NFL Commish weighs in - says the Cap works..

[Blueski]

I agree with this. I am a die hard 49ers fan and let me tell you, this NFL season sucked very bad for me. The 49ers are still 4 years away from being a playoff team, never mind a SB contender.

Sorry, the 49'ers didn't suck because of the cap...they sucked because their players suck

 

[CarlRacki]

.. Yes, the NFL caps work -- to the point that the league could be labeled ``government'', but not even government works so well.

One thing the cap has done in the NFL--churned rosters more rapidly than ever, with clubs constantly bringing in new, cheaper ``parts'' at the bottom of the roster when their second- and third-tier players get too pricey (witness: Lawyer Milloy, ex- of New England).

All of that is fine (not sure Milloy would agree), but it has put increasing emphasis and important on asst. coaches. They have to craft the raw material faster, and keep the roster churning.
Now, have you noticed the incredible spike in salaries for those NFL assts. and coordinators? Through the roof.
So what is a league to do? Watch. In very short order (12-24 months, maybe sooner), the league will cap salaries on coaches, too. It not only will save the owners money, but it also will stop the continual raid on coaching talent.

Now, if only the NHL had these worries, right. Meanwhile, about 85 percent of NHL coaches only know how to do one thing: turn their players into trappist wonks!

hoh/kpd

You make some good points, but it's hard to say that roster churning is an issue exclusive to the NFL. The Flyers last year, for example, had eight players on their roster at the end of the season who weren't there when the season opened. That's a 1/3 turnover during a season. Other teams like the Rangers, Capitols and Blackhawks saw a significant amount of roster turnover as well.

Something else to keep in mind is that much of the turnover in the NFL is made possible by non-guaranteed contracts. This won't be an issue in the NHL. Teams won't be allowed to just cut guys under contract to make room for younger, cheaper players.

 

[txomisc]

Wrong. NFL + multibillion dollar TV contract = successful. NHL + $0 TV contract = supposedly unsuccessful.

If you're under the impression that with a salary cap the NHL will suddently turn into the NFL, you're sorely mistaken.

Absent a cap, the NFL would still be "successful." With a cap, the NHL may or may not be more successful than the league is now.

Not to mention the difficulty in defining "successful."

Hmm, you would think that its only logical to assume that less revenues would mean theres more need for a cap.

 

[Jobu]

Hmm, you would think that its only logical to assume that less revenues would mean theres more need for a cap.

I never said that at all. I said that to justify the financial success of the NFL based solely on a cap, and to use that reasoning as a basis for calling for a cap in the NHL, which it appears you are doing, is ludicrous.

It might make some sense if the NFL and the NHL had same/similar revenues, attendance figures, and television contracts (not to mention other material terms of their respective CBAs). But they don't.

 

[Ar-too]

If you're under the impression that with a salary cap the NHL will suddently turn into the NFL, you're sorely mistaken.

The NFL has gotten substantially more popular since the salary cap came into being.

I'm under no impression that a salary cap will make the NHL as successful as the NFL. The NFL was pretty healthy when the salary cap was implemented. The NHL doesn't have that benefit. A salary cap is a start at this stage. That, or cutting the league down to 20-24 teams. As a Blue Jackets fan, you can understand my hesitance when it comes to that option.

A cap exists to guarantee profitablity to the owners regardless of performance - it has nothing to do with parity despite Bettman's propaganda as supported by his NFL counterpart.

I don't buy it. It certainly protects the owners from themselves, but its primary role is parity - in tandem with substantial revenue sharing. Good owners still make more than bad. I doubt the Bengals turned as big a profit as say the Eagles or Patriots this year, for instance. They don't share all of the sales of apparel for instance. I doubt the Bengals sold as many Chad Johnson jerseys as the Eagles did Terrell Owens jerseys...

 

[Jobu]

The NFL has gotten substantially more popular since the salary cap came into being.

I'm under no impression that a salary cap will make the NHL as successful as the NFL. The NFL was pretty healthy when the salary cap was implemented. The NHL doesn't have that benefit. A salary cap is a start at this stage. That, or cutting the league down to 20-24 teams. As a Blue Jackets fan, you can understand my hesitance when it comes to that option.



I don't buy it. It certainly protects the owners from themselves, but its primary role is parity - in tandem with substantial revenue sharing. Good owners still make more than bad. I doubt the Bengals turned as big a profit as say the Eagles or Patriots this year, for instance. They don't share all of the sales of apparel for instance. I doubt the Bengals sold as many Chad Johnson jerseys as the Eagles did Terrell Owens jerseys...

