Sorry, you still are missing the point. Consistently - means over time, not just a single year - you never qualified your statement. The Canes are a winning team with a successful on-ice product.
Furthermore, this has little to do with "cost certainty" which was the real point to the CBA.
In the new CBA, no one will be able to keep a core together
consistently. Under the old CBA, a team that built success and decided to spend to keep its core together had that choice (Colorado is not a big market team, for example). Furthermore all those big money signings came for depreciating assets (31+ set). You still only view evidence that supports your statements, none that dispute it. If money offered such a huge advantage, why did most of the big spenders have no Cups to show for it?
Sorry but usually I can spot someone who holds advanced degrees in business (as do I) because they apply fundamental economics and marketing principles on their own, instead waiting for another poster to pick their posts apart. You were playing fast and loose with the numbers, and extrapolating to positions that could not be supported by the all the data- just some very carefully selected data.
Yeah, I know the Euro has risen a lot in the past few years, but $16 MM to me is still a heck of a lot of money. If I can sign 3 Daniel Briere's when the next guy can't... I have an advantage. If you want to say that it is small compared to the previous situation, that situation- per your own admission - affected less than 1/3 of all teams, most of whom never won anything
Without revenue sharing, Nashville and a handful of other teams will still be borderline healthy financially when the cap is at $44 MM, or even higher as some expect it could get to $50 MM. Please recall that a team was placed in Nashville and that expansion was undertaken to aid in getting a national TV contract. When that did not happen, serious flaws to the plan were exposed-- meaning that there was plenty of money in the NHL, but unfortunately it was concentrated in fewer than 30 places.
However.... the most important point here is this. Let's say you are right. Nashville has a great deal of success and somehow manages to live happily with a $44 MM cap. What happens when it is their turn to cycle down? (or the other teams that can't spend because they are rebuilding?) I don't think the revenue redistribution at 100% levels will be possible if they are in decline, further hurting their financial health. Under this CBA they have to spend at a minimum $10 MM+ more than they were spending before. I know you will say that is not a lot of money, but again to us Americans who don't have Euros to throw around, I still believe EVEN $10 MM is a lot of money. Do you get it now? The cap is a bit too high for weak teams over the long haul?
So you are saying that the incredibly high player costs pre-lockout did not contribute at all to what had been perceived as "high" ticket prices around the league?
I wonder who ever said that they did?
Yet you did say that the cap would be one factor that reduced the pressure on teams to raise ticket prices. Can you decide which it is?
I understand that you are in Europe and will assume you have to translate some economics terms-- which may not always capture subtle distinctions.
Purchasing Power and Purchasing Power Parity are two separate things (and you probably know this as I write it out). For example, in 1970 an "average income" worker could buy a new, family-size automobile with 2 monthh's wages, usually paid in cash. Today that same type of sedan costs $35,000 or more, while the average income is now $46,326. The dollar does not go as far. The best example of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is The Economist's Big Mac Index. You perhaps would pay more for a Big Mac (if you decided to buy one) than I would pay for one here. That means that the US PPP relative to other countries is better as it takes less money to buy a similar basket of required goods. (Note: I have not seen this index for the last year so I do not know what is actually shown.)
If salaries can stay ahead of inflation, as you know, the erosion to Purchasing Power is not as great. The fear in the US has been that overly low interest rates and the growth in GDP did produce inflation at a higher rate than has been reported. Heck, we've seen fuel prices go up 50-100% in the last few years. Health care costs always outpace the inflation rate. The economy was at a precipitous point however if you raised interest rates, it would all come crashing down quite quickly. If you kept them too low, you risked super inflationary rates. GDP has slowed from the late 1990's, the US has lost more jobs than it has been able to create in the last few years, and income growth has stalled. Meanwhile our budget deficit is at a catastrophic level, and our trade imbalance with countries like China is ballooning. It is wealth transfer, pure and simple. The exchange rates reflect this as well.
Here is a link to
US Income data, the latest release showing that real median income rose for the first time since 1999, by 1.1%. I don't know what the decreases were in the 1999-2004 period.
--Sorry for the economics diversion--
