2012 CBA - what will it have?
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Ernie
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Gallagher is always very biased towards the players, so that's something to keep in mind.
Another point is that dropping the floor will result in franchises that spend to the cap paying a bigger chunk of that 57%, so it's not just a "gimme".
Guaranteed contracts and holding onto that 57% are the lines in the sand for the players. Most other issues are actually for the owners to work out between themselves.
There is absolutely no justification for changing that 57%. The teams have seen their share of revenues grow from $830m to $1.25b since the last CBA. That's an average growth of 6% per year, much higher than inflation or average economic growth. If the players' share is capped at 57%, the owners' revenues will grow at an even faster rate. If they can't run business based on this, they should get out of it.
Another point is that dropping the floor will result in franchises that spend to the cap paying a bigger chunk of that 57%, so it's not just a "gimme".
Guaranteed contracts and holding onto that 57% are the lines in the sand for the players. Most other issues are actually for the owners to work out between themselves.
There is absolutely no justification for changing that 57%. The teams have seen their share of revenues grow from $830m to $1.25b since the last CBA. That's an average growth of 6% per year, much higher than inflation or average economic growth. If the players' share is capped at 57%, the owners' revenues will grow at an even faster rate. If they can't run business based on this, they should get out of it.
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Time for the players to take their league back. A baseball style CBA would be ideal - a luxury tax system with more revenue sharing. Lowered UFA age, elimination of ELC and the draft would also be preferable imo. Hopefully the greedy owners negotiate.
trueblue9441
Registered User
the salary cap isnt going anywhere. i honestly don't see too much changing, the owners will get the players to take 54% of hrr, with the promise that the owners will take care of the phoenix situation players will have to put less into escrow and that will be that.
a large committee will be formed to deal with player safety in light of whats happened this summer.
there wont be a work stoppage and there wont be much change at all. theres too much to lose and things are working alright.
mouser
Business of Hockey
As long as we're in a situation like the past several years where the overall player paychecks have been over the 57% share and the players end up returning the difference via escrow I'm not so sure that's true. The escrow refund process shifts money from the top revenue teams towards the bottom revenue teams. A lower floor that resulted in a lower escrow refund could be more beneficial to the top revenue/spending teams.
Ernie
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actually, escrow works in the opposite fashion; the top teams spend to the cap, but they still get a huge chunk of that back in escrow. If the lower level teams don't spend as much because the cap floor is removed, the escrow coming back won't be as much, and the top teams will therefore end up spending more overall.
I am not sure what it will have but 2 things they need to look at in my opinion
1) Front Loaded Deals - they have to come up with a system that makes each progressive season either get an equal salary or increase through the life of the deal or at worse has minimal difference between years(ie the difference between the highest and lowest year can be like 25%)
2) Players with salaries over a certain amount should count towards the cap(Redden and Huet instantly come to mind). This is slowly becoming a problem between the haves and have nots, that certain teams can hide bad deals, while the have nots have to live with their mistakes.
1) Front Loaded Deals - they have to come up with a system that makes each progressive season either get an equal salary or increase through the life of the deal or at worse has minimal difference between years(ie the difference between the highest and lowest year can be like 25%)
2) Players with salaries over a certain amount should count towards the cap(Redden and Huet instantly come to mind). This is slowly becoming a problem between the haves and have nots, that certain teams can hide bad deals, while the have nots have to live with their mistakes.
mouser
Business of Hockey
The top teams don't a huge chunk of it back in escrow. Any escrow refunds generated by the top 10 revenue teams are first used to fund up to 1/3rd of the revenue redistribution pool [CBA 49.5(b)]. Then any eligible team that had a actual payroll less than the midpoint will receive escrow funds to bring them up to the midpoint [CBA 49.7(a)]. Then if there's any $ left in the escrow refund pool it's split evenly amongst the 30 teams [CBA 49.7(b)], without regard for how big their payrolls were.
Top revenue teams spending to the cap will only receive a fraction back of their escrow overage at most. While lower revenue teams can receive back 100%+ of their contribution to the overage. The escrow refund process shifts money from the top revenue teams to the lower revenue teams.
LadyStanley
Registered User
http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/pu...924&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Puck Daddy looks at the "war" over the cap floor.
Puck Daddy looks at the "war" over the cap floor.
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MaskedSonja
Registered User
10 posts into a thread about the CBA and no kdb? Shocked! Shocked I say! 
