It sounds like John Madden would accept a cap

[DarkHorse]

This just in (tomorrow)

Thomas Madden opposes NHL salary cap

CBC SPORTS ONLINE - One day after long-time NHLer Steve Thomas John Madden suggested hockey could learn from the day-to-day operations of the NBA and NFL, he denied being open to a salary cap.

"The way the league is run now is fine. I never condone a salary cap – ever," an emphatic Thomas Madden told The Fan 590, a Toronto sports radio station, on Friday.

More to come...

 

[Taranis_24]

even if there's a correlation between bad decisions & higher salary, if the teams losing money because of those bad decision, why should the other pay entirely for those decisions ?

MLB have problem & they didn't solve everything when they sign the CBA & they didn't expect the MLBPA to give everything to solve in 1 minutes. There was an agreement that both feels they can't work on it.

MLBPA make some compromise
MLB took those & build it so 1 year later the salaries took a shut down of 3% even if the ''FANS'' think the luxury tax is ridiculous.

To get back to the NHL

CBA is not related to
- Bad markets
Can't be the players fault if some arena are empty & ticket price is not the sole reason

- Bad management
Can't be the players fault is some owner took all the money at some time in their franchise & sign a poor lease arena.

those 2 alone could be a consequences between making 5M$ profits & losing 20 to 30M$ a year !!!

Also a CBA agreement like any fan would like to think, is 2 sides that feels they could live together.

NHL owners asking to the NHLPA to solve all the problems without pointing GM's & staff is naive & selfish.

Facts :
NHLPA offer a paycut of 5% that would result of 108M$ in saving.
without judgement ,it's called compromised.

NHLPA offer a luxury tax.
even if the luxury tax is poor or good, it's called compromised.

NHLPA cutback in Entry level Rookie bonuses. that would result to 60M$ in saving.
without any judgement it's called compromised.

I'm not saying it's a good or bad proposal but at least that should shut the mouth of fan thinking players are GREEDY. Wanting to not lose all their privileges & being greedy is not the same thing.

If NHLPA are willing to make those compromised it's at least a starting point to negociate something like a better luxury tax, maybe a 10% paycut (200M$).

The other side, Owners are playing the game ''my way or the highway''. Maybe the fans like it because they are bitter to see people making 1,8M$ for playing hockey but a CBA hockey or real life related is not negotiated by one side take-it or leave-it.

- Players need to recognize that teams are losing money & so far I listen that for the NHLPA executives.

- Owners need to recognize they made mistake & they can't ask the players to resolve all the problems they created so far all they said is ''we made some mistake & now we are trying to fix it''. They try to fix by asking the players to cave for their failure to put the CBA at their advantages.

RF,

Granted all these are concessions by the players. But they do not in any address a long term health of the league. 5% roll back on current salaries means what 2.5M per team? 60 million saved from entry level salaries, one is that over the life of current 3-year entry level salaries or is an annual savings, say it's annual that's what $2M per team and the other concession revenue sharing (10 cents on the dollar over 50M and 30 cents on the dollar over 60M) would save $80-$100M annual, so thats $3M per team. The offer was worse than the one they proposed in October 03. . Added up that comes to $7.5M per team 20 teams lost in excess on $340M which works out to an average of $17M lost per team. $340M minus what profitable teams made brings the net loss to $224-$273M reported. So with this proposal 20 teams would still lose on the average $9.5M annual. This proposal does nothing but band-aid the problem, a seeping band-aid at that. The proposal does nothing to bring parity to the league, it does nothing to prevent big-market teams from using small market teams as a farm club. I agree with the lock-out, I hate missing hockey but if it fixes the situation then I'll wait. I'm just hoping more players like Madden stand up and say something and that the owners will stay united in their stance.

 

[Russian Fan]

RF,

Granted all these are concessions by the players. But they do not in any address a long term health of the league. 5% roll back on current salaries means what 2.5M per team? 60 million saved from entry level salaries, one is that over the life of current 3-year entry level salaries or is an annual savings, say it's annual that's what $2M per team and the other concession revenue sharing (10 cents on the dollar over 50M and 30 cents on the dollar over 60M) would save $80-$100M annual, so thats $3M per team. The offer was worse than the one they proposed in October 03. . Added up that comes to $7.5M per team 20 teams lost in excess on $340M which works out to an average of $17M lost per team. $340M minus what profitable teams made brings the net loss to $224-$273M reported. So with this proposal 20 teams would still lose on the average $9.5M annual. This proposal does nothing but band-aid the problem, a seeping band-aid at that. The proposal does nothing to bring parity to the league, it does nothing to prevent big-market teams from using small market teams as a farm club. I agree with the lock-out, I hate missing hockey but if it fixes the situation then I'll wait. I'm just hoping more players like Madden stand up and say something and that the owners will stay united in their stance.

