Players only want linkage when revenues go up?

[mooseOAK*]

I believe a 24% rollback of salaries was offered and accepted, which would have saved the owners over 500 million dollars in the first year.

You may want to check your math, especially since there are so many players without contracts when the rollback was announced. The NHL total payroll has never been close to $2 billion.

 

[NYFAN]

Listen, I definitely do not dispute the fact that a 24% cut in salaries is significant. My only beef with the NHLPA at this point is that all along they didn't want linkage to revenues and yet now they refuse to look at any offer where there is no linkage between increased revenues and the salary cap. I mean make up your mind - you either want a salary cap system that is static or you want a linkage system and if you agree to a system where salaries are linked to revenues, it needs to work both ways, not just when it favors them.

I can assure you that if a business started losing money, it would start laying off some employees. Unfortunately, a team still needs to ice a full roster and they do not have that luxury.

PJStyles

I guess they better get off their lazy butts and promote the sport better, and make the game more fan friendly! They admit to losing money yet still managed to make 2.1 BILLION in revenue. So by that logic, they shouldn't be opposed to an upwardly linked cap. However ,if I were a player, I wouldn't want to pay for the OWNERS lockout strategy which will definitely cost the league money short term. They did it to themselves, let them absorb the hit!

 

[NYFAN]

You may want to check your math, especially since there are so many players without contracts when the rollback was announced. The NHL total payroll has never been close to $2 billion.

Those numbers were all over the newspapers, I don't need to do any math. The 2 billion was the total revenue, payroll was about 1.4

 

[CarlRacki]

Those numbers were all over the newspapers, I don't need to do any math. The 2 billion was the total revenue, payroll was about 1.4

Total player payroll last year was in the neighborhood of $1.2 billion. So, the rollback at most was worth $288 million. However, that figure assumes that every player who had a contract last year had one for this year, which obviously is not the case. At best, the rollback was worth a $250 million.
That's certainly a significant figure. But the problem is the offer did little to nothing to address the systematic problems that caused salary escalation in the first place. It called for no significant change in the primary culprits, salary arbitration and qualifying offers. Essentially, it remedied a lost limb with a band aid.

 

[Bill McNeal]

I'm glad to see that everyone is finally starting to realize that the players, despite their concessions, have assumed ZERO risk in any of the offers they have tabled. They want to reap the rewards of any upside the league may experience in the years ahead but should things falter, they want no part of it.

Anyone else tired of listening to Glenn Healy on TSN and Nick Kypreos on Sportsnet? I was so happy to see Brian Burke put Healy in his place. I wrote an editorial on my blog site a few days ago precisely about how the players need to assume some risk if a true partnership were to be created but I do not see that happening at all.

PJStyles
http://hockeyinsight.blogspot.com

I don't know about Kypreos because I don't really watch Sportsnet, but if I hear Healy say "Be creative!" one more time, I don't know what I'm going to do. And he contradicts himself within the span of minutes on a regular basis.

One example of him contradicting himself is when discussing linkage. He said the players want no part of it because they know the league's revenues will go down after this whole debacle so it would be insane to tie the salary cap to that. Ok, fair enough, makes sense. BUT when the PA proposed upward linkage, he was all over it saying that the league's value will increase in the next 6 years and the players deserve a part of that.

Brian Burke can be a loud mouth and is obviously pro-owner but he at least tries to see the other side. Healy just yells to make his points. Stuff like "Linden got these boys together in the same room and the NHL can't do anything! Be creative! Be creative! Take the offer and be creative until it's exactly what the other side wants!"

But I digress...

 

[Member 23807]

I don't know about Kypreos because I don't really watch Sportsnet, but if I hear Healy say "Be creative!" one more time, I don't know what I'm going to do. And he contradicts himself within the span of minutes on a regular basis.

One example of him contradicting himself is when discussing linkage. He said the players want no part of it because they know the league's revenues will go down after this whole debacle so it would be insane to tie the salary cap to that. Ok, fair enough, makes sense. BUT when the PA proposed upward linkage, he was all over it saying that the league's value will increase in the next 6 years and the players deserve a part of that.

Brian Burke can be a loud mouth and is obviously pro-owner but he at least tries to see the other side. Healy just yells to make his points. Stuff like "Linden got these boys together in the same room and the NHL can't do anything! Be creative! Be creative! Take the offer and be creative until it's exactly what the other side wants!"

But I digress...

I couldn't agree more. Healy in my eyes has been downright awful in his analysis of the negotiations. It's like I said, if the players want linkage, give them linkage but have it work both ways, not just when it benefits them.

I still can't believe people are blaming Bettman on the outcome here. It baffles me to understand this because why do the players deserve only upward linkage? Every job on earth entails risk of layoffs, cut-backs etc... but the players feel they are a different breed I suppose.

PJStyles

P.S - The silly thing in all this is that the owners offer would ensure that players would average $1.4M/year in salaries, that's still not good enough.

 

[Puck]

I suppose if the players wish to have some form of indexation on the cap, it might be to avoid battles in later CBAs to allow some upward cap movement. If there was some automatic indexation upwards, this would eliminate a future bottleneck in negotiations.