I'm leaning towards the idea that this battle is going to be more about big market owners vs small. Would there be a lockout? That would be an interesting reason Owners: "we're locking the players out because we can't agreement on our markets and what should be in the CBA between ourselves"
I don't see a lockout happening. A player strike? Only if Fehr can get the players to do it. Again, I'm not convinced Fehr, who for the first time in his professional life will NOT be fighting against a hard cap, because there's already one there.
Only reason I can mainly see the owners doing it is by being greedy and wanting to REDUCE the percentage of linkage to the low to mid 50 percent mark-and that would get the players dander up.
I'm leaning towards the idea that this battle is going to be more about big market owners vs small. Would there be a lockout? That would be an interesting reason Owners: "we're locking the players out because we can't agreement on our markets and what should be in the CBA between ourselves"
I don't see a lockout happening. A player strike? Only if Fehr can get the players to do it. Again, I'm not convinced Fehr, who for the first time in his professional life will NOT be fighting against a hard cap, because there's already one there.
Only reason I can mainly see the owners doing it is by being greedy and wanting to REDUCE the percentage of linkage to the low to mid 50 percent mark-and that would get the players dander up.
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kdb209
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- Jan 26, 2005
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10 posts into a thread about the CBA and no kdb? Shocked! Shocked I say!
I'm leaning towards the idea that this battle is going to be more about big market owners vs small. Would there be a lockout? That would be an interesting reason Owners: "we're locking the players out because we can't agreement on our markets and what should be in the CBA between ourselves"
I don't see a lockout happening. A player strike? Only if Fehr can get the players to do it. Again, I'm not convinced Fehr, who for the first time in his professional life will NOT be fighting against a hard cap, because there's already one there.
Only reason I can mainly see the owners doing it is by being greedy and wanting to REDUCE the percentage of linkage to the low to mid 50 percent mark-and that would get the players dander up.
A strike - at least a strike at the beginning of the season - is very unlikely.
The players would be happy to continue under the terms of the current CBA.
AIUI, under a strike (as opposed to a lockout), players under contract could be prevented from playing in Europe. Under US labor law, a locked out worker is permitted to seek other employment. That is not true in the case of a strike - they would still considered under contract.
Now, in the unlikely event that the season commences absent a new CBA (and the League does not get a No Strike pledge from the NHLPA), then I could see the Players striking late in the season when they have all the leverage.
Ernie
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Thanks for the explanation.
Now it makes sense why the NHLPA has consistently used their 5% cap inflator; essentially most of that 5% is revenue sharing.
Lower UFA age??? You must be trolling. It's already super low.
Just noticed your username... Funny.
The way fans bandy about the phrase 5% inflator, it really feels like they think this is some nefarious plot to sneakily get paid an amount inflated by 5% more than they deserve.
Of course the so called 5% “inflator” is because when they set the cap each summer for the next season, they base the cap and floor starting point on last years actuals. Then they have to guess how much are revenues likely to grow in the coming year because in the end, the 57% is going to be based on the coming years actuals, not last years. It matters not whether the players voted for a 50% inflator, they only get 57% of salaries in the end.
That Puck Daddy article seems so sadly misinformed. Another common bit of conventional wisdom I often hear is that the salary cap floor was some sort of sop to the nhlpa in negotiations; that it was something the nhlpa won. But of course that’s nonsense. The owners offered the players a choice of 6 possible scenarios:
1. A Salary Cap
2. A Cap on salaries
3. A Hard cap
4. A cap
5. A triple p partnership cap system
6. A Payroll Range System
It was number 6 - a payroll range system, which consisted of a salary cap, a triple cap in fact, linked to revenues backed by an escrow account to ensure the owners never overspend 57% of revenues on salaries.
And this ridiculously oft quoted idea that the problem is that the floor is going up at a faster percentage than the ceiling is surely ignoring the fact that the square root of the prime number closest to the difference in absolute value between the top and bottom payroll has a 3 in it.
From a fans perspective, the great achievement of the Payroll Range system is usually explained as that it guaranteed parity, financial parity anyway, because every teams payroll was within $16mil of the max. When fans were asked why a new cba was needed, the first response was often because NYR and Tor have a $50 mil payroll advantage and keep buying Cups.
The floor cant be a win for the players because they get the same money whether or not there is a floor. The floor was a victory for the fans.
