Players dont want teams to have arbitration rights

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vanlady

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Nov 3, 2004
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OlTimeHockey said:
That's the problem that has to get fixed.

But the PA and the League BOTH are siding with the big owners and the cheapskates.

(playoff revenue sharing? UFA talks? do any of the items proposed really curb or shift the problems?)

I find Wirtz and Jacobs as guilty as Comcast, MSG and the TO Teachers Fund of crippling the game. But they're apparently calling the shots in both camps. Just my take.

I agree with you. If a large group of moderate owners could get together with a group of moderates from the PA this would be over, but so long as Gary Bettman has the supermajority clause in his contract all it will take is 8 owners to mess it up.
 

OlTimeHockey

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I just read a post with 10, and added another few myself on another board.

Ottawa
Edmonton
Calgary
NY Islanders
Pittsburgh
Buffalo
NJ Devils
Boston
Phoenix
Chicago
Nashville
Carolina
Columbus
Washington
Florida
Tampa Bay
 

kerrly

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May 16, 2004
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Regina
Jobu said:
This inflationary argument is just so ill-informed. As I have discussed several times, it's only inflationary, or seems that way, because it reflects the marketplace, and more importantly, only strong cases are taken to arbitration. If a team has the right to take a player, there is no reason why the process can't be "deflationary" (depending on where the level of qualifying offer is set) or otherwise reflect a negotiation in a case where a player doesn't deserve his qualifying offer.

Remember, salaries don't go down for RFA's because of qualifying offers. Which the owners agreed to and even in their most recent proposal did not propose to cut hugely.

If each team was on equal footing financially, than it would actually reflect the marketplace. When someone is using comparables from what a defenseman in Toronto is making, but using them against Calgary, that is not right. Toronto can afford to pay what they want when it comes to a certain player based upon how valuable they think he is to the team. This in itself is inflationary because most of the league does not pay what the Leafs do.
 

Lanny MacDonald*

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Jobu said:
How do other teams have to live with it? And how does a salary cap halt so-called "stupid mistakes"?

If someone is holding out, trade him. If you can't afford a player, don't sign him. No one forces teams to maintain a player. Sometimes you have to make tough calls, and perhaps two $3m players are better than one $8m player.

Just because there is a cap on how much a team can spend doesn't stop idiotic management from overpaying or making stupid decisions.

You have to attack the root cause of the problem, not one of its indicators.

The NHL is attacking the root cause. The large market teams ability to set a false marketplace for the rest of the league to have to live up to. A cap system limits spending and forces teams that make mistakes to learn their lessons hard. But as it sits large market teams can continue to make mistakes that effect everyone and still get away with it. Boston made a massive error in signing Thornton AND Samsonov to insane entry level contracts, and every single team has had to live with the consequences. Boston screwed up and paid Martin Lapointe stupid money and every team has to deal with that. It has happened each and every year and will continue until mechanisms are put in place to prevent such actions.
 

vanlady

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OlTimeHockey said:
I just read a post with 10, and added another few myself on another board.

Ottawa
Edmonton
Calgary
NY Islanders
Pittsburgh
Buffalo
NJ Devils
Boston
Phoenix
Chicago
Nashville
Carolina
Columbus
Washington
Florida
Tampa Bay

I think you may be surprised. I have been listening to sports reporters from all over the league and they beleive that the owners that are proping up this whole thing are

Toronto
Detriot
Edmonton
Calgary
Dallas
Chicago
Boston
NYR
Colorado
St Louis.

Most of them feel, and for the most part these guys have been the mouth for ownership, the small market owners want a deal done.
 

Jobu

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Nov 17, 2003
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kerrly said:
If each team was on equal footing financially, than it would actually reflect the marketplace. When someone is using comparables from what a defenseman in Toronto is making, but using them against Calgary, that is not right. Toronto can afford to pay what they want when it comes to a certain player based upon how valuable they think he is to the team. This in itself is inflationary because most of the league does not pay what the Leafs do.

:shakehead
 

Jobu

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The Iconoclast said:
The NHL is attacking the root cause. The large market teams ability to set a false marketplace for the rest of the league to have to live up to. A cap system limits spending and forces teams that make mistakes to learn their lessons hard. But as it sits large market teams can continue to make mistakes that effect everyone and still get away with it. Boston made a massive error in signing Thornton AND Samsonov to insane entry level contracts, and every single team has had to live with the consequences. Boston screwed up and paid Martin Lapointe stupid money and every team has to deal with that. It has happened each and every year and will continue until mechanisms are put in place to prevent such actions.

