A hard cap doesn't prevent teams from keeping star players.
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CarlRacki
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Son of Steinbrenner said:
I hear this all the time but have yet to hear one person explain why.
And please don't say "because the NFL cap is bigger". The size of the cap has nothing to do with whether or not a cap can work, it's merely a reflection of league revenues. If the NHL had NFL-size revenues, then they could have an NFL-size cap and give its players NFL-size contracts.
The problem with the PA, I believe, is that they want salaries comparable to those of the other major sports despite the fact their revenues fall far short of those leagues' revenues. Thus, the NHLPA's absolute insistence not to have payrolls tied to revenues.
Son of Steinbrenner said:
Unless you're doing so to claim that a cap will result in 30 mediocre teams, right?
The Gabe Blade
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Son of Steinbrenner said:
I dont see why not.
You have two similar business's that generate revenue from TV, ticket sales, merchandise, and beer.
the fact that one makes a lot more money than the other doesnt mean it cant be a template.
I can't believe all the people that still make this argument now.
The NFL is absolutely nothing like the NHL for the purposes of this argument, because the NFL has significant revenue sharing and a TV deal that basically covers the payroll.
How many times does this have to be repeated to people???
YOU CAN'T COMPARE THE NFL CAP TO THE NHL'S PROPOSED CAP. THEY ARE NOTHING ALIKE.
The NFL is absolutely nothing like the NHL for the purposes of this argument, because the NFL has significant revenue sharing and a TV deal that basically covers the payroll.
How many times does this have to be repeated to people???
YOU CAN'T COMPARE THE NFL CAP TO THE NHL'S PROPOSED CAP. THEY ARE NOTHING ALIKE.
The Gabe Blade
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PepNCheese said:
I dont think anyone said "take the NFL contract and white out where it says NFL and write NHL". They are very similar businesses and the NHL could learn a bit from it.
To add to your comments, NFL contracts arent garanteed so its easy to get rid of star players.PepNCheese said:
Hockeyfan02
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You can keep your star players in a cap, but it doesnt leave you much room to keep some of the other role players. You use the Colts as an example for keeping star players, but by keeping the star players on offense they dont have any room to keep key guys on defense. They pour all their money on offense, but dont have a very good defense. There are other teams in the league that have a lot of money spent on defense, but dont have a lot of money on offense. The cap is just going to have teams keep their core guys, but might have to let go a key guy on a 2nd line. But if a team knew how to work its budget , it could keep the core guys and replace the guys with equal replacements for less money (ex. Lightning walking away from Stillman's arbitration which many teams have the right to but dont and then acquring Prospal who may be a step down but costs less.)
And there are a few ways you cant compare the NFL cap to the NHL. A) NFL has a ton of revenue the NHL can only dream about. This revenue alone from the TV contracts covers the player salaries, NHL tv contract will not. B) NFL does not have guranteed contracts, NHL does and those certainly wont be taken away (as they shouldnt). And probably the main reason: The NFL cap is about competitive balance keeping the dynasties like the Cowboys of the 90s, 49ers of the 80s from hogging all the talent with an unlimited payroll. Granted that may be part of the NHL's reason, but the NHL's cap is for "cost certainty". The NFL's cap isnt based on "cost certainty" because they get a massive amount of revenue and none of the owners are losing money on their clubs like in the NHL. There are ways its a good comparison, but if you think they are similar youre mistaken.
And there are a few ways you cant compare the NFL cap to the NHL. A) NFL has a ton of revenue the NHL can only dream about. This revenue alone from the TV contracts covers the player salaries, NHL tv contract will not. B) NFL does not have guranteed contracts, NHL does and those certainly wont be taken away (as they shouldnt). And probably the main reason: The NFL cap is about competitive balance keeping the dynasties like the Cowboys of the 90s, 49ers of the 80s from hogging all the talent with an unlimited payroll. Granted that may be part of the NHL's reason, but the NHL's cap is for "cost certainty". The NFL's cap isnt based on "cost certainty" because they get a massive amount of revenue and none of the owners are losing money on their clubs like in the NHL. There are ways its a good comparison, but if you think they are similar youre mistaken.
A hard cap doesn't prevent teams from keeping star players ...
a hard cap DOES make it harder for teams to keep their star players.
How much harder obviously depends on the details of the cap (which at this point are pure speculation)
a hard cap DOES make it harder for teams to keep their star players.
How much harder obviously depends on the details of the cap (which at this point are pure speculation)
PepNCheese said:
I think that allowing big signing bonuses would be a fair trade off for non-guaranteed contracts. At least that would prevent the stupid contracts (long term, big money deals) from ruining teams.
CarlRacki
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PepNCheese said:
That deal doesn't circumvent the cap in the slightest. every one of those $34 million counts against the cap, only it does so over the life of the contract or six years, whichever is shorter. In other words, that bonus will cost the Colts $5.67 million against the cap each year for the next six years.