Again, do you really think in 1 year everything will be solve ?

the PA offer 160M$ saving that 2/3 of the problems RIGHT NOW !!!

Can we suppose that
1) Owners will try to decrease salary like they ALREADY DID the last 2 summer.

With the ACTUAL CBA the owners by THEMSELVES did go from 273M$ to 224M$ that 18% better than 1 year ago in the actual CBA

2) Owners will adress their issues regarding MARKETS in trouble

3) Will owners be that stupid to re-do a 9M$ to Holik ?

4) Rookie for 3 years got 1,2M$ even if he scored 41 GOALS !!! Can we say , the OWNER got more his money that what he was suppose to get ? What's wrong on a 41 goals player to get 4-5M$ for 3-4 years after his rookie contract ?

So you're saying it's ok for an owner to exploit an underpaid rookie @ 1,2M$ who score 41 GOALS but it's not okay for a player to ask for 4-5M$ on a long term after he done that ?

Again stop thinking only as a fan & think as if you were on both sides.

 

[Russian Fan]

So with this proposal 20 teams would still lose on the average $9.5M annual. This proposal does nothing but band-aid the problem, a seeping band-aid at that. The proposal does nothing to bring parity to the league, it does nothing to prevent big-market teams from using small market teams as a farm club. I agree with the lock-out, I hate missing hockey but if it fixes the situation then I'll wait. I'm just hoping more players like Madden stand up and say something and that the owners will stay united in their stance.

Also, maybe you're new to this process but in the 224M$ losses

6 teams had 168M$ of those 224M$, can you say it's CBA issues ? Even the STL Blues didn't care about the losses. What's the problem if the owner want to spend this & does not care of the losses ?

that means 14 teams for 56M$ = 4M$ per team !! Can we say that 4M$ is not suppose to be an issue to make a 1 year lockout ? I don't think so.

 

[HughJass*]

It's easier for Bettman-Daly to say SHUT UP to 30 owners even if 10% does not agree with move (= 3 owners) while Goodenow-Saskin got 1100-1200 members if 10% of that bunch think a cap is good it's 110-120 members that every HF posters will take that & put a highligh in the commentary subject.

Boom.

 

[Taranis_24]

Again, do you really think in 1 year everything will be solve ?

the PA offer 160M$ saving that 2/3 of the problems RIGHT NOW !!!

Can we suppose that
1) Owners will try to decrease salary like they ALREADY DID the last 2 summer.

With the ACTUAL CBA the owners by THEMSELVES did go from 273M$ to 224M$ that 18% better than 1 year ago in the actual CBA

2) Owners will adress their issues regarding MARKETS in trouble

3) Will owners be that stupid to re-do a 9M$ to Holik ?

4) Rookie for 3 years got 1,2M$ even if he scored 41 GOALS !!! Can we say , the OWNER got more his money that what he was suppose to get ? What's wrong on a 41 goals player to get 4-5M$ for 3-4 years after his rookie contract ?

So you're saying it's ok for an owner to exploit an underpaid rookie @ 1,2M$ who score 41 GOALS but it's not okay for a player to ask for 4-5M$ on a long term after he done that ?

Again stop thinking only as a fan & think as if you were on both sides.

I'm thinking of it from both sides. The players salary in 1990 was bit over 270K, in 2003 it's 1.8M so in 13-14 years the players salary jumped 700%. In that same time the owners lost around what 8.1Billion. If I'm looking at from a fans prespective well then fine, and a fan of a small market team at that. I do not want to see a league where we have a 2-3 Yankee type franchises and 10 or more KC Royal like franchises, hey but that's just me. The players have had much their way since '94 and I agree with the owners on this one, I won't apologize for that. A $38M cap with a $28M dollar minimal salary cap I don't think is to far out of line. If revenues increase than a percentage of that increase goes to the union or it's players.

