Les than two seasons isn't a big enough dataset to confidently post what 'will' happen.
Then we’re both guilty as charged for drawing some early conclusions, or at least about conjecturing about what these could be.
However they are not being forced to do so at the expense of not being able to compete for players, ie the situation when it was 20m payrolls against 90m.
Recall that the goal of the cap with linkage was cost certainty. Daly himself states in the cited article starting this post that:
“Obviously we came from a position where too many of our franchises were not healthy and the collective bargaining agreement hasn't totally corrected that. Certainly it's provided a foundation on which our clubs can become healthy. That's the stage we're in now. Your labor costs are a significant part of your business in the sports industry, but it's not the totality of your business. So you still have generate revenues and run your business responsibly to be profitable.â€
The gap in spending that you mention was possible due to the gap in revenues. The current economic system is designed to firstly address the fact that the NHL
as a whole wants to spend 54-57% of its revenue on player costs. One effect this
may have is to lower spending to a level of the lower revenue teams. Of course a variable cap level does mean that this is easier to achieve when a cap is at $31 MM vs a cap at $50 MM, for example.
Once cost certainty was achieved, the need to grow revenues was the next requirement to return teams to financial health. However, what perhaps was not anticipated [mostly by fans] was just how high the cap could go within 2-3 years of the CBA taking effect. As you mention, revenue sharing is supposed to bolster the ability of lower revenue teams in some markets (lower market potential) to spend to the midpoint. They do not have to spend to the midpoint, but at least they would receive money to help their bottom line since there is a minimum that must be spent. Teams in markets with a lower revenue potential as determined by the DMA (<2.5 MM households in the viewing area) qualify for revenue sharing. There are still low revenue teams - as compared to the top group - who cannot qualify for revenue sharing. Certainly they are at disadvantage relative to the revenue sharing recipients. (Isles, Devils, & Ducks are the three I can think of…)
In addition to my explanations above, there are some aspects to the CBA that may be inflationary, which is why I said these
may come under review in the future. These include:
*Arbitration
*The automatic 5% increase to the cap regardless of revenues
*Age of free agency. Lower revenue teams survived in the older days by being able to keep their better players longer. The cycle time is shortened overall for all teams, but is perhaps more harmful to lower revenue teams (in my opinion).
*Not all low revenue teams qualify for revenue sharing. (
Low is a relative concept and perhaps highly dependent on exactly where the cap resides.)
It looks to me that the teams are now assuming either large escrow payments or relief via revenue sharing and spending with that in mind. As long as the revenue sharing feature functions the CBA is fine. When it starts to fall short, then trouble will follow, but there's nothing to suggest that is happening now.
As long as you keep my comments within the qualifying statements I used, I’ll do the same here.
The difficulty is that each team has its own actual revenues and the percentages that $36 - $42 - $48 MM represent to total revenues of $55 MM vs $120 MM, for example, are different-- even if the overall average is 54% or 57%
for all 30 teams combined. We can agree that the lowest revenue teams who qualify for revenue sharing get some relief, but there’s a middle group whose individual costs/revenues look quite different at the different cap levels.
