nyr7andcounting said:
But you can only expect the players to agree to a certain extent. After that, it's up to the owners to work with each other in order to make it work.
In the real world no. In the sports world yes. Ford sells it's product no matter what happens to GM, and if GM goes out of business Ford sells even more. However sports are totally different. Sports are based on competing against another team, therefor the most profitable system in sports is one that has the highest amount of competative teams possible. The financial health of a league is measure by it's overall financial condition, not the condition of the top one or two teams. This is consistent with the reasons for the NHL lockout and the owners justification for it. They claim a league is only as good as it's weakest team.
With that said, yes the Ford's of the NHL should share revenues with the GM's of the NHL in order to sustain as many competative franchises as possible, which will increase revenues leaguewide. If you want to compare this to sports, than you have to imagine that Ford and GM only make money by producing a product and putting it in showrooms to see who's product is better. So let's say Ford has double the revenues because they have a better product. Now if GM went out of business, Ford wouldn't make any money would they? It would be in Ford's best interest as well as GM's for Ford to share their revenues.
No of course not, but what it will do is spread the losses out so that no group of owners are suffering so much. With current revenues and salaries leaguewide losses would remain the same, but losses for each owner would decrease.
This will also deflate salaries leaguewide, because the highest spenders who are taking in the most revenues are now giving some of it away and their payrolls will decrease because of it. Or at least they should. From there on it's up to the owners to increase their revenues to a profitable level...opening up the game and taking the 24% rollback is definetly a good start.
Unfortunetly that's part of sustaining the 30 teams that are in the NHL right now. I am a fan of a team that brings in a lot of revenues, but if they have to share some of it in order to keep the league they play in healthy than so be it. The thing is the alternative for Toronto is to keep all their revenues and have teams folding and going out of business because they aren't bringing enough money in. Eventually that hurts the Leafs product as well.
Besides, haven't the shareholders and fans of a team like Toronto already taken a hit for the rest of the league? They made plenty of money last year yet they had their season cancelled because that's what was best for the league as a whole. They've had to suffer through his year with no hockey and no profit in order to help the rest of the league get what they need. Revenue sharing is no different. It's unfortunate, but it's necessary.
Theoretically, would it not be better for Toronto, Philadelphia, NYR, Vancouver, Detroit, and Colorado if some teams were to fold, thus increasing the talent pool? The lowest attendance figures are going to be when Nashville comes to town anyways.
What is Toronto's incentive to see a 30-team league, and therefore what is the incentive to share revenues? They thrived in a six-team league before, and would again as well.
The CBA is being pushed by teams that are struggling, and right now it's one team, one vote.
The Torontos, on the other hand, aren't making it easier, because they aren't going to get into revenue sharing unless forced to.
And as for the shareholders and the difference between sports and business - it is just business, just higher-profile. The owners have a right to lock out its employees in order to survive in the long run. They have the right to be greedy, if that by definition means not losing money on their investment every year or making more after inflation than they'd get buying a risk-free T-Bill.
SUBWAY has individually-owned franchises, and their employees are able to work at SUBWAY at the wages offered or go over to Quizno's. That's a free market.
The players are free to play in Europe, either right now, or during an individual contract dispute, or as a lifestyle choice. They will always make some money.
But if they wish to play in a league in which the owners have fronted the capital to create a structure in which the players can play for the largest amount of fans generating the most amount of revenue for the highest average salary, then they have to agree on a CBA that makes sense to the owners this time.
They have already reaped huge rewards from 1995, and will continue to do so with a low-to-mid 40s cap.
The days of large average salary increases year over year are now over, but having reached this plateau, they have done very well for themselves and stand to make a comfortable living while in the NHL.