help the poor folk out!
Well then the PA has improved on the "pie-in-the-face" offer haven't they? Revenue sharing is good for the players as well as the teams, not having it is a big mistake. This deal will have it and hopefully more of it than the 2 sides have talked about before.

And as I said, luxury tax and revenue sharing are totally different things...luxury tax might not even count as part of what a team needs to share. For example NFL teams share 60% of local revenues, luxury tax or not. That is revenue sharing, that is what he NHL needs. The NHL has previously been proposing less than 10%, other leagues have around 30% and the NFL has 60%.

The Iconoclast said:
That's right. The offer did not have a floor. And how many teams spent UNDER the floor put in place? Three. How many spent well beyond the cap suggested? A dozen. Another brilliant move. Cut your nose off to spite your face.
Didn't have a floor, now we do.

The Iconoclast said:
The 750 players in the NHLPA pissed away close to $1.5 billion in money this past year (moneys lost plus what they paid out themselves). That is money they will never have the opportunity to get back. All the spin you want to throw at it will not change a damn thing. A player gets on average five years to make the most he can and he just lost a year of that salary. As well, the player had to dip into his own reserves to pay himself during the last year. That is all loses. Any way you slice it this has been a disasterous lockout for the NHLPA. They have got killed at the negotiating table. They have got killed in the losses (losing more in one year than the league did in 10). They have got killed in the public eye. I don't see how anyone with an IQ above that which would fit on a hockey jersey would argue they came away with anything constructive from this lockout.
Yes, I know, I have said that. I don't know if they would have lost $1.5B because salaries were never going to be that high, more like $1.1B is what they could have had taking the first deals they were offered.

And that has nothing to do with their strategy since February.
 

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nyr7andcounting said:
That was offered in a proposal without a cap OR a floor. Revenue sharing has more importance when there is a cap, so both sides might have changed their view on it.

No the fact is the PA has been harping about revenue sharing since the very beginning and when presented with the opportunity to propose a system of vast revenue sharing they said the league should have they failed to do so because it truly isn't important to them how the league ensures the health of those franchises. They whined that even under the NHLs proposed systems that there wouldn't be enough revenue sharing. The NHL guaranteed there would be. Nothing more is needed beyond putting that guarantee in writing (be it through making sure there are 30 franchises for the length of the CBA and/or the number of full time jobs remians the same). They know that but the lack of revenue sharing was the only positive PR angle the PA had at their disposal throughout this whole thing even though they didn't want to see much of it.

The simple fact of the matter is Bettman and the owners have been controlling the strings since day one. There was a floor offered at the very beginning and always was until they decided to give the PA exactly what they wanted in a no linkage deal. As a consequence the PA lost the floor in that offer but as Iconoclast has mentioned the likelihood of any teams actually being underneath the payroll level the rumoured floor is going to be was pretty unlikely anyways. The floors offered were much higher than what will result in this deal with the promise of enough revenue sharing for the lower revenue teams to meet that floor.
 
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Lanny MacDonald*

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nyr7andcounting said:
No. As I said in this thread and many other ones, this deal IS NOT a "stunning victory" for the PA. Not once have I ever said that nor will I ever say it, get that through your head. It is simply a more favorable deal than what they could have gotten in February. Some people don't realize that there is more to it than a cap number, so to say this is a worse deal than another one because of the cap is ridiculous...and that's what I was replying to. But this is not a "stunning victory" for the PA. Goodenow's strategy was terrible from the start and by February it was clear who was going to win, because the owners weren't going to fold. But that doesn't mean the PA should take whatever the owners want to give them, they still need to negotiate the best deal they can even if it's an overall loss. And that's what they are doing now.


Dunno much about it, it was offered after the season was cancelled so wasn't much attention given to it. It's pretty much the same idea as the $42.5M, right? Only difference is the cap was moved down 3 million?


Jesus, stop comparing it to what the last CBA was. It's competely unrealistic to think the PA could have gotten the old CBA extended had they negotiated well. I am comparing this deal to the one they could have had in February, not the old CBA that has nothing to do with it. So they did not lose $180M because they never were going to make that in the first place.