If they drop the floor, then sure, some markets might be able to stay in the league, with a payroll say $50 mil less than Detroit, but then arent we back to 2003 except worse because now with a lower ufa age, small markets lose the one advantage they used to have - the ability to keep players cheaply until they were 31 and then trade them for a top pick, prospect, and a player.
Of course lets remember, that at the moment, it as a fan ASSUMPTION that the low revenue teams cant keep up - that revenue sharing isn’t enough or isn’t working. But remember, if central revenues rise by $60 mil, every team gets $2 mil. That $2 mil allows the bottom teams revenue to grow at a much higher rate than the top revenue teams. And if revenues increase 10%, revenue sharing increases by that too.
The salary floor isn’t what increased the amount of mid value players. That one is actually most interesting when you think about it. The assumption was that player salaries spiralled because of greedy players. But when the cap first came in and the max salary a player could get was 20% of $39 mil ~ $7.5 mil, there were many contracts signed at $7.5 mil. The ceiling is now close to doubling, yet the salary that top ufa’s get has hardly increased from $7.5 mil. In fact, by using long term contracts, often it is $6mil. Instead of the best players getting most of the raises when revenues went up, the middle class did. This surprised me anyway, no one else seems to care or notice the ramifications.
One of the funnier complaints I always found was those who rally against long term contracts as some sort of cap circumvention. And then in the next breath they argue in favour of getting rid of guaranteed contracts. I mean is there any bigger cap circumvention other than unguaranteed contracts? Isnt that ingraining cap circumvention into the system?
Of course the so called 5% “inflator” is because when they set the cap each summer for the next season, they base the cap and floor starting point on last years actuals. Then they have to guess how much are revenues likely to grow in the coming year because in the end, the 57% is going to be based on the coming years actuals, not last years. It matters not whether the players voted for a 50% inflator, they only get 57% of salaries in the end.
That Puck Daddy article seems so sadly misinformed. Another common bit of conventional wisdom I often hear is that the salary cap floor was some sort of sop to the nhlpa in negotiations; that it was something the nhlpa won. But of course that’s nonsense. The owners offered the players a choice of 6 possible scenarios:
1. A Salary Cap
2. A Cap on salaries
3. A Hard cap
4. A cap
5. A triple p partnership cap system
6. A Payroll Range System
It was number 6 - a payroll range system, which consisted of a salary cap, a triple cap in fact, linked to revenues backed by an escrow account to ensure the owners never overspend 57% of revenues on salaries.
And this ridiculously oft quoted idea that the problem is that the floor is going up at a faster percentage than the ceiling is surely ignoring the fact that the square root of the prime number closest to the difference in absolute value between the top and bottom payroll has a 3 in it.
From a fans perspective, the great achievement of the Payroll Range system is usually explained as that it guaranteed parity, financial parity anyway, because every teams payroll was within $16mil of the max. When fans were asked why a new cba was needed, the first response was often because NYR and Tor have a $50 mil payroll advantage and keep buying Cups.
The floor cant be a win for the players because they get the same money whether or not there is a floor. The floor was a victory for the fans.
If they drop the floor, then sure, some markets might be able to stay in the league, with a payroll say $50 mil less than Detroit, but then arent we back to 2003 except worse because now with a lower ufa age, small markets lose the one advantage they used to have - the ability to keep players cheaply until they were 31 and then trade them for a top pick, prospect, and a player.
Of course lets remember, that at the moment, it as a fan ASSUMPTION that the low revenue teams cant keep up - that revenue sharing isn’t enough or isn’t working. But remember, if central revenues rise by $60 mil, every team gets $2 mil. That $2 mil allows the bottom teams revenue to grow at a much higher rate than the top revenue teams. And if revenues increase 10%, revenue sharing increases by that too.
The salary floor isn’t what increased the amount of mid value players. That one is actually most interesting when you think about it. The assumption was that player salaries spiralled because of greedy players. But when the cap first came in and the max salary a player could get was 20% of $39 mil ~ $7.5 mil, there were many contracts signed at $7.5 mil. The ceiling is now close to doubling, yet the salary that top ufa’s get has hardly increased from $7.5 mil. In fact, by using long term contracts, often it is $6mil. Instead of the best players getting most of the raises when revenues went up, the middle class did. This surprised me anyway, no one else seems to care or notice the ramifications.