CarlRacki
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Hockeyfan02 said:
Pretty good post, but I have a few issues:
1. Not to turn this into a football discussion, but the Colts defensive problem has as much to do with poor drafting and personnel decisions as it does the cap. In the last six drafts, the Colts have used eight of their 12 first- and second-round picks on defensive players. Only one - Dwight Freeney - is a good player with the team. The other good one, Mike Peterson, they let get away.
2. The Dallas teams of the 1990s were created in a capped system.
3. The NFL cap is absolutely based on cost certainty. Otherwise, they wouldn't tie it strictly to a percentage of revenues. Competitiveness is a nice by-product of a capped system, but it's certainly not the primary reason for one.
Hockeyfan02
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CarlRacki said:
Now that I thought about it a little more, it is based more on cost certainty. But I dont think NFL clubs were losing money like the NHL clubs were, granted it was back in the late 80s when I was little so I dont know much about the situation at that time. I think the NHL cap is more trying to salvage clubs than the NFL cap was. The cap is more of a byproduct to make sure the canadian teams (Edmonton, Calgary) and other low revenue teams can run a successful buisness and compete with the higher revenue teams. I dont think it was as much of a need as the NHL's is. About the Cowboys, I seem to remember them and the 49ers being stacked across the board when they played in the NFC championship games in the 90s which is why I didnt think a cap was in place then.
The NFL salary cap is based on a percentage of the income (called Defined Gross Revenue) that the NFL teams earn during a season. The DGR is based on ticket sales, merchandise sales, and broadcasts. There's no reason why the NHL and NHLPA couldn't negotiate a similar formula. And the fact that there's less TV income simply means that there's a smaller pie to divide.PepNCheese said:
The main difference I see between an NFL and NHL cap is the roster size. An NFL roster has 53 players and an NHL roster has 23. In the NFL you’ll have about a dozen players that only play on special teams. You have second and third string players who don’t play much. It is far easier to work around a hard cap when you when maybe 80% of the roster would be considered “non essential” or interchangeable. So if you want to sign your star quarterback, you can make the decision to cut a few veterans and give their spots to rookies. That would be much tougher in the NHL. If you want to keep a couple of stars that you drafted and developed, you could make a decision to replace some veteran 4th liners and/or 5th and 6th defensemen with AHL caliber rookies. You could decide that it’s more important to keep your stars than it is to have a solid backup goalie. But every player is more important to an NHL team than each player is to an NFL team. It’s important to have smart veterans on the grinding and checking lines. It’s important to have at least five dependable defensemen. So in the NHL under a hard cap system, teams are much more likely to allow a star that they drafted and developed to walk away. If a team decides to pay it’s stars, they would likely have to deal with a crippling lack of depth.
PepNCheese said:
The NFL negotiated that huge TV contract so they made the decision to share the money from it. Had that not been there the NFL owners would have been just as unwilling to share their revenue as their NHL counterparts.
mooseOAK said:
Which is 100 percent correct. The NHL does share the broadcast revenue from their TV contract in the same fashion that football does. The difference? An extra zero in the check each team gets from the deal.
Hockeyfan02
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misterjaggers said:
The NHL's cap doesnt say anything about revenue sharing. I completely forgot about it in my post earlier, but thats another difference between the two. Not 100% sure, but I think I've seen that the PA had revenue sharing in its proposal. The NHL isnt arguing for revenue sharing as I've seen a few posts about that. Its a much smaller pie when you consider the NFL's TV contract split up covers the entire team salary of a club, where the NHL's TV contract split between each club will cover a small percentage of a team's payroll. The NFL cap could provide a good model for some things, but the NFL's cap wont work for the NHL.
John Flyers Fan
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MR. X said:
Agreed you can keep all your star players, and the rest of your team will be junk (see: Indy defense).
John Flyers Fan
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misterjaggers said:
The difference is that the NFL broadcast rights are a huge national TV deal.
In the NHL it's a few small National TV deals (NBC, ESPN, TSN and CBC) and 30 local broadcast contracts. The owners that get paid big rights fees to broadcast their games, do NOT want to share them with the teams that get much smaller local TV deals
The NFL and NHL are not anywhere near close in terms of philosophy in running a business. Here are a few examples
1. The NFL does not have a farm system, that is counted in player payroll costs
2. Pete Rozel instituted the Rozel rule in 1965 that sees all NFL teams participate in a 60/40 revenue sharing plan, controlled by the league. NFL owners have no control over there own money it is all controlled by the league office, and if a team does not pay the minimum payroll the players are reimbursed by the league
3. The biggest and most fundemental difference, the NFL league office runs the league, they take there direction from the NFL Management board, a board made up of league officals, owners and players. In the NHL 30 different owners run the league with no participation from anyone else.
1. The NFL does not have a farm system, that is counted in player payroll costs
2. Pete Rozel instituted the Rozel rule in 1965 that sees all NFL teams participate in a 60/40 revenue sharing plan, controlled by the league. NFL owners have no control over there own money it is all controlled by the league office, and if a team does not pay the minimum payroll the players are reimbursed by the league
3. The biggest and most fundemental difference, the NFL league office runs the league, they take there direction from the NFL Management board, a board made up of league officals, owners and players. In the NHL 30 different owners run the league with no participation from anyone else.
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