If parity was the issue, and substantial revenue sharing is a prerequisite for parity, why has the NHL been so reluctant to accept the idea of subsantial revenue sharing?

Could it be that parity is a red herring?

 

[CarlRacki]

And there are numerous sports economists, labour law experts and others who disagree with him - including the head of the NFLPA, Gene Upshaw who has stated the NFLPA is not prepared to extend the salry cap with out significant modification.

A cap exists to guarantee profitablity to the owners regardless of performance - it has nothing to do with parity despite Bettman's propaganda as supported by his NFL counterpart.

Everyone agrees a salary cap will increase profitability. Teams will make more money because the amount teams can spend on player salaries will be limited to a set amount. That may sound fine and dandy on the surface, but some argue there are underlying costs.

"Things need to be done to permit well run teams to make money. The problem is the salary cap guarantees all teams, well run and poorly run . . . will make money," Stephen Ross, an Illinois University law professor told the Canadian Press. "Yes, it does protect owners in advance from making really stupid decisions.

"But what it also protects the owners against is an owner who could spend wisely on a new free agent who will put his team over the top. If a team has not been a contender recently, and they can spend more money to make more money, there should be no limit on their ability to do so."

Ross, as I've illustrated previously, is dead wrong. According to his statement here, the Eagles couldn't have signed Jevon Kearse, Dhani Jones and Jeremiah Trotter or traded for Terrell Owens. San Diego couldn't have added two starting offeinsive lineman and two starting linebackers. The Panthers couldn't have added Stephen Davis last year to help put them in the Super Bowl

As for Upshaw, you're not being completely honest about what he wants. He doesn't want changes in the cap system, he wants changes in how the DGR is calculated so that players get a share of money to which they are not entitled currently, such as luxury suites, concessions, local sponsorships, etc. Upshaw, in fact, has said he's not looking to "killed the golden goose" by doing away with the cap system.

 

[shnagle]

Here is a link to a great article about the importance of revenue sharing in the NFL salary cap world:
http://www.washtimes.com/sports/20040329-112900-8765r.htm
This is my favorite quote and pretty much sums up the problem the NHL is facing trying to force a salary cap on the players without meaningful revenue sharing:

"It's imperative that we continue to share revenue," Modell said. "[Snyder and Jones] will never do as well on their own as they do as part of our league package. Every team is only as strong as its fellow teams. What do you think the problem is in baseball, basketball and hockey?"

The problem the NHL faces is not just one of cost certainty but of revenue disparity. IMO The league proposal does not address this issue strongly enough. The fact that all the owners in the NFL were able to realize that the league is more important than each individual franchise and were willing to make that financial committment is what allowed the players to accept the NFL cap. I think if the league were able to show that kind of sharing than the players would be much more accepting of a cap. IMO as the league's proposal currently stands players feel that they are bearing the brunt of the costs to keep the weaker franchises afloat. When Bill Guerin was asked why players don't want to enter into the partnership with owners that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has long proposed as the system that will grow the game, Guerin replied: "They have to be partners with themselves first. They can't even be partners with themselves. They don't want to share revenues."

Along these lines I fully realize that the NHL does not have the TV contract that the NFL has and that is a major problem. But ask yourself this question. Would the leeague be in better shape with 10 teams with revenues at 90mil, 70 mil, 50 mil respectively or 10 teams with 80 mil, 70mil 60 mil?

 

[CarlRacki]

Here is a link to a great article about the importance of revenue sharing in the NFL salary cap world:
http://www.washtimes.com/sports/20040329-112900-8765r.htm
This is my favorite quote and pretty much sums up the problem the NHL is facing trying to force a salary cap on the players without meaningful revenue sharing:

"It's imperative that we continue to share revenue," Modell said. "[Snyder and Jones] will never do as well on their own as they do as part of our league package. Every team is only as strong as its fellow teams. What do you think the problem is in baseball, basketball and hockey?"

I don't dispute the importance of revenue sharing, but revenue sharing in itself doesn't solve the problem. Unless there's 100 percent revenue sharing, which is not going to happen.

Even with substantial revenue sharing, as in the NFL, some teams will make more money than others. Without some kind of leveling mechanism for payrolls - be it a cap or stiff tax - those teams can and will use their economic advantage to outbid other teams for top players. This is why the NFL, after a couple decades of revenue sharing, decided it needed a cap. Ditto for the NBA.

 

[Old Hickory]

I agree with this. I am a die hard 49ers fan and let me tell you, this NFL season sucked very bad for me. The 49ers are still 4 years away from being a playoff team, never mind a SB contender.

I am also a 49er fan. There problems are all from horrible mgnt(I.e. York). For years the 49'ers were the model NFL franchise under a cap.

