4 Major NA Team Sport Comparisons

For those interested, below is a link to a good summary (CBA, TV Ratings, Avg Team/Player salaries, etc) of the 4 major team sports in North America:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news;_y...wN0bQ--?slug=daretocompare&prov=tsn&type=lgns

 

Well the average percentage of net revenues going to the players in the other 3 sports is 61.3%. Bettman wants the players salaries to be on the right level in comparison with other sports that have higher revenues. Soooo, I would certainly say the right level of percentage of net revenue to go to the NHL players would be 61%, because if 3 other leagues could thrive with 61% of revenue for their players, than the NHL certainly should be able to do the same. HOWEVER, 75% minus the 24% the players offered to cut back on salaries equals, hey whatta ya no 60%! So the PA proposed that the NHL should compensate their players LESS than the other 3 leagues compensate theirs', yet Bettman not only rejects this, but doesn't even negotiate off of it.

So can someone tell me how Bettman can sit there and ***** about the percentage of net revenues going to the players and compare the NHL to other leagues, but when the PA makes a proposal that is BELOW the standard set by other leagues Bettman rejects it?

Fire Bettman. Reduce salaries by 24% so current compensation level compares to those of the other leagues. Fix/abolish salary triggers such as arbitration and entry level salaries so future compensation level will compare to those of the other leagues. Put a hard cap at $50 million to prevent a few teams from completely throwing off the compensation to revenue ratio in a given year and put a payroll tax(dollar for dollar) at $40 million with the tax money getting kicked back to teams under a certain revenue level...thus allowing teams with high revenues to spend a little more than teams that don't make as much money, but as those teams spend money gets kicked back to lower revenue teams so they can spend as well. And let's play some ****ing hockey already the **** with these *******s.

 

That's because this is a nothing proposal. Anybody with half a brain knows that that is only temporary and that within 5 years contracts will either be equal or have exceeded where there are now.

 

If the other leagues have higher revenues, especially TV revenues, it would make sense that the NHL would need to offer a smaller percentage of the revenues. If revenues increase in the future, the percentage going to the players can be renegotiated.

And the 24% salary rollback does get salaries down to the same percentage of revenues going to players in other leagues, their is nothing in the players proposal that will prevent salaries from escalating in the future. In fact, as soon as the owners agree to that CBA, Goodenow will be using his SCORE system to tell key players to hold out for pre-rollback salaries. These new salaries will then be used in arbitration by other players, and the NHL will be back in the same position within 2 or 3 years.

 

As much bashing as you hear the NHL take on its TV ratings you would think the other leagues would just be blowing them away. Besides the NFL, the other two leagues do clearly beat the NHL, but not by a landslide like the US media makes it out to be.

NHL - TV audience: 1.1 rating on ABC, 0.47 on ESPN and 0.24 on ESPN2

MLB - TV audience: 2.7 rating on FOX, 1.1 on ESPN and 0.6 on ESPN2

NBA - TV audience: 2.4 rating on ABC, 1.3 on ESPN, 0.9 on ESPN2 and 1.4 on TNT Revenue sharing: 35 percent of total revenues

NFL - TV audience: 9.0 rating on CBS, 9.9 on FOX, 7.1 on ESPN and 11.0 on ABC.

I think with the right marketing strategy, CBA, HDTV, better access for the networks to broadcast games and rule changes to the game - the NHL can definitely close the gap on the MLB and NBA.

 

Actually, technically, player salary last year was roughly 62% of revenue. Average team payroll was $44 million, or $1.3 billion. The league made about $2.1 billion in revenue. The league gets the 75% figure by adding in player related costs such as insurance, travel, etc.

 

I considered that and it is considered in the article. $1.3 billion is 75% of net revenue, meaning somewhere around $1.8 billion. Gross revenue is around $2 billion or as you say $2.1 billion. Of that players are getting 62%, or around that, yes.

 

and minor league player costs .. funny they dont include any of hte revenue from the minor league operations.

dr

 

Not if you put a ceiling on it, as I said in the rest of my post which I guess you didn't read.

 

Why does that mean the NHL players should make less of what their league makes than other leagues players'? I don't care if the NHL revenue is 10 dollars, than the players should make around 61% of that. Doesn't matter what the revenues are, just that the players get the right perecentage of them.

 

Knob Goodenow does not want to talk about percentages...unfortunately...

 

NHL
Revenue sharing: 10 percent

MLB
Type of system: Luxury tax
Revenue sharing: 34 percent of local revenue, including gate receipts, is shared equally among the teams.

NBA
Type of system: Soft cap
Revenue sharing: 35 percent of total revenues

NFL
Type of system: Hard cap
Revenue sharing: 80 percent of all gate receipts, among other things, are spread evenly among the teams.

