one example why the players dont TRUST

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mr gib

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djhn579 said:
I'm looking for something that will stand up in a court of law, not hear say, and not something that is over 25 years old...

I've seen people compare Forbes' numbers to Levitt's numbers, even though Levitt saw the books and Forbes' numbers are compiled from public information, not from the actual books. It would be impossible for these numbers to match up, so this is not proof either.

If someone has better information on where Forbes get's their numbers, please correct me. Everything I have seen on their site makes me believe that they just research information available in the public domain (articles, financial statements from public companies...).
if the players can't get - good luck to ya - the reference to ballard was merely an example to illustrate the history of mis-trust -
 

djhn579

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mr gib said:
if the players can't get - good luck to ya - the reference to ballard was merely an example to illustrate the history of mis-trust -

And that is part of the problem. They are eventually going to have to trust one another...
 

SuperUnknown

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Newsguyone said:
As it did, the last time the NHLPA got a look at the books of a few teams and caught tens of millions in hidden revenue.
As it would today if the league would open its books, which it will not.

One reason is this: Some owners WANT to lose money.
They make so much money elsewhere that they need to balance it for tax purposes.

The NHLPA is only looking at books to critize them. The hidden revenue they "caught" is that they don't agree with general accounting principles (ie: they want other shows revenue at the rink to count in "hockey revenue" and so on). I doubt the NHLPA would want an accountant to audit the NHL for fear that he'd find all the accounting principles used as decent enough and revenues being split accordingly.

Also, as for losing money, I don't see the big deal about "balancing" for tax purposes. There is so many other things they can do. Also enterprise and personal revenues don't mix. In other words, if the Ottawa Senators make a loss, Melnyk cannot directly affect his own revenues, which is probably what he would balance. Spending more money to make a loss is stupid, as you'll spend more money than the tax you save.
 
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I in the Eye

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mr gib said:
union dues - there was a check floating around the internet about 5 years ago - sandis whats his face - every two weeks the players have a deduction on their checks that goes to the pa - he was making about 65 k each pay period - the dues if i can remember were around 2400 bux - so its a percentage - i also saw a jose canseco check - he made about 100 k - the dues were taken off that check too - tom you are so right - all the union wants is to work this out - bettman won't move -

I wonder if it's a fixed percentage of each player's earnings (i.e. a fixed % of player 'revenue') or a 'free market' negotiated percentage between the individual player and the NHLPA... hmm...
 

mr gib

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I in the Eye said:
I wonder if it's a fixed percentage of each player's earnings (i.e. a fixed % of player 'revenue') or a 'free market' negotiated percentage between the individual player and the NHLPA... hmm...
i hazard to guess its a fixed percentage - the more a guy makes the more he pays -
 

I in the Eye

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mr gib said:
i hazard to guess its a fixed percentage - the more a guy makes the more he pays -

Shades of hypocracy (from an NHLPA POV)... do you think?

Why should what the NHLPA has the ability to earn be restricted?
 

Tom_Benjamin

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djhn579 said:
Do you have proof that these teams are hiding money? If so could you post it so the rest of us can see the facts?

Nobody claims the teams are hiding money. It is about how much GM Place should charge for rent to the Canucks. It is about how much of the $25 million that went to Orca Bay to name the rink "GM Place" was generated by the players. It is about how much of the BC Lottery money should go to the rink. It is about the number of hot dogs and programs that are sold at the games.

The players think John McCaw should look at the revenues of Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment and, based on that, decide how much he can afford to pay to players. The owners want a negotiated formula that arbitrarily splits out the revenues of the hockey team from the larger entity and then pegs player payrolls to the arbitrary result.

That simply can't be in the player's best interests. Every team has a different arena deal, every team has a different deal around concessions, parking, advertising and broadcasting. Every team has a different deal with the community. Every team defines revenues differently. Every team should define revenues differently. Creating a "correct" or "fair" formula simply can't be done because there is no such thing.

If the players and the owners are ever going to be "partners", there will have to be some agreement on what is and is not hockey revenue.

True. The players have decided they don't want to be partners. What's wrong with that? They want to be employees. Employees don't negotiate a definition of revenues. The employer defines them. Employees don't negotiate a share of revenues. They negotiate a pay package, or in the case of the NHL, a framework within which individuals negotiate a pay package.

Revenues and the share of revenues allocated to employee wages is not the business of the worker or the worker's union.

This agreement can also include limits on what is shared between these other businesses.