So you're telling me that a salary cap is less of a false marketplace?

You do realize that communism failed, right?
 

kerrly

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May 16, 2004
811
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Regina
Jobu said:

When large markets dictate what lower markets will have to pay to certain players whether or not they can afford it, and you don't think there is a problem with that. And if you don't think agents purposely go out of their way to find comparables in the highest markets to get their client the best possible raise, then you are kidding yourself.
 

CarlRacki

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Feb 9, 2004
1,442
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Jobu said:
So you're telling me that a salary cap is less of a false marketplace?

You do realize that communism failed, right?

A salary cap is communism? How so? Will the leage be paying all salaries and determining all contract values? Will the league be assigning labor (i.e. players) as it sees fit? And most importantly, do Paul Tagliabue, Gene Upshaw and David Stern know they're Marxists?

Seriously though, a professional sports league is no place for free-market economics.

Some thoughts to ponder:
“Free market economics is the process of driving enterprises out of business. Sports league economics is the process of keeping enterprises in business. There is nothing like a sports league. Nothing.†Paul Tagliabue, (Sports Illustrated, 10/16/96).

“The biggest single reason that the NFL has been successful is that we have in effect a form of socialism.†Lamar Hunt, owner Kansas City Chiefs, (Forbes, 10/20/99).
 

quat

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Apr 4, 2003
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Jobu said:
Well, you'd be incorrect. The UFA market affects the market for UFAs and no one else. It simply doesn't matter what Holik or Guerin or anyone else is making when it comes to an RFA. There may be other sources of leverage, but this isn't one of them. When Bettman & Co. cite escalating salaries, they most certainly include UFAs in their calculations - but this is a relatively discrete "problem," and, frankly, one that you can hardly blame players for.



Maybe you should contact an agent or two and ask them how relevant Holik and Guerin are to their negotiations. You will find that negotiations are undertaken much like arbitration with respect to comparables and the sort -- GMs will simply not recognize Group III signings unless we're talking about other Group IIIs.

Remain skeptical all you want, but UFAs are a completely different ballgame than RFAs.


Yet you are offering nothing in the way of proof. Think about it. A team is willing to spend large amounts of money on a player. They are willing to spend to get a good player. Spend spend spend. Well, my agent is going to ask for more now, knowing that the team is willing to lay down the cash to get good players. If teams didn't spend much on UFA's, guys like Khabibhulin wouldn't be thinking there were big $'s floating around for him to hold out for. It gives players and agents an awareness of the kind of cash richer teams are willing to spend.

You are willfully ignoring common sense.
 

quat

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Apr 4, 2003
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Jobu said:
No, I said a player should be paid the same as a player of similar age, experience, performance, etc. He should be valued at his market value, not some artificial limiting factor. This market value may very well be 25% or less of an increase from his most recently salary. What you're arguing for is the ability for teams to lock a player into a 3-year deal at a 25% salary increase when his market value could and should be 5 times that. For example, Todd Bertuzzi would be making millions of dollars less than players who have performed similarly through his most recent platform season.

This is an artificial limiting factor as well. It's simply one that would be incredibly difficult to decide, and there would be endless arguments going on trying to decide which factors were more important in each individuals case.

No, I am not arguing for a 25% cap that can be "forced" on a player for three years. I just disagree with your opinion on how things should be run, and that players have the right to huge salaries the moment the score some goals... which you seem to have backed off on to a degree with this statement.


Well, it can't exist for neither unless you want unrestricted free agency at the end of every contract. However, I have argued all along for two-way arbitration.

I wasn't disagreeing with this point.

I thought that's what you WERE arguing in your first paragraph? As for linking revenues with salaries, that is another tipic, but also completely absurd. As others have pointed out, this completely leaves players to the whim of NHL fortune and managerial marketing competence. If Bettman is unable to sign a TV deal due to his incompetence, or no one watches hockey in all of the crappy markets the NHL is in, players' salaries go down.