OK, some pro-owner people don't like it. They consider it a form of linkage. Say we take it off the table. How do we deal with cap negotiations in the future?

How about a cap expiry date in the collective agreement? If the CBA is extended past the proposed 6 years, then the Cap would terminate unless both parties agree to a new one. Otherwise the current fixed cap would strangle the players unless they went on strike to amend it.

If the cap automatically expires on a certain date then the players don't have to worry about getting caught in it for years if the league refuses to renegotiate it.

The pro-owner camp might not like that idea because they might not want to have to fight for a cap all over again. But then if there was a way to increase the cap somehow in a way the players could trust the index without a link to revenues, well I think the players just don't want to have to fight over this every CBA, especially if the owners don't declare a lockout next time around and the CBA gets extended for another half dozen years.

So it is either choke the players down the road or force the owners to win a cap all over again. Some form of indexation might be good for both sides. Unless things get worse, and realistically, that would be terrible for both sides.

 

[me2]

You just opened up pandoras box! I work for a MAJOR beverage company,with much deeper pockets than the NHL. Not only are they unwilling to share their profit, they claim they are losing money constantly, a total fabrication. I am lucky I have a union to protect my job. Even so ,I still face winter layoffs every year, while the profit the company makes goes up every year. They are just as creative with their books as the NHL owners, and can justify their position on paper. They can do nothing about my pay rate though as that is negotiated in contract talks, so instead they play the layoff game. If they lose money at all, it is through poor management and poor treatment of their customers, its their problem not mine. I will NEVER work at this job for less money than I already get, especially knowing the manipulation of numbers that goes on. I get a negotiated contract that has annual increases, and thats the way it is. There is a minimum wage law for a reason, there should be a minimum cap in hockey and it SHOULD GO UP as revenue increases, not as a percentage, but as a fixed number. In other words 55% of 2 Billion =42 mil, 55% of 3.5 billion revenue =64.2 mil.

1. There is a minimum wage in the offer: $300,000.00 per season + bonuses.

2. 55% of 1.2B is? why don't the players want to take a paycut next year when revenues are going to dive?

 

[NYFAN]

1. There is a minimum wage in the offer: $300,000.00 per season + bonuses.

2. 55% of 1.2B is? why don't the players want to take a paycut next year when revenues are going to dive?

Who's fault is it the revenues are going to dive ......?

 

[me2]

I suppose if the players wish to have some form of indexation on the cap, it might be to avoid battles in later CBAs to allow some upward cap movement. If there was some automatic indexation upwards, this would eliminate a future bottleneck in negotiations.

OK, some pro-owner people don't like it. They consider it a form of linkage. Say we take it off the table. How do we deal with cap negotiations in the future?

How about a cap expiry date in the collective agreement? If the CBA is extended past the proposed 6 years, then the Cap would terminate unless both parties agree to a new one. Otherwise the current fixed cap would strangle the players unless they went on strike to amend it.

If the cap automatically expires on a certain date then the players don't have to worry about getting caught in it for years if the league refuses to renegotiate it.

The pro-owner camp might not like that idea because they might not want to have to fight for a cap all over again. But then if there was a way to increase the cap somehow in a way the players could trust the index without a link to revenues, well I think the players just don't want to have to fight over this every CBA, especially if the owners don't declare a lockout next time around and the CBA gets extended for another half dozen years.

So it is either choke the players down the road or force the owners to win a cap all over again. Some form of indexation might be good for both sides. Unless things get worse, and realistically, that would be terrible for both sides.

Indexation is good, the problem is nobody knows just how much damage the NHL is going to take over the next 6 years, but you can bet there will be damage to the revenue base. Indexation has to work both ways.

 

[me2]

Who's fault is it the revenues are going to dive ......?

Players and owners. Both should feel the financial hit.
If they want to tie the $42.5m cap to $2.1b that is fine with me. If revenue goes up 20% then the cap goes up 20%. If revenue drops to $1.5b next year then the cap goes down to $30.35m.

The players can't have it both ways. Either they want linkage or they don't.

 

[wazee]

Wazee, the nature of negotiations is to come in with more than you expect to get, then whittle it down to something both sides can live with. I'm sure that the PA would have worked with that for say..... lowering the age a player becomes a free agent.

Well. DUH!. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh. Wait. I did. In a post on January 31st, I wrote

’Very simply, the owners have not put their best offer on the table because, if they did so, it would become the starting point for negotiations...and it would leave the owners with no bargaining chips when the real negotiations begin.’

Here is the link to the thread. http://www.hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=126729&page=3&pp=30&highlight=starting+point

You do not win arguments by assuming people who disagree with you are stupid.

 

[NYFAN]

Well. DUH!. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh. Wait. I did. In a post on January 31st, I wrote

’Very simply, the owners have not put their best offer on the table because, if they did so, it would become the starting point for negotiations...and it would leave the owners with no bargaining chips when the real negotiations begin.’

Here is the link to the thread. http://www.hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=126729&page=3&pp=30&highlight=starting+point

You do not win arguments by assuming people who disagree with you are stupid.

Where did I say you were stupid?.