 

[Taranis_24]

Also, maybe you're new to this process but in the 224M$ losses

6 teams had 168M$ of those 224M$, can you say it's CBA issues ? Even the STL Blues didn't care about the losses. What's the problem if the owner want to spend this & does not care of the losses ?

that means 14 teams for 56M$ = 4M$ per team !! Can we say that 4M$ is not suppose to be an issue to make a 1 year lockout ? I don't think so.

It's not $224M it's $340M in totals losses if you do not include teams that made money. But still point taken $340-$168, works out to $172 divided by 14, works out to a bit over $12M per team. Why is it to you that owners who put up their own money cannot expect to make at least as much as their lowest paid player? It's not all the owners fault? When an owner feels he has to pay a player either because of arbitration or because they may lose that player because an agent uses another players salary from another team (almost, always a big market team) in negotiation than thats wrong and it hurts the league.

 

[likea]

are we forgetting that the LA Kings opened up their books to a fan/ accountant and he confirmed that they were losing the amount that they stated....

 

[Russian Fan]

are we forgetting that the LA Kings opened up their books to a fan/ accountant and he confirmed that they were losing the amount that they stated....

I also remember that a lot of those fans that have knowledge in accoutability , saw some flaws in the numbers that was given to them ?

Huge space where there's no explanation !!

 

[likea]

I also remember that a lot of those fans that have knowledge in accoutability , saw some flaws in the numbers that was given to them ?

Huge space where there's no explanation !!

huh, he was not allowed to release the numbers so no othber fan got to see them....so that sounds like a huge whole in your theory

 

[Russian Fan]

huh, he was not allowed to release the numbers so no othber fan got to see them....so that sounds like a huge whole in your theory

No one talk about it explicitely. They just said they saw the books & there was some flaws in the books. It was on the LAKingsfan board or something like it.

Why would I need to lie about this ???????? I'm not a player to defend myself.

 

[I in the Eye]

No one talk about it explicitely. They just said they saw the books & there was some flaws in the books. It was on the LAKingsfan board or something like it.

Maybe they did see the books - and saw flaws with the cover, spine, and inside flap... I don't think they'd be granted permission to read them though... But this is just an opinion, given my knowledge of how precious, personal, and confidential financial statements are to private companies...

I don't even share mine with my wife or mother

 

[struckmatch]

The difficulty here is obviously the players lack of trust in the owners numbers, however it's also a matter of what revenue loss is caused by a CBA issue, and what is just a market issue.

The CBA has nothing to do with a lack of attendance in Carolina, thats a market problem. Thats Gary Bettman hoping that wider expansion would bring more television contracts, and television revenue. However, that plan backfired, and consequentially has now lead to a situation in which its complicated to differentiate what is a CBA revenue loss, and what is a market revenue loss.

I think if the owners want the Players to give up some of their salaries, which the owners boneheadedly gave to them(which I think are inflated without a doubt), the owners should look at themselves, and first think about sharing their own revenues, and their own earnings, if they see the league is in such financial turmoil. If they can ask the players to share their revenues with the owners, and give up their earnings, then the players have the right to propose a revenue sharing system, where the teams that make a lot of profit could help support the Hurricanes, Oilers, and Panthers, so these teams can also sign and acquire players that are making a decent amount of money

We can all see now that the NYR system doesn't work, where signing big UFA's does not win you a championship. See Maple Leafs, Rangers, and Red Wings the past few years. Although when the Red Wings were winning championships, they were winning it with guys they had either drafted, developed, or both - Lidstrom, Yzerman, Fedorov. Those were the core guys for them same with the Devils, Brodeur, Stevens, Niedermayer. All core guys that they either drafted, or developed from a younger age.

This whole notion that the Vancouver's, and the Edmonton's, and the Buffalo's of the world can't sign big UFA's to help them win championships is bogus, because it hasn't worked in recent years, now if teams want success they must draft well, and develop their own players. I can't say I can choose a side on this, I think both sides have some valid points, however I see this as a chink in the NHLPA's armor.

 

[Gary]

But that hasn't been the theme here at all. Its just a conspiracy that the NHLPA is throwing around. Its naive to think there isn't a correlation between bad management and high salaires IMO. I'm certainly not a business major or pretend to understand everything, but common sense suggests to me that the majority of teams losing money is because of higher salaries, not mis-management from non CBA issues.

Agree 100%...There's very much a dominoe effect with lower market teams. The NHPLA talks about mis-managment. LMAO...If a team is on a SEVERELY resticted budget, then they can't afford top-name players, If they can't afford top-name players then they won't sell out buildings, If buildings are'nt sold out-they lose $$. The NHLPA must surely realize that mis-management and budget go hand in hand...