They left $10M on the table only from the teams who were going to spend it this year. If you are talking about QO and arbitration, they get better arbitration and 10-15% more of a QO offer (that's every player, every time they become an RFA). Over 6 years that adds up, most of the league is going to be an RFA at least once over the next 6 years. I mean this year alone how many RFA's are there going to be?? How many free agents are there right now, like 500? A lot of them are RFA, let's say they get an extra 60k on average from the increased QO, that's a lot of money that offsets SOME of what the lose on the cap.

It won't hit the lesser lights even harder because the floor enforces the bottom part of the market.


Unfortunetly, unions want as much as they can get no matter what. So yes, the union doesn't want an automatic pay cut where you have to perform well just to achieve the same salary you had the previous year. It would be nice to pay players only on performance if you could measure it...but unions aren't going to take that.


No. I was replying to someone talking about the February offers, and that is what I am talking about. As I have said, this is an overall loss for the PA if you want to compare it to the last CBA.


February. The PA now has better arbitration than they would have had by taking one of the deals in February.


No. Again, not talking about the big picture or the last CBA. Not at all. Do the math again with what the PA would have had in February and compare it to now. It's a positive amount which contributes to offsetting the drop in the cap.


Well then the PA has improved on the "pie-in-the-face" offer haven't they? Revenue sharing is good for the players as well as the teams, not having it is a big mistake. This deal will have it and hopefully more of it than the 2 sides have talked about before.

And as I said, luxury tax and revenue sharing are totally different things...luxury tax might not even count as part of what a team needs to share. For example NFL teams share 60% of local revenues, luxury tax or not. That is revenue sharing, that is what he NHL needs. The NHL has previously been proposing less than 10%, other leagues have around 30% and the NFL has 60%.


Didn't have a floor, now we do.


Yes, I know, I have said that. I don't know if they would have lost $1.5B because salaries were never going to be that high, more like $1.1B is what they could have had taking the first deals they were offered.

And that has nothing to do with their strategy since February.

It seems I'm getting no where trying to use logic with you and explain things point by point. It is clearly beyond you and is not sinking in. Collective Bargaining is obviously something foreign to you as you're missing the boat completely. I'll try and make this really for you to understand.

The "$42.5 million" offer never existed. The league floated that knowing full well that Goodenow would not accept it and would not even counter. His ego wouldn't allow him to do so. The league read it and floated a "final offer" that would hand cuff the players for decade and expose Goodenow for the fraud he really is. The offer was a sham and was only put out ther to say **** you to Goodenow and publicly humiliate him, which the cancellation press conference did in spades. So to say that the $42.5 million offer is the one the NHLPA should be comparing things to is like saying that you should be comparing all of your dates to the one where Claire Brigliadori kicked you in the nuts for getting a free grope. I guess everything looks positive in comparison.

The players missed the boat. They could have had a number in around $39 million and profit sharing. They declined and the numbers have dropped dramatically. If a 10% raise for players making less than a million is the big win, then it truely has been a complete and total disaster for the NHLPA.
 

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irregardless of a floor value

revenue sharing could be a win for the players and the low income teams.

Luxury tax on the rich teams, to get that little bit better given to the low income teams and spent on salarys. Sounds like a good deal for players on the low income teams.

Though, how do you decide who to give the money to?

And how much to give to each?

Do you raise up the 20mill salary teams to 30 or just to 25 and raise the 25 mill teams to 26?
 

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nyr7andcounting said:
Dunno much about it, it was offered after the season was cancelled so wasn't much attention given to it. It's pretty much the same idea as the $42.5M, right? Only difference is the cap was moved down 3 million?

Nope. That offer was made even before the last exchange of offers. Here it is: http://www.nhlcbanews.com/news/nhlproposal020205.html
It is for this reason that discussion of the February offer is about as irrelevant as can be, which is one of Icon's points.

