Vladiator said:
Wow. Maybe you should offer your services to an NHL team. You seem to know what it takes to be a good GM. So, what are you qualifications? Did you play the game? How many teams have you run before? What success have you had that qualifies you to say that the owmers and managers "know **** all about their jobs"
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I have LLB, LPC and LLM if that matters. But it doesn't. Coz you seem to know what the players and NHLPA should agree to although you are not in their position and you will never earn their salaries. Your lack of success as a player or an owner doesn't stop you from being on this board and discussing this issues, does it?
It is however quite obvious that every owner should do some calculations before signing players. The simplest looks like that:
X = (projected revenue - (accumulated players' salaries + other expenses)).
Doesn't it? So it is a mystery to me, how can an owner who is surrounded by all those accountants sign those players and then complain about losses.
No they can't. That would be collusion and they would be in court in a hearbeat.
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I don't know what you mean by "collusion"... Is it North American legal expression which is similar to our European competition laws? In any case, I am sure the league can issue any rules they want to their existing members, i.e. the clubs. One of them could be max salary cap.
So when you use this simple equation, and your best player demands more than you can afford using this definition, you just let him sit (which means you lose his services, which leads to lost games, which leads to lost revenue...), or you trade him for other assets which in general are not as good as you are giving up (which means you lose talent, which leads to lost games, which leads to lost revenue...), or you let him walk away for nothing (which means you lose his services, which leads to lost games, which leads to lost revenue...).
Another thing that happens when one team tries to control salaries and the players are demanding what other similar players are getting, is that the players demand trades, or don't try as hard, or get an attitude because the owner is too cheap and is unwilling to pay the price to have a competetive team. And yes, I have seen this first hand.
The way things are right now, if some owners try to control costs, they lose games, fans, and money. More so than what they lost this past season.
And as for collusion, you need to research this before you say things like that. In the US, if the owners of professional sports team decide amongst themselves to limit salaries, that is called collusion. If the owners do this, the union will immediately file an anti-trust lawsuit. If the owners are found quilty, they will be forced to pay triple damages on what the courts decide the players lost due to the collusion.
Baseball had to pay something like $250 million when they were found guilty of collusion by agreeing among themselves not to go after other teams free-agents or not offer over some amount for free agents (I'm not a big baseball fan so I'm a little foggy on the particulars...)
I think it's not quite as cut and dried as you make it out to be.
P.S. here is a link for you on collusion...
http://www.uniquevenues.com/pdf/antitrustlaw.pdf#search='collusion%20antitrust%20law'
Here's another...
The problem that consortia are most likely to face is the appearance or reality of improper collusion. At their core, the courts interpret the antitrust laws to presume that competition (a good thing) is best encouraged if buyers and sellers (and in more recent times licensors and licensees) make business decisions independent of each other. If decisions are made by competitors working together, whether they agree on prices, divide and allocate markets, restrict product features, set conditions of sale, or arbitrarily agree who is "in" and who is "out" of a standards organization (all bad things), the purchasing public will be presumed to suffer in consequence. Its suffering will result from higher prices and fewer choices.
Antitrust violations also expose consortia and other SDOs to civil suit. Under federal law, private persons or firms may sue for damages due to antitrust law violations. Moreover, companies found liable for such violations may be required to pay up to three times the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff, as well as all of the plaintiff's litigation costs and attorneys' fees. Finally, while it is relatively rare, U.S. State Attorneys General may bring both state and federal court actions.
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/laws/