One of the funnier complaints I always found was those who rally against long term contracts as some sort of cap circumvention. And then in the next breath they argue in favour of getting rid of guaranteed contracts. I mean is there any bigger cap circumvention other than unguaranteed contracts? Isnt that ingraining cap circumvention into the system?
chasespace
Registered User
The NHL has RFA's, teams get compensated there. How's that working for the players? The offers just come streaming in
Sorry, we have seen how the NHL GM's deal with players when they have to pay compensation. If teams get compensated for UFA's, we'd see as much movement as we do with RFA's.
Butch 19
Go cart Mozart
Just curious, are there any greedy players? If so, can you point them out?
If no, maybe point out which owners are greedy - maybe they're all greedy, I don't know.
Your other comments are so far out there / distant from reality that no serious response is even necessary.
... "take their league back"...
"luxury tax" wow.
kdb209
Registered User
- Jan 26, 2005
- 14,870
- 6
The NHL has RFA's, teams get compensated there. How's that working for the players? The offers just come streaming in
Sorry, we have seen how the NHL GM's deal with players when they have to pay compensation. If teams get compensated for UFA's, we'd see as much movement as we do with RFA's.
No. There was such a compensation system for UFAs under the old pre-lockout (1995) CBA. It did not, in any way, deter UFA signings.
Teams did not lose draft picks. Instead, teams who had a net loss of UFAs were granted additional picks - similar to the current system for unsigned first round draft picks. The strange side-effect was that teams would trade for pending UFAs in June, just to get the compensation picks. That's how Theo became a Shark for two weeks in 1999.
From the Next CBA: Franchise/Transition Tags or Sign/Trade thread:
kdb209 said:
IU Hawks fan
They call me IU
That was then, unfortunately we have to work with the GM's of today and they have shown their colours. It's an old boys club - don't take my players and I won't take yours. RFA's are where teams get compensated, UFA means just that UNRESTRICTED.
RandV
It's a wolf v2.0
Yeah I noticed this. In particular because I recall that during the lockout many people on here, particularly those that were pro-union, were always predicting that under a cap all the space would be diverted to the elite players and the rest of the PA would be much poorer for it. I for one didn't think that would happen, so it's nice to see I was right here and some form of elitist greed didn't win out
.Of course there was a chance of it happening, there were a few rather large contracts signed early on, Lecavailer and Richards for example, but what really countered it was the cap floor. Because the top teams were pressed up against the cap right from the start, it left the bottom teams with all the signing power giving good money to middle-tier players.
mouser
Business of Hockey
As teams have gotten more creative with the salary cap comparing current cap figures to 2005/2006 can be a bit deceptive. There are 21 players earning $7.5m+ in salary this season, including 7 at $9m+. Brad Richards is collecting a cool $12m this season.
The middle class certainly got their share too, and we've seen the erosion of the cheap 2nd contract also.
If the players get 57% of revenue, why would they care if there's a cap or a floor on team payrolls?
Here's something else I've thought about:
Players as a whole get 57%. Then, individual players are limited to 20% of their team's payroll.
Teams as a whole get 43%. There is no limit on how much an individual team makes.
Teams as a whole are not losing money. But the feeling I get is that the league wants to put the losses of the teams that aren't making money on the backs of the players by reducing the percentage going to the players as a whole.
Here's something else I've thought about:
Players as a whole get 57%. Then, individual players are limited to 20% of their team's payroll.
Teams as a whole get 43%. There is no limit on how much an individual team makes.
Teams as a whole are not losing money. But the feeling I get is that the league wants to put the losses of the teams that aren't making money on the backs of the players by reducing the percentage going to the players as a whole.
Fourier
Registered User
Seems to me that the following quote shows a pretty significant gap in the understanding of how escrow works in the NHL.
I wonder when we will see a new CBA. Like kdb I think the players would be happy to continue under the current agreement. And the NHL would be crazy to pull the plug until they had a reasonably unified position.
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The players, on the other hand, will be looking to put an end to this
ridiculous escrow situation whereby they are basically bankrolling the league’s
inept management performance in Phoenix. One league type says that this one
franchise fiasco in the desert could be responsible for ‘up to 70 per cent of
escrow payments’ clawed back from the players and they’d like something done pronto.I wonder when we will see a new CBA. Like kdb I think the players would be happy to continue under the current agreement. And the NHL would be crazy to pull the plug until they had a reasonably unified position.
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