I am arguing that there has to be a limit to players expectations regarding how much they can demand after a good season of hockey. Obviously if a player plays better than he was expected to, he should be able to earn more money on his next contract. I hope this is clear. But even the PA is happy to put a mechanism in place that limits rookies, so I don't see why something similiar can't be thought of for second contracts... etc etc. That said, I'm not sold on deciding things in this fashion.

Oh the horror! Players being accountable for helping make their work place better! The Owners are paying the whole tab, regardless of how poorly a player performs, but has to consistantly raise the level of pay to the players, and substantially so should they actually out perform expectations, but you think it's unreasonable to hold the players to any kind of accountability? That makes, well no sense at all.

If you want to argue for a salary cap, that's one thing. But to link it to revenues on top of that is so absurd that I can't believe anyone who puts himself in the players' shoes for a second would think of it as at all reasonable.

A league salary cap linked to 54% to 60% of league revenue is unreasonable? I'm sorry, but the PA has already offered to reduce their pay to that level. The league stands to be able to generate more money, which in turn is split between players and owners in a way that gives more to players. It just makes them more accountable, which IMO is a good thing, because they will invest their better hockey sense in making a better game. The more responsible the players are for their salaries, the better the game is going to be for the fans. I think this is an extremely important point.

Relative to what are the players underpaid? Please, not another "doctors and teachers should make more" argument. The fact is, players are the product and generate billions of dollars for their employers; without players, there is nothing. They deserve a significant piece of the pie.

Underpaid? Today the players are "overpaid" in relation to how much revenue they produce for their workplace. The players are not the product. The product is Ice Hockey. If the product were only the players, then they wouldn't need hockey to earn it. The owners pay the players to play the game. Without Ice Hockey the players have nothing. Yes players do deserve a significant piece of the pie. How you imagine they aren't getting that is difficult to understand. They are being offered the same amount of money they've conceded they are willing to take, with the concession that the salaries don't escalate beyond the percentage of revenue the league earns. This is not an evil or unrealistic expectation asked by the owners.

It's the NHLPA who has made the creative proposals thus far; all the owners have done is re-package completely non-starter issues several times. For them to expect an impasse declaration is a joke

Yes, the PA has made some creative proposals. But frankly none of them address the inflationary aspect of salaries. The Owners have to make things right this time, because once a deal is signed they are competing against one another. They're going to try and find loop holes to give players more money, to give their teams an advantage. The players will still be able to work and bargain as a unit without charges of collusion. I do agree the Owners don't seem to have given much, but I believe they are willing to mover on a fair number of things... but linking salary to revenue isn't one of them. I could be wrong for sure... we'll have to wait and see.

I never said anything about an impass declaration.
 

quat

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Apr 4, 2003
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Jobu said:
The NHLPA has offered several concessions to help the owners cure their supposed CBA ills. But the fact is, it all comes down to managerial (in)competence.

Riiight. Certainly there have been managerial blunders, or more to the point, Owner blunders... but that's an extremely simplistic view of the league as a whole. I imagine you may not know that much about running a business?
 

OlTimeHockey

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Managerial incompetence....so management HAS TO HAVE THE GUTS to turn down the ANNUAL salary demands that are more and more rampant every year.

The best players on all teams want more money and the GM's are to say "no.....hold out.......if you don't like it, sit."

And they do.

And the GM's can tell fans why their best players are sitting.

And the most popular sport in the world can withstand losing 10-30% of its fanbase while Holik or Yashin come to grips with not making $6-10M, or crybaby Lindros wants a trade.....jersey sales hit hard, empty seats and lost concessions.....

GM's just have to say no, and they don't so it's completely their fault.



Don't get me wrong.....there are GM instances where I agree 100% it's the management's blunder, but the collective agent/player mafia pushes to raise salaries across the board for all the "made" men in the PA.

That's why Eric Cairns makes double, almost triple, what an emergency room doctor makes out there, without being able to skate well, shoot or play defense. (great fighter, but is there really fighting left in the game?)

ALL sides are guilty. The agents and players are as guilty in this mess as the German citizens and footsoldiers were in the holocaust. And YES, I compare Goodenow and Bettman to Adolf and Benito and Louie Hirohito (whatever his first name was....who cares? He's dead!). All of their ambition and greed and lust for power and riches is killing this game like they ravaged Europe in WWII.

Honestly, to completely defend the players and to vilify the owners solely for this mess makes you look like a complete shill.

And the reverse is true as well for others.
 
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