The Patriots are on the verge of being a dynasty under the cap and the Eagles have been a great team for years remaining millions under the cap

 

[Trottier]

Depends how you define parity. If you define it by more teams making the playoffs, and making them more often, the NFL has a clear edge. If you define it soley by the number of different teams in the final game/series, then a small edge goes to the NHL.

EXACTLY!

And you provide here a clear case for both definitions. What is somewhat disingenuous is when pro-hardcappers REFUSE to acknowledge that there are alternative terms for determining parity.

It would be intellectually dishonest for your's truly to ignore the Patriots' ability to maintain continued excellence in the hardcap NFL. That certainly blows a hole in the concept that good NFL teams are regularly destroyed by the cap. (Though, to be sure, there are examples to bolster that claim.)

Likewise, however, it is intellectually dishonest to pass off every team not named NJ, Colorado and Detroit who plays into June as a "fluke," "cinderella," or the most pathetic (ignorant) term, "lucky"....while ignoring the continually lesser accomplishments of bigger spenders, i.e., St. Louis, NYR, Toronto, Philly.

Some of these same folks are equally hypocritical in that they applaud the ability of "any" NFL teams to compete for a Super Bowl birth on a year-to-year basis, yet characterize the sudden, unexpected SCF appearance of a Carolina, Anaheim, Buffalo, Calgary, etc. in negative (derisive) terms.

A hardcap may very well be needed (and ultimately implemented) to address very real economic hurdles facing the NHL. However, the "competition/parity problem" is a false pretense, IMO. The lament of fans of perennial non-contenders, simply looking for a quick fix for their team, the rest of the NHL be damned.

 

[kerrly]

Wrong. NFL + multibillion dollar TV contract = successful. NHL + $0 TV contract = supposedly unsuccessful.

If you're under the impression that with a salary cap the NHL will suddently turn into the NFL, you're sorely mistaken.

Absent a cap, the NFL would still be "successful." With a cap, the NHL may or may not be more successful than the league is now.

Not to mention the difficulty in defining "successful."

NHL + current system - no tv contract = disaster.

 

[kerrly]

Wouldn't everyone lose under a salary cap system if the going-rate for Kaspar was $2m but he signed for $4m? Or Holik was "worth" $2m but signed for $5m?

Don't kid yourself - just because there is a cap doesn't prevent poor signings that may have the effect of rippling through the league, especially in the context of UFAs. It may just happen on a less perceptible scale.

There is much less room to make dumb signings under a cap. If someone signs Holik for 5 million, they have to suffer the consequences for having that much cap room tied up in a nobody. Say an RFA is worth 2.2 million and he ends up signing, for 4.3 million. Another player uses him as a comparable and gets awardeda similar amount. They can sign him, and be punished by not being able to go over the cap with wild spending to cover up there mistakes, or they can let him go, and he becomes a UFA, getting much less on the open market, because teams only have so much cap room. Bottom line, teams are only allowed to spend so much, and this will keep salaries down itself. If a team wants to sign a Holik for 5 million, let them, they are the only team that will suffer from it.

 

[MmmBacon]

I can't believe someone decided to make this a thread topic.

In other news: "McDonald's weighs in – hamburgers are delicious."

 

[Jobu]

I can't believe someone decided to make this a thread topic.

In other news: "McDonald's weighs in – hamburgers are delicious."

 

[spartyinmd]

It seems that the NFLPA isn't happy with a cap either

NFL Labor Problems

Upshaw repeated on Thursday his threat that, if the salary cap ever disappears for even one season, the league will never be able to restore it.

 

[CarlRacki]

It seems that the NFLPA isn't happy with a cap either

NFL Labor Problems

Did you read the story or just one sentence? Upshaw has always said the players are fine with the cap, but they want to the DGR to be expanded to include revenues to which the players are not entitled currently. That's a big difference from what you're implying here.

 

[thinkwild]

Well they reason they are threatening the loss of the cap, is because the amount of revenues included in the defined revenues calculation has dropped from 70% to 63%. So first of all we note that they share only 70% of the total revenues. And second we note that somehow the owners have increased the revenues that arent included in the calculation of defined revenue while reducing the revenue included in it. Even though its audited.

Its also an interesting statement, that once the cap is gone, the owners will never get it back. In other words, they would be doing the same thing as the NHL players if they didnt have a cap.

One other interesting statement in that article was that the NFL is attempting to negotiate a new Thursday and Saturday night tv timeslot. Saturday night? I wonder what Bettman thinks of that. But, if the NFL can establish the Saturday night tv time slot, perhaps it helps hockey in America capitalize on it during NFL off-season.