How do you define those limits? Imagine you are Bob Goodenow. A luxury box in Vancouver costs, say, $150,000. The same box in LA costs $250,000, but there are many more events in LA and two teams. In Los Angeles they might sell all the boxes even if the Kings did not exist. A reasonable person might decide 0% of that money is hockey revenue. In Vancouver they would sell zero boxes without the Canucks. A reasonable person might designate 100% of that revenue as hockey revenue. There are 28 other arrangements across the league.

How much of the luxury box revenue across the league should be designated as hockey revenues? What is a fair formula? How on earth does Goodenow - or anybody else - figure that out?

Give Bob a step by step plan to negotiate for the players a fair share of the luxury box money that is generated across the NHL.

The players choose not to come to any agreement because once they do, they will no longer have a strong case when they claim the owners are lying to them and hiding revenue.

This is not the reason the players do not choose to do this. As I said, it is not about hiding revenue. It is about allocating revenue. The players choose not to come to an agreement over revenues because it is impossible to define a single revenue standard for 30 complicated and dynamic businesses and because it is not necessary to agree about revenues. Revenues are none of the employee's business.

Tom
 

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I in the Eye said:
Shades of hypocracy (from an NHLPA POV)... do you think?

Why should what the NHLPA has the ability to earn be restricted?

u really are splitting hairs. i know where you are going though, but the two cant be compared.

dr
 

Sotnos

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mr gib said:
its so frustrating - in canada fans flip over salaries - in america when tiger woods made - 100 mil in 02 and 71 mil in 03 - shaq 30 mil - kevin garnett - 27 mil - david beckham - 65 no one is outraged by the high numbers - a partnership exists - thats all the players want - its maddening that post ted lindsay - and that freak eagleson - that bettman can't come clean and wipe the slate and start fresh - the players have been screwed and will continue to get screwed - remember in 94 - the consensus was the players lost big time - look what happened - a cap is gonna screw things up again - bettman has proved he just can't do it -
No offense man, but it is REALLY hard to follow what you're saying or to figure out what your point is sometimes.

The days of the players getting "screwed" are over, I think.
 

mr gib

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Sotnos said:
No offense man, but it is REALLY hard to follow what you're saying or to figure out what your point is sometimes.

The days of the players getting "screwed" are over, I think.
sorry - stream of verbal poop -

i think the owners will always find a way to circumvent any system -
 

Tom_Benjamin

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Smail said:
The NHLPA is only looking at books to critize them.

I don't think so. They learned a lot about which teams were claiming to lose money and how much.

The hidden revenue they "caught" is that they don't agree with general accounting principles (ie: they want other shows revenue at the rink to count in "hockey revenue" and so on).

You have this point backwards. The issue is not whether the revenues generated by a dog show should count. Obviously they should not. The issue is the board advertising money and the luxury box money. How much of that should be hockey revenues and how much is rink revenue?

Give me a percentage and explain why you think it is fair.

I doubt the NHLPA would want an accountant to audit the NHL for fear that he'd find all the accounting principles used as decent enough and revenues being split accordingly.

Audit the NHL? What's the point of doing that? The NHL has hardly any revenues and hardly any expenses. The audits would have to be done on the individual teams and all the businesses affiliated with those individual teams. It isn't practical. Levitt claims to have taken 10 months and he did not audit the individual teams or the affiliated businesses. He analysed the reports teams submit to make up the URO.

Tom
 

garry1221

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Tom_Benjamin said:
Nobody claims the teams are hiding money. It is about how much GM Place should charge for rent to the Canucks. It is about how much of the $25 million that went to Orca Bay to name the rink "GM Place" was generated by the players. It is about how much of the BC Lottery money should go to the rink. It is about the number of hot dogs and programs that are sold at the games.

The players think John McCaw should look at the revenues of Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment and, based on that, decide how much he can afford to pay to players. The owners want a negotiated formula that arbitrarily splits out the revenues of the hockey team from the larger entity and then pegs player payrolls to the arbitrary result.

That simply can't be in the player's best interests. Every team has a different arena deal, every team has a different deal around concessions, parking, advertising and broadcasting. Every team has a different deal with the community. Every team defines revenues differently. Every team should define revenues differently. Creating a "correct" or "fair" formula simply can't be done because there is no such thing.

if there's a will then there's a way, yet the players would rather turn away from the will rather than try to find a way


True. The players have decided they don't want to be partners. What's wrong with that? They want to be employees. Employees don't negotiate a definition of revenues. The employer defines them. Employees don't negotiate a share of revenues. They negotiate a pay package, or in the case of the NHL, a framework within which individuals negotiate a pay package.

