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!
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!!!
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.