 

[thinkwild]

Pittsburgh and NYI would seem to be arena revenue problems not CBA problems. NYR, St.L, Wash, surely you're not suggesting their losses are CBA related?

Even if the players completely trusted the owners revenue numbers, would they agree to a cap?

Players under 31 dont have the leverage to negotiate their market value. Even arbitration wont give them market value. Yet all these players paid less than market value are causing the owners to spiral out of control? Boy do they need a reset


I love how the media will pounce on everything like Maddens comments hoping to drive a wedge in one side. It would probably be easier to boycott the owners other businesses to end the strike than hope to break the players.

What business products of Jeremy Jacobs other businesses can hockey fans boycott. Is there one of their companies we can target as hockey fans to bring them to agreement faster. Of course those thinking the owners need the cap rather than just want it, will find that hard to do .

 

[ehc73]

Didn't Bobby Clarke say something like the revenue the Flyers pull in allow him to have a $60+ M payroll? Which sorta counters the whole united front thing Bettman is trying to project.
Difference is that the NHL can fine the owners for not keeping their mouths shut, while the NHLPA doesn't fine its players for disagreeing.

 

[me2]

Again, do you really think in 1 year everything will be solve ?

No, salaries will need to be phased in/down. Unfortunately I see nothing in the NHLPA suggestions beyond the 5% salary cut. Its designed to be one off. If the players come back with a 5 year, 5% per year offer I'd reconsider.

There is no deflationary aspect
no reduction in qualifiers (75% qualifier would be good)
no owner initiated arbitration.

 

[me2]

I'm thinking of it from both sides. The players salary in 1990 was bit over 270K, in 2003 it's 1.8M so in 13-14 years the players salary jumped 700%.

The players were screwed over back then. 270K back then was probably worth about 500-550K of todays money.

Assume the owners were being unfair and keeping player salaries at 1/2 what they should have been back them. So double their 1991 salary to $540K. Allow for inflation (2x) which gives us about $1.08m in todays money. To me, that is about where avg salary should be, $1.3m offered by the NHL is relatively generous, the $1.8m seems way out of whack. $1.3m is offering the players more than twice what they made relative to 1991, thats not bad. I wish my boss would quadruple my salary every 13 years.

 

[me2]

Didn't Bobby Clarke say something like the revenue the Flyers pull in allow him to have a $60+ M payroll? Which sorta counters the whole united front thing Bettman is trying to project.
Difference is that the NHL can fine the owners for not keeping their mouths shut, while the NHLPA doesn't fine its players for disagreeing.

They have peer group pressure to do it for them.

 

[ratsgirl]

Didn't Steve Thomas re-issue a statement after saying almost the same thing about salary caps in the NBA & NFL? I bet Madden comes out saying he was misquoted or misinterpretted real soon!!

and right you are, of course:

Madden found himself in a sticky situation Thursday because he was quoted as saying he would consider accepting a salary cap, which the players have stated repeatedly is unacceptable to them. Madden said his words were taken out of context.

"I was asked if my union decided to go along with a cap, would I accept that and I said, yeah, I'd go along with my union," Madden said. "[The union] obviously has our best interest in mind. That's all I said."

When asked if he could envision the union caving in and accepting a cap, Madden replied, "No, not at all."

http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr...lRUV5eTY1ODYzMjcmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2

 

[Chili]

and right you are, of course:

Madden found himself in a sticky situation Thursday because he was quoted as saying he would consider accepting a salary cap, which the players have stated repeatedly is unacceptable to them. Madden said his words were taken out of context.

"I was asked if my union decided to go along with a cap, would I accept that and I said, yeah, I'd go along with my union," Madden said. "[The union] obviously has our best interest in mind. That's all I said."

When asked if he could envision the union caving in and accepting a cap, Madden replied, "No, not at all."

Interesting but not unexpected.

Madden had also made some interesting comments earlier in the week (link)

"I'm surprised we haven't worked anything out yet," Madden said before teeing off in a charity golf event sponsored by the Devils' alumni at the Ballyowen Golf Club.

"You would think with five years of talking, supposedly, and we have nothing, what's going to happen?" Madden said, shaking his head. "I think we might have to shut down the league and start over again. Who knows?"

"My stand is, we have to make the game right, regardless of whose numbers are right," Madden said. "Someone's numbers have to be right. There has to be a meeting of both sides coming together a little bit. I just think it's important to get the season started for the fan base."