Revenues and the share of revenues allocated to employee wages is not the business of the worker or the worker's union.

then if they want to be treated like employees then pay them like employees, give them all timecards and have them punch in and out of the dressingroom each and every day they come in, see how long it goes before they long for the days of making seven figures per season

How do you define those limits? Imagine you are Bob Goodenow. A luxury box in Vancouver costs, say, $150,000. The same box in LA costs $250,000, but there are many more events in LA and two teams. In Los Angeles they might sell all the boxes even if the Kings did not exist. A reasonable person might decide 0% of that money is hockey revenue. In Vancouver they would sell zero boxes without the Canucks. A reasonable person might designate 100% of that revenue as hockey revenue. There are 28 other arrangements across the league.

How much of the luxury box revenue across the league should be designated as hockey revenues? What is a fair formula? How on earth does Goodenow - or anybody else - figure that out?

Give Bob a step by step plan to negotiate for the players a fair share of the luxury box money that is generated across the NHL.

simple, during a hockey game the lux. box seats count towards hockey revenue, when any other show is being held in the arena, whether there's ice down or not, then the lux. box seats aren't given toward hockey revenue as it's not hockey that the seats are being used for... that wasn't so hard to figure out was it?

This is not the reason the players do not choose to do this. As I said, it is not about hiding revenue. It is about allocating revenue. The players choose not to come to an agreement over revenues because it is impossible to define a single revenue standard for 30 complicated and dynamic businesses and because it is not necessary to agree about revenues. Revenues are none of the employee's business.

Tom

nothing is impossible, as has been said before, both sides need to become partners, but if the players really want to be treated like employees then they truly have no say over any of the business dealings and they can't complain if the ave. salary drops 500k, do any employees of any company or corporation have agents?, not that im aware of, so there go the agents and as i said above, throw a time machine in every locker room and the players can punch in and out... and should they forget to punch out then the coach will have to sign them out manually on their card like what happens in just about every other business today

but nope the players wouldn't even think about looking at that because it would give them no power at all instead of the power their struggling to hold onto now. face it, the players want there to be a partnership because without they wouldn't get half of what they do now, they just want to be the partner who sits around and blames everyone else when their business is losing money
 

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garry1221 said:
nothing is impossible, as has been said before, both sides need to become partners, but if the players really want to be treated like employees then they truly have no say over any of the business dealings and they can't complain if the ave. salary drops 500k, do any employees of any company or corporation have agents?, not that im aware of, so there go the agents and as i said above, throw a time machine in every locker room and the players can punch in and out... and should they forget to punch out then the coach will have to sign them out manually on their card like what happens in just about every other business today

but nope the players wouldn't even think about looking at that because it would give them no power at all instead of the power their struggling to hold onto now. face it, the players want there to be a partnership because without they wouldn't get half of what they do now, they just want to be the partner who sits around and blames everyone else when their business is losing money

the problem with your simpleton approach is that in many cases, the arena that the Dog Show rents wouldnt even exist without the hockey team as a major tenant.

so, in that case, the players have provided a benefit to the owner of the arena. Tom has the easiset and most effective manner to address this.

let the person(company) who has privy to all the information of revenues for the rink, team and other associated revenues decide for themselves how much they want to allocate to players salaries. only they know for sure what is fair for them.

dr
 

Tom_Benjamin

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simple, during a hockey game the lux. box seats count towards hockey revenue, when any other show is being held in the arena, whether there's ice down or not, then the lux. box seats aren't given toward hockey revenue as it's not hockey that the seats are being used for... that wasn't so hard to figure out was it?

We aren't talking about the seats. We are talking about leasing the box. The price paid for the tickets is separate. When McMillan Bloedel buys a luxury box and tickets to every event in GM Place, are they doing it for the hockey game or the Dog Show?

Also we are talking about the board advertisements. During the hearings for the sponsorship scandal in Quebec we learned that a rink advertisement at the Bell Centre costs $500,000 a year. Let's call it $20 million in total. Is that hockey revenue? Should any of that money be allocated to a Dog Show?

Tom
 

ceber

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Tom_Benjamin said:
ceber said:
If the players are well paid, and fairly paid, what difference does it make how revenues are counted?
It doesn't, unless you are trying to cap payrolls as a percentage of the revenues.