Put it this way: regardless of the $42.5 proposal, if the PA had said "we will take the Feb 2 proposal instead" (a linkage deal), the NHL would have accepted. Accordingly, to compare to the last-second offer and not take into account all offers that had been made to date (any of which were assuredly open for acceptance) is not meaningful. What is being negotiated now must be compared to all such offers.

So they did not lose $180M because they never were going to make that in the first place.
We all know the overriding goal of the PA will be to ensure that at the end of the deal, every team is maxed out. That is why caps serve as magnets.

They left $10M on the table only from the teams who were going to spend it this year. If you are talking about QO and arbitration, they get better arbitration and 10-15% more of a QO offer (that's every player, every time they become an RFA).
You need to stop right there. I had read your posts where you and others repeatedly assume that the adjustments the league was demanding were going to be a drop-dead 75% QO. You have no idea what it was and no basis on which to assume that. The "Deal Points" memo of the NHLPA clearly stated the NHL's exceptions were working off the PA December 9 proposal. No one - not even Saskin has said what those exceptiosn were when they were laid out in the post-cancellation meetings. They classified them as "significant", but that does not mean they were, since the PA was trying to extricate itself from the process and used the whole issue as a transparent excuse anyway.


Over 6 years that adds up, most of the league is going to be an RFA at least once over the next 6 years. I mean this year alone how many RFA's are there going to be?? How many free agents are there right now, like 500? A lot of them are RFA, let's say they get an extra 60k on average from the increased QO, that's a lot of money that offsets SOME of what the lose on the cap.
That is Icon's whole point. Compared to the torrent of money lost on the cap no matter how you slice it, the amount offset by QO's is but a dribble. In fact, the entire issue of QO's is to my mind quite irrelevant, as it usually has no basis to what players sign for (although that may change in a cap world). All those QO "savings" trumpeted by the PA in their Dec 9 offer were utter bull. My impression is that they are of little significance.

It won't hit the lesser lights even harder because the floor enforces the bottom part of the market.

It enforces THREE teams. And don't forget: after taking out the $2.5 mil in benefits, the rumored cap is $19.5 to $21.5 million.

The PA now has better arbitration than they would have had by taking one of the deals in February.
Again, you have ZERO basis to state this.

Yes, I know, I have said that. I don't know if they would have lost $1.5B because salaries were never going to be that high, more like $1.1B is what they could have had taking the first deals they were offered.
Fair point, but 1/3 of $1.1 billion is $375 million (rounded). Add 54% of playoff revenue and you are over $500 million.
 

GSC2k2*

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The Iconoclast said:
It seems I'm getting no where trying to use logic with you and explain things point by point. It is clearly beyond you and is not sinking in. Collective Bargaining is obviously something foreign to you as you're missing the boat completely. I'll try and make this really for you to understand.

The "$42.5 million" offer never existed. The league floated that knowing full well that Goodenow would not accept it and would not even counter. His ego wouldn't allow him to do so. The league read it and floated a "final offer" that would hand cuff the players for decade and expose Goodenow for the fraud he really is. The offer was a sham and was only put out ther to say **** you to Goodenow and publicly humiliate him, which the cancellation press conference did in spades. So to say that the $42.5 million offer is the one the NHLPA should be comparing things to is like saying that you should be comparing all of your dates to the one where Claire Brigliadori kicked you in the nuts for getting a free grope. I guess everything looks positive in comparison.

The players missed the boat. They could have had a number in around $39 million and profit sharing. They declined and the numbers have dropped dramatically. If a 10% raise for players making less than a million is the big win, then it truely has been a complete and total disaster for the NHLPA.
And don't forget the $29 million FLOOR they could have had... :amazed:
 

nyr7andcounting

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The Iconoclast said:
It seems I'm getting no where trying to use logic with you and explain things point by point. It is clearly beyond you and is not sinking in. Collective Bargaining is obviously something foreign to you as you're missing the boat completely. I'll try and make this really for you to understand.

