gc2005 said:
Nice to see you up on your high horse again.
First off, regardless of what you think, the age-old notion of a bunch of idiotic, uneducated barbarian hockey players being lead blindly through the confusing world of money and finance has got to go. Period.
I for one don't see why. THe majority of grade 12 grads wouldn't know squat about stuff like that. Mhy should hockey players (who have devoted their lives to getting to the NHL) be any different? If anything, they would be more inclined to be unknowledgeable. Have you ever listened to these guys TRYING to carry an interview?
Now, nowhere did I say the vast majority of fans are ignorant to the basic facts. This site does not cater to the vast majority of fans though, there hasn't been hockey in a year now, I'd say we're a lot more than just casual fans if we're posting on a Business of Hockey board. I'm sure most if not everyone here knows exactly what's going on with the dispute, have followed it closely, have actually read the Levitt report, etc.
But when you get a Legere poll in Canada of 1,000 random homes and "who do you support, owners or players?", how can you possibly think that all 1,000 of those people answering the poll questions are as well-informed as the posters here?
For that matter, most posters here are completely uninformed. Most polls of that nature also have a "don't know/don't care" option.
The word "strike" works its way into non-sports newspaper and internet articles. People who consider themselves as hockey fans but either don't have the time or don't care enough to study the issues in depth probably don't care if it's a strike or a lockout, and can easily make the false assumption that the players are at fault because they're asking for more money, therefore they throw their support behind the owners.
In all my travels, I have never heard anyone say anything of the sort. Anyone who is a sports fan listens to sports telecasts, which have commented on it extensively and made it prety clear to anyone even half-listening.
The PA (for some reason) doesn't care about public relations and getting fans on their side. The NHL does, they even hired PR firms, and engineered the Levitt report to try to convince everyone that they should be supporting the owners.
I get the biggest kick out of this, and this post is far from the only one which makes this mistake. Does anyone actually think the league PR campaign is aimed at THE FANS????!?! Please read this closely: just about every time the league is speaking through the media (except the few times when they address the fans direclty, such as in the season-ending speech), they are speaking to THE PLAYERS. THe league believes that the PA is run by an autocratic leader who does not give his members the full skinny. Agree or disagree as to whether he is, but the league believes it. It is the very height of naivete to think that the "PR campaign" is addressed at you or me.
You have to do a little digging to realize that the 75% is a ratio of grossed-up player costs divided by grossed down "net revenues", a calculation specifically designed to make the number high. GB and/or Daly have even referred to the ratio as "salaries" instead of what it actually is, "player costs".
Please, not more of this, I beg you. The Silverstein deconstruction of Levitt is a giant pantload. THe 75% was generated to compare it to what otehr leagues use to calculate the relevant numbers. The 75% is a DIRECT comparison to how the other leagues calculate revenue.
Keep throwing out that the NHL is offering players a $1.3 million avg and over half the revenues, in absence of other information I think the average person would think yeah, that seems fair, good deal owners, players must be greedy to turn that down.
Greedy? Whatever. Stupid in the face of a clearly united ownership? Assuredly.
Compare all the PR efforts from the league side (along with mis-information, such as "this is to save the small markets" or "this is about competitive balance") to the PR efforts of the PA, which are minimal at best, and how can you possibly think that non-hard-core fans who really don't care all that much would be persuaded to "support" the owners, or at least answer that "Yes, I support the owners" when someone asks, even though they clearly don't know everything about the issues and parties involved?
See above. The "PR" is in fact a direct statement to the union membership.
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