Tom

Why? If players are still paid well, why does it matter what the cap is or how it's calculated? If it really is only a problem when you cap salaries as a percentage of revenue for some reason, then choose some other method. Just cap them at some fixed number, say 37 million and call it done. No revenue calculations, no problem. Reset the number each year to account for inflation, etc. Problem solved. Now who's got Gary's and Bob's phone numbers? I'll give 'em a call and see what they say.
 

Tom_Benjamin

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ceber said:
Why? If players are still paid well, why does it matter what the cap is or how it's calculated? If it really is only a problem when you cap salaries as a percentage of revenue for some reason, then choose some other method. Just cap them at some fixed number, say 37 million and call it done. No revenue calculations, no problem. Reset the number each year to account for inflation, etc. Problem solved. Now who's got Gary's and Bob's phone numbers? I'll give 'em a call and see what they say.

Great. Goodenow goes along. Since we are pulling numbers out of our ass, Bob will agree to any cap over $200 million a team.

Tom
 

quat

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mr gib said:
its so frustrating - in canada fans flip over salaries - in america when tiger woods made - 100 mil in 02 and 71 mil in 03 - shaq 30 mil - kevin garnett - 27 mil - david beckham - 65 no one is outraged by the high numbers - a partnership exists - thats all the players want - its maddening that post ted lindsay - and that freak eagleson - that bettman can't come clean and wipe the slate and start fresh - the players have been screwed and will continue to get screwed - remember in 94 - the consensus was the players lost big time - look what happened - a cap is gonna screw things up again - bettman has proved he just can't do it -

No one complains about those guys because there is revenue to support them. Why can't you understand that? If you think people would support owners locking players out of a healthy league you're crazy. Again, these are hockey fans worried about hockey, not a bunch on know nothings pointing the finger with a complete lack of understanding. The players should be hoping Bettman works for the league forever. Under his tenure their salaries and job numbers have risen at a huge rate. Meanwhile, the fans have seen ticket prices escalate, the games become a bit more boring and many of the owners have lost millions of dollars.

lol. And as a person who supports the players in this lockout, you don't like Bettman!
 

djhn579

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Tom_Benjamin said:
Nobody claims the teams are hiding money. It is about how much GM Place should charge for rent to the Canucks. It is about how much of the $25 million that went to Orca Bay to name the rink "GM Place" was generated by the players. It is about how much of the BC Lottery money should go to the rink. It is about the number of hot dogs and programs that are sold at the games.

The players think John McCaw should look at the revenues of Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment and, based on that, decide how much he can afford to pay to players. The owners want a negotiated formula that arbitrarily splits out the revenues of the hockey team from the larger entity and then pegs player payrolls to the arbitrary result.

That simply can't be in the player's best interests. Every team has a different arena deal, every team has a different deal around concessions, parking, advertising and broadcasting. Every team has a different deal with the community. Every team defines revenues differently. Every team should define revenues differently. Creating a "correct" or "fair" formula simply can't be done because there is no such thing.

I must have heard something wrong then. I thought I've been hearing from quite a few people here that the owners are lying about thier revenues, the owners aren't really losing money, the owners are hiding revenue in thier other business ventures. I thoughtI also read some articles where the players were complaining about owners not countin revenue from other events.

If the NHLPA can't be bothered to negotiate what should and should not be considered league revenue, they have no right to complain about how the owner structures his business and accounts for his revenues. If the owner is doing something illegal, the gov't will get involved and deal with it.


Tom_Benjamin said:
True. The players have decided they don't want to be partners. What's wrong with that? They want to be employees. Employees don't negotiate a definition of revenues. The employer defines them. Employees don't negotiate a share of revenues. They negotiate a pay package, or in the case of the NHL, a framework within which individuals negotiate a pay package.

Revenues and the share of revenues allocated to employee wages is not the business of the worker or the worker's union.

If the players decided they don't want to be partners, that's fine. They should stop complaining in the press about how they are not being treated as partners.

Tom_Benjamin said:
How do you define those limits? Imagine you are Bob Goodenow. A luxury box in Vancouver costs, say, $150,000. The same box in LA costs $250,000, but there are many more events in LA and two teams. In Los Angeles they might sell all the boxes even if the Kings did not exist. A reasonable person might decide 0% of that money is hockey revenue. In Vancouver they would sell zero boxes without the Canucks. A reasonable person might designate 100% of that revenue as hockey revenue. There are 28 other arrangements across the league.

How much of the luxury box revenue across the league should be designated as hockey revenues? What is a fair formula? How on earth does Goodenow - or anybody else - figure that out?

