Can a luxury tax system work with escrow?

[dortt]

But couldn’t keep their talent. That’s the point.

teams did. At least those that held the line at the RFA stage.

Once they reached 31, most players are well past their prime. They signed bad contracts elsewhere at that point. We know today, signing geezers at UFA is not a way to build a team

The old system gave teams 13 years of player control. They could afford to develop prospects slowly, bringing them up after they played their final 2 junior years, then 2-3 years in the AHL. That still left 8-9 years with the NHL team

 

[KevFu]

NBA has lower parity since teams can win with just 2-3 great players and fill the rest with average players. At the end of the day people love dominant teams and brings in a lot of casual fans.

No doubt the NBA has the ball in the hands of their best players and the NHL teams are rolling lines, so of course one individual is going to have a bigger impact in the NBA. But...

The cap didn't even make the NHL have more 'parity' than it did before the cap.

If you take the completed seasons in the cap era and work backwards for the same amount of seasons pre-cap, the slight difference in amount of unique franchises that were Cup winners, to make the SCF, Presidents' Trophy winners, etc. is more due to more teams (30-32) existing in the cap era than the 18 seasons leading up to it (21-30 teams). More teams obviously statistically increases the probability of a different result.

I was referring more to the gap between teams from 1st to worst in NHL vs NBA.

Part of it is "nature of the beast" with what the game is: NBA is 100+ possessions, the better team executes at a higher rate and therefore wins; While hockey with 7 goals per game on average: one defense mistake is 14% of the game's score; not 1%.


But even if we completely ignore loser points and just look at wins. EVERYONE in the NHL wins 20 games. The 2020 Red Wings were on pace for 19.6 wins. That's the closest team in the cap era to "less than 20 wins" and the NBA has 17 times as many.

Of course ONE GUY in the NBA is a high difference maker, but part of the reason for that disparity is because the NBA cap is soft and has exemptions/exceptions. The NBA super teams are signing the third guy to the mid-level exception and creating a super team. The Warriors used that to replace a $12m player with Kevin Durant. You can't do that in a hard cap.

Casual fans love super-teams, but the die-hards of the bad teams really don't enjoy starting a season 3-25.

And at the bottom, the difference is less existence of the cap and more expansion rules, Most of the bad teams were expansion teams.

I think comparing the NHL to the NHL pre/post cap, the fact that expansion teams were terrible is a valid point; but I don't think it's valid in the context of comparing "How far are the bottom teams from the playoffs in the NHL vs NBA." Because the NBA expanded in the 1990s as well. And expansion Charlotte's 18-win first season was the year before our comparison (2006-present). Charlotte appears on the list once (7-59 in 2012, prorates to 9 wins) in their eighth season. And what about the other 16 teams to the NHL's two?

The better teams are always going to win at a higher clip in the NBA vs the NHL. But a soft cap and MLE's certainly aren't HELPING the bottom of the league stay interested longer.

 

[MikeyMike01]

I would be happy with no salary cap, no luxury tax and no revenue sharing.

Survival of the fittest.

If the Leafs want to spend $250-million on salaries and play with the big boys in an eight-team or so league with the likes of New York, Montreal, Boston, Chicago, LA, Detroit and Philadelphia that would be fine by me.

I'm tired of Leafs' revenues generated in the GTA being used to keep loser franchises on life support and grow the sport south of the border.

Leafs fans pay too much for what we get under the salary-cap system. Ditto for New York and other big, robust markets.

This is such a weird NHL fan phenomenon.

You never see fans of the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, or San Francisco 49ers make such complaints.

Then again, those big market NFL teams have won quite a few championships since the moon landing.

 

[Ciao]

This is such a weird NHL fan phenomenon.

You never see fans of the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, or San Francisco 49ers make such complaints.

Then again, those big market NFL teams have won quite a few championships since the moon landing.

The NFL doesn't live and die by ticket sales. It feasts on national TV contracts.

It's a totally different business model.

 

[edog37]

teams did. At least those that held the line at the RFA stage.

Once they reached 31, most players are well past their prime. They signed bad contracts elsewhere at that point. We know today, signing geezers at UFA is not a way to build a team

The old system gave teams 13 years of player control. They could afford to develop prospects slowly, bringing them up after they played their final 2 junior years, then 2-3 years in the AHL. That still left 8-9 years with the NHL team

I don’t know where you get your numbers, but that wasn’t what happened. The salary cap saved the league.

 

[dortt]

I don’t know where you get your numbers, but that wasn’t what happened. The salary cap saved the league.

go back and actually look at that system. Did the Rangers win the cup in the UFA era with their 80M payroll? Did Toronto?

The UFA age > 31 was something most young bucks cannot fathom

Not every team spent like drunken sailors either. There was a large discrepancy between the big and small spenders

 

[KevFu]

This is such a weird NHL fan phenomenon.

You never see fans of the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, or San Francisco 49ers make such complaints.

Then again, those big market NFL teams have won quite a few championships since the moon landing.

Eh, I take it with a grain of salt. There's a lot of justifiable feelings from the 1990s, when the business model of the NHL changed and it felt like the league was abandoning its Canadian roots in favor of large US markets where teams can make a ton of a money with a deep playoff run, but probably won't be big spenders ever and have a ton of empty seats in the lean times.

The support of hockey teams in Canada is SPECIAL. There's zero chance a market the size of Winnipeg would ever be able to have/keep a team in the NBA, MLB or NFL (unless they got one in 1921 like the Green Bay Packers). But to the people in Canada, THAT'S THE NORM.

It's simply two different perspectives -- it reminds me a lot of the England / USA "is Bristol CLOSE to London?" thing on TikTok: To English folks, that's far. To Americans, that's not far at all.

So when the NHL kept adding those markets at the expense of Winnipeg and Quebec, there was a lot of resentment that exists to this day.

So the view is that Revenue Sharing is helping US teams that don't support their team as much as Canadian markets do, and it's keeping TOR, MON, VAN from winning Cups. (Now, at the same time, sharing MORE revenue would protect Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa a lot more than they are now, and while those teams thrive with good teams in new buildings, if they fall behind the facilities game.... they could be where they were in the 1990s).


And the NFL shares the most revenue by far -- it's like 68% of all revenue because there's no local TV deals. So no one thinks Revenue Sharing is the reason their teams don't win, everyone knows it's the reason Green Bay and Buffalo are still in those cities.

 

[edog37]

go back and actually look at that system. Did the Rangers win the cup in the UFA era with their 80M payroll? Did Toronto?

The UFA age > 31 was something most young bucks cannot fathom

Not every team spent like drunken sailors either. There was a large discrepancy between the big and small spenders

It's not about who did or didn't win the Stanley Cup, it was