Despite the "boy are you ever a moron" posts being tossed at the pro-player side, nobody can explain how this escrow account is supposed to work, or how its not going to screw over the small market teams it was supposed to save.
Lets take everybody's favorite example, Pittsburgh. Hypothetically, lets say they can afford $27 million, before they lose money. So they sign 23 players and have a payroll of $27 million. They break even.
But...
55% linkage says they have to pay $32 million. But who gets the money? The 23 players all signed by the Pens all have legitimate contracts, totalling $27 million. How will this be divided up? More importantly, where will the money come from? If, hypothetically, Colorado has spent $32 million already, should they contribute more? Should they have to pay more than 55% of revenue? Everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others? Or do they say "screw you, we've met our requirements."
The Pens are $5 million short, which if they draw from their own pocket, will mean they will still be losing money. Revenue sharing? Ignore for a moment that it will mean some teams will be paying more than 55%, what about all these rumours that say the league revenue sharing plans will diminish and disappear by Year 6 of the agreement? What happens to the Pens then?
"Don't worry about it!!! Not the player's concern!!! The owners will find a way to cover the costs, and the players will get their money!!! Moron!"
The reason NFL-style linkage works is because all money is goes into a pool, and is then divided up equally amongst all teams (and if you do a google search on NFL revenue, you'll see that this is quite the contentious issue amongst NFL owners and players too). Even though the Arizona Cardinals have a MUCH, MUCH smaller revenue stream then say, the Washington Redskins, the Cardinals get the same amount of money as the 'Skins do. Can anybody see NHL owners doing that?
Or is more likely that they'll simply "hide" revenues?