Give Bob a step by step plan to negotiate for the players a fair share of the luxury box money that is generated across the NHL.

A step by step plan? That's for the NHLPA and the owners to figure out. They seem to have figured out a way to do that between the NFL and the NFLPA, maybe they should start there...



Tom_Benjamin said:
This is not the reason the players do not choose to do this. As I said, it is not about hiding revenue. It is about allocating revenue. The players choose not to come to an agreement over revenues because it is impossible to define a single revenue standard for 30 complicated and dynamic businesses and because it is not necessary to agree about revenues. Revenues are none of the employee's business.

Tom


Allocating revenue and hiding revenue amount to pretty much the same thing. I'm sure with your legal background, you can give us a 10 page explaination on how they are different (I can't guarantee I will read that...), but it still comes down to saying this is hockey revenue and this is not.
 

dawgbone

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Tom, you talk alot about stuff being in the players best interest...

What is in all the players best interest?

A capped revenue system where they are guaranteed a healthy % of league revenues in a 30 team league...

or

The current system in an unstable 20-25 team league, where teams are either folding, or being sold and moved to new locations all the time?
 

codswallop

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dawgbone said:
Tom, you talk alot about stuff being in the players best interest...

What is in all the players best interest?

A capped revenue system where they are guaranteed a healthy % of league revenues in a 30 team league...

or

The current system in an unstable 20-25 team league, where teams are either folding, or being sold and moved to new locations all the time?

Don't let the spin doctors get to you. The ones disguising reality behind assumption and "what if's". This goes for both sides of the fence.

The real issue is trying to establish a healthy NHL. That is often "lost in translation", so to speak. Most of the posts deal with situations outside of the reality and the facts that exist at this particular time. Too many can't differentiate between the two, so we often get comments that have merit but are not specifically on point. Like above, mixing reality with the world of "what if". Hence, you get discussions that amount to nothing substantial.

I'd say more, but that might get into the realm of specifics on certain posters. The animosity is enough now, no need to add more fuel to that.
 
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Diaboli

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mr gib said:
its so frustrating - in canada fans flip over salaries - in america when tiger woods made - 100 mil in 02 and 71 mil in 03 - shaq 30 mil - kevin garnett - 27 mil - david beckham - 65 no one is outraged by the high numbers - a partnership exists - thats all the players want - its maddening that post ted lindsay - and that freak eagleson - that bettman can't come clean and wipe the slate and start fresh - the players have been screwed and will continue to get screwed - remember in 94 - the consensus was the players lost big time - look what happened - a cap is gonna screw things up again - bettman has proved he just can't do it -

:lol: :lol: Now THIS is a REAL laughing stock! David Beckham made 65 million. So? First of all, he made about 5 million PLAYING football (soccer), and the rest came of commercial money. He's with Pepsi, Gillette, Adidas... Should I go on? Tell me, how many viewers are there in a football game in Santiago Bernabeu (Real Madrid's home stadium)? About 80 000 in every game. Do you know, how many people watch the Champions League? The numbers are hundreds of millions. Not millions, or hundreds of thousands, as it's with the NHL.

How about NBA? Which has bigger revenues, NHL or NBA? TV incomes? Sponsorships? I'm suprosed you didn't bring up NFL and MLB too.

Tiger Woods is an individual athlete. The organisers are WINNING. Golf has TV viewers millions after millions watching Tiger Woods play. By the way, Tiger has earned most of his money by advertisement.

Why didn't you bring Formula 1 into the debate? I mean, the highest paid driver got 50 million dollars for driving 18 races and testing per season (M Schumacher). They only need two race drivers, not 25 players, but they do need hundreds of engineers (the best at least), and most have a test driver or two on their payroll too. So why not take them into account too? Oh yeah, maybe it's because although Ferrari has a budget of about 1,2 BILLION dollars, they still make profit. An ad in the drivers HELMET cost a heck of a lot of money. Or is it because they have about 300 million viewers per race?

Just wondering... :p: :dunce: :loony:
 

YellHockey*

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dawgbone said:
The current system in an unstable 20-25 team league, where teams are either folding, or being sold and moved to new locations all the time?

What are you talking about?

The last NHL team to fold was the Cleveland Barons.

Plenty of teams get sold in all sports.

There is no system that can prevent teams from moving. The NFL couldn't stop the Browns, Oilers, Rams and Raiders from moving. How many franchise relocations has the NHL had compared to the NFL?

Why should the players that the current system is causing things to be unstable when there's no evidence?
 
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