Now if the owners and league get a hard cap like they want, are the owners really willing to share 80% of their revenue with the other teams like in the NFL? I can't see teams like Detroit, Toronto, the Rangers, or other big market teams willing to share that high a percentage of their gate revenue. The current revenue sharing is so extremely low at 10% that it probably helped contribute to the problem over the yrs. Which is interesting because that's something between just the owners and has little to do with the player/owner relationship.

 

most minor league teams run in the red.....

and the bill is picked up by their NHL team

 

The point is that it takes money to run a team. How much, I really have no idea, but the more revenue you have coming in, the more you can use for salaries since the costs of running the team will be some what fixed.

For instance, let's say no matter what league you are in, it costs teams $100M (made up number...) to run the teams for 1 year, excluding salaries. If one league has $150M in revenues, the players in that league can't get the same percentage of revenues as the players in another league that has $300M in revenues.

Each league is different. You can't just say the other leagues give this much to salaries, so hockey should be the same.

 

And by the same token, you can't say the another league has this or that system, so thats what we should have.

 

in any other business, labor is nowhere close to 60%. In fact, if you look at labor costs on employees you would know that it tops out at 30% in most cases. NHL players in reality don't deserve any more of that.

 

Except in other businesses, the labor isn't what the customers are buying. Just remember that the players are pretty much the "product" in this business.

 

That still doesn't make sense. Just because NHL owners make less revenue than owners in other leagues doesn't mean that the players in the NHL need to make a lower percentage of that. If revenues rise everyone makes more, if they fall everyone makes less. Mr. Bettman would also disagree with this as well, where do you think he got his $34 million cap from? Why do you think he was willing to accept a $36-38 million cap? Because that is about 60% of NHL revenues, on par with other major leagues.

I agree you can't compare leagues in most respects, but percentage of net revenue going to the players is one thing which should be constant among all leagues. The NBA is extremely similar to the NHL as far as fixed costs and their players make 57% of revenue. That's what Bettman is basing his position on, so you can't say that you agree with him but don't agree that the % of revenue should be similar to other leagues.

 

Good point... but please remember, that dr is never wrong...

 

The amount of percentage revenue going to the players is dependent on the league and the fixed costs of operating the league/teams. There is no way to get around that. If the league does not pull in enough revenue, they can't put 60%+ towards salaries without taking something away. I doubt you want to see your team playing in yellow T-shirts because they couldn't afford to by sweaters since they were putting 60% towards salaries.

And I thought that his cap numbers were about 54% of revenue? (I didn't go and look it up, kind of lazy right now...)

I know very little about the NBA, so my answer here is very un-informed. I think there are some difference between the NBA and NHL that would go to the arguement that the players in the NHL should not get the same percentage of revenue as players in the NBA.

I think both leagues play a similar number of games and play in the same arenas for the most part, so that can be considered the same. But what about rosters? NHL teams have a lot more players under contract than NBA teams, and the NHL teams have players in other leagues that they have to pay for also, yet only the players on the NHL team are considered when talking about the cap. The players in the AHL and other leagues in general don't make as much as players in the NHL, but that would reduce the percentage of revenue NHL teams can put towards player salaries. The number of players will also effect how much the NHL must pay for travel (Rooms, meals, etc...)

Another huge difference is that NHL teams need to make ice to play on and to practice on. The NBA does not (but I would watch if they tried it...) making ice and maintaining it requires energy, and energy is expensive these days. That is another bit percentage of revenue that can't go to the players.

There may be more differences, but that's what immediately comes to mind.

 

So there is no reason for the NHLPA not to sign up then?

 

There are plenty of reasons, the main being that this percentage would be enforced by a hard cap. No other league has that, so why should the NHL have it? I wouldn't accept it either if I were a player.

My point was that Bettman's numbers were right on with other leagues as far as perecentage of net revenue going to the players,eventhough some people were saying that it shouldn't be. But the way in which Bettman wants to put salaries at that percentage is wrong. MLB, NBA neither has a hard cap they simply put economic systems in place that would bring the % of net revenue to the right level. Now the NHL should find out a system that does the same for them, but there is no reason for a hard cap in that system.

 

The writer fails to mention that while the NFL average payroll is abut 71 million, each team gets somewhere between 70 and 75 million a year from the TV contracts alone. You can sit on your hands and make money over fist as an NFL owner. Hell Mike Brown and Bill Bidwell have been doing just that for years.

 

Actually, the article does mention that.

To me, the most glaring number difference was the revenue sharing. If the owners really wanted to solve the problem, they could internally without concessions from the players. If some teams make so much money they can't help themselves from spending, donate some of it to charity (the rest of the league) to make sure there is a league to play in so that team can continue to prosper.