"My stand is, we have to make the game right, regardless of whose numbers are right,"

 

[ti-vite]

Again, do you really think in 1 year everything will be solve ?

the PA offer 160M$ saving that 2/3 of the problems RIGHT NOW !!!

Can we suppose that
1) Owners will try to decrease salary like they ALREADY DID the last 2 summer.

With the ACTUAL CBA the owners by THEMSELVES did go from 273M$ to 224M$ that 18% better than 1 year ago in the actual CBA

2) Owners will adress their issues regarding MARKETS in trouble

3) Will owners be that stupid to re-do a 9M$ to Holik ?

4) Rookie for 3 years got 1,2M$ even if he scored 41 GOALS !!! Can we say , the OWNER got more his money that what he was suppose to get ? What's wrong on a 41 goals player to get 4-5M$ for 3-4 years after his rookie contract ?

So you're saying it's ok for an owner to exploit an underpaid rookie @ 1,2M$ who score 41 GOALS but it's not okay for a player to ask for 4-5M$ on a long term after he done that ?

Again stop thinking only as a fan & think as if you were on both sides.

1) wrong. Salaries have still increased by 2-3% the last two years. Not down. Still up. Check your numbers.

2) Yes

3) Yes.. Chris Pronger.

4) Rookie signs for 1.24M$ for 3 years gets 10 goals and gets a guarateed minimum increase of 10% if team want to keep him.
Secondly, with easily attainable performance bonuses, Thorton, Kovalchuk, Zherdev, Ruutu, are all making 3-4 million on their first years. EASILY. Fleury for Pittsburg needed to only play a certrain amount of games to clinch 3M$ of bonuses despite a 1.24M$ base salary. After signing him, Patrick outwardly said he felt stupid for having agreed to those bonuses. I'm suprised youre not aware of this!

 

[degroat*]

3) Yes.. Chris Pronger.

Did you really just compare giving $10M to the best defenseman in the league to giving a 3rd liner $9M? :lol

 

[Russian Fan]

1) wrong. Salaries have still increased by 2-3% the last two years. Not down. Still up. Check your numbers.

Again if the increase was 10% & this year 2-3% can we say -7% compare to last year ?

Also REVENUE did go up also ? You want the revenues to go up but salaries should never increase ?

Everyone is talking about how the average salary did go from 700K to 1,8M$ in 10 years but no one is talking that revenues did go up from 600M$ to 2G$ in 10 years also. Can you call them hypocrites ? The problem is that the management in place spend like governments in the 70's-80's where Revenues increase but Government spend even more than the revenues.

2) Yes

So where's the CBA related ????

3) Yes.. Chris Pronger.

Like someone said, Pronger & Holik ? Not the same caliber. I don't have any problem for the Lidstrom, Pronger, Forsberg of this world getting 10M$.

4) Rookie signs for 1.24M$ for 3 years gets 10 goals and gets a guarateed minimum increase of 10% if team want to keep him.
Secondly, with easily attainable performance bonuses, Thorton, Kovalchuk, Zherdev, Ruutu, are all making 3-4 million on their first years. EASILY. Fleury for Pittsburg needed to only play a certrain amount of games to clinch 3M$ of bonuses despite a 1.24M$ base salary. After signing him, Patrick outwardly said he felt stupid for having agreed to those bonuses. I'm suprised youre not aware of this!

Already been adressed in the proposal by the NHLPA so stop talking about it. It will be fix ! The problem I have is that everyone think someone being overpaid is WRONG but a player being underpaid is OK. There are as many case of players being underpaid as players being overpaid. Somewhere it gets even.

Again stop being the judge of what FOR YOU as a fan a player is worth.

 

[EJsens1]

Already been adressed in the proposal by the NHLPA so stop talking about it. It will be fix ! The problem I have is that everyone think someone being overpaid is WRONG but a player being underpaid is OK. There are as many case of players being underpaid as players being overpaid. Somewhere it gets even.

Does it??? I see your point, but many players who perform and are 'underpaid' are doing so during a contract that both parties agreed to. Should the owner rip up that contract and sign the player to a new one because he is better then what the market says he should be paid (ie. Rick Nash)??? We know the player would never ask for a paycut because he felt he didn't play well enough the previous season. For every Rick Nash's, there about 3 John Leclairs (I mean just overpaid, not grossly overpaid for like 9 million or so)