The "$42.5 million" offer never existed. The league floated that knowing full well that Goodenow would not accept it and would not even counter. His ego wouldn't allow him to do so. The league read it and floated a "final offer" that would hand cuff the players for decade and expose Goodenow for the fraud he really is. The offer was a sham and was only put out ther to say **** you to Goodenow and publicly humiliate him, which the cancellation press conference did in spades. So to say that the $42.5 million offer is the one the NHLPA should be comparing things to is like saying that you should be comparing all of your dates to the one where Claire Brigliadori kicked you in the nuts for getting a free grope. I guess everything looks positive in comparison.

The players missed the boat. They could have had a number in around $39 million and profit sharing. They declined and the numbers have dropped dramatically. If a 10% raise for players making less than a million is the big win, then it truely has been a complete and total disaster for the NHLPA.
Actually, your the one who is missing the boat here. All you keep talking about is how the PA lost big time in comparison to the last CBA. And I have said no ****, that's undeniable. Yet you continue to argue that that's the case. Now please read the post I was replying to in the first place. Pretty obvious that guy wanted to compare the $42.5M offer to the deal the PA is going to accept in the end. Not the first NHL offer, not the last CBA, not an offer from January. CLEARLY I am talking about $42.5M because that is the offer that the poster I was replying to was comparing with this deal. I pointed out that it's pretty stupid to say that deal is worse simply because the cap is lower, because that's not the case and the cap isn't all that matters. You haven't yet showed me how that offer is better, in fact you deny that it even exists.

10% raise is not the big win, it's only part of what makes this deal better than the offers the PA turned down in February, specifically the offer they received right before the season was cancelled. I've never said the PA won the fight, yet that's what you keep trying to prove to me. But once they lost the fight, their best strategy was to negotiate the best deal they could rather than accept the "****-you-bob" offer they were getting from the NHL.
 

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gscarpenter2002 said:
Nope. That offer was made even before the last exchange of offers. Here it is: http://www.nhlcbanews.com/news/nhlproposal020205.html
It is for this reason that discussion of the February offer is about as irrelevant as can be, which is one of Icon's points.

Put it this way: regardless of the $42.5 proposal, if the PA had said "we will take the Feb 2 proposal instead" (a linkage deal), the NHL would have accepted. Accordingly, to compare to the last-second offer and not take into account all offers that had been made to date (any of which were assuredly open for acceptance) is not meaningful. What is being negotiated now must be compared to all such offers.
Tell that to the guy that was comparing the two then. He specifically said the $42.5M offer, and I said that this deal can be better than that. We've already had that argument, but I still believe it will be better. If you want to compare this deal to what the players could have had with linkage in January, that's a different story and I have already said many times that they could have had a better deal that way. They certaintly lost the fight up until February but AT THAT POINT changing strategies would get them the better deal.

As for that off, I thought he was reffering to the one made post-cancellation...I believe it was a $37M or $39M nonlinked offer. But anyway, if you want to compare the 2/2 proposal as well...obviously that deal is better than the $42.5M offer but still, I think this deal has gotten better for the PA.

BTW, the $34M-$36M number that is floating around...is that including the $2M+ in benefits or not? Was away when some of these numbers came out.

gscarpenter2002 said:
You need to stop right there. I had read your posts where you and others repeatedly assume that the adjustments the league was demanding were going to be a drop-dead 75% QO. You have no idea what it was and no basis on which to assume that. The "Deal Points" memo of the NHLPA clearly stated the NHL's exceptions were working off the PA December 9 proposal. No one - not even Saskin has said what those exceptiosn were when they were laid out in the post-cancellation meetings. They classified them as "significant", but that does not mean they were, since the PA was trying to extricate itself from the process and used the whole issue as a transparent excuse anyway.
Take it from the deal you linked above then. The NHL offer was 100% QO for players under 800k and 75% for players over 800k. That means an automatic 1/4th rollback every time the average player becomes an RFA, and he has to play well just to get back his previous salary and very well to get a raise. Also, arbitration was completely 2 way. This deal IS better in that regard.

gscarpenter2002 said:
That is Icon's whole point. Compared to the torrent of money lost on the cap no matter how you slice it, the amount offset by QO's is but a dribble. In fact, the entire issue of QO's is to my mind quite irrelevant, as it usually has no basis to what players sign for (although that may change in a cap world). All those QO "savings" trumpeted by the PA in their Dec 9 offer were utter bull. My impression is that they are of little significance.
On a year to year basis they aren't very significant. But almost every player get's at least 2 QO's in his career, this puts his market value that much higher each time. The fact that most players now get a raise or equal to their previous salary instead of a paycut is favorable for the PA. Players might never sign for exactly their QO, but they can't sign for less than that and if a team is negotiating with an RFA, they use the QO to negotiate off of most of the time. Under that NHL proposal, most players in the league would have to have a very good season just to get the team to go back to their previous salary in negotiations, because QO was 75%. And again, I am not saying it is the sole reason this deal is better, but it helps to offset some of money the PA is giving up in any year of this CBA when the cap is lower than what they could have had in February ($39M or $42.5M or whatever).

gscarpenter2002 said:
It enforces THREE teams. And don't forget: after taking out the $2.5 mil in benefits, the rumored cap is $19.5 to $21.5 million.
The bottom part of the market is not hit as hard by a drop in the cap because their is a floor there to keep it up.

gscarpenter2002 said:
Again, you have ZERO basis to state this.
Why not? Are you denying the reports? I mean that's all we can go on. Unless you are sitting in the room with them than you can't deny that.
 

GSC2k2*

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nyr7andcounting said:
BTW, the $34M-$36M number that is floating around...is that including the $2M+ in benefits or not? Was away when some of these numbers came out.

It reportedly includes the benefits, making the cap $31.5/33.5 million.


Take it from the deal you linked above then. The NHL offer was 100% QO for players under 800k and 75% for players over 800k. That means an automatic 1/4th rollback every time the average player becomes an RFA, and he has to play well just to get back his previous salary and very well to get a raise. Also, arbitration was completely 2 way. This deal IS better in that regard.
Well, actually there has not really been mention of how this deal is on those issues; the latest word was that they have now turned to these issues after wrangling aboutt he cap for a few weeks. To compare apples to apples, the February offer was expressly stated to involve negotiating off the December 9 proposal. THe limited info we have now is ... the parties are negotiating off the December 9 proposal. Sounds like the PA is no further ahead or worse off ... not a win. Remains to be seen.

On a year to year basis they aren't very significant. But almost every player get's at least 2 QO's in his career, this puts his market value that much higher each time. The fact that most players now get a raise or equal to their previous salary instead of a paycut is favorable for the PA. Players might never sign for exactly their QO, but they can't sign for less than that and if a team is negotiating with an RFA, they use the QO to negotiate off of most of the time. Under that NHL proposal, most players in the league would have to have a very good season just to get the team to go back to their previous salary in negotiations, because QO was 75%. And again, I am not saying it is the sole reason this deal is better, but it helps to offset some of money the PA is giving up in any year of this CBA when the cap is lower than what they could have had in February ($39M or $42.5M or whatever).
And it is an offset, but the point is it is only a minimal offset. Again, no one said the February deal involved a 75% QO. Even Ted Saskin declined to say that when questioned - just that there were more significant exceptions than they anticipated. If they were going back to 75%, he would have said the NHL went back to their deal. Since the deal points expressed they were working off the Dec 9 proposal, one can't help but conclude the NHL wanted something less than the PA offer but more than their starting point of two weeks prior.

Plus I repeat: QO's are a red herring. Players sign based on what other players of their caliber are paid. QO's are not really important. Plus, the idea of players actaully getting 75% QO's after a decent season is ridiculous. Teams do have a vested interest in not alienating their players. Saying players will keep getting 25% pay cuts in such a system is preposterous.

The bottom part of the market is not hit as hard by a drop in the cap because their is a floor there to keep it up.

The floor is irrelevant at its reported level of $19.5/21.5 million.

Why not? Are you denying the reports? I mean that's all we can go on. Unless you are sitting in the room with them than you can't deny that.
I cited the information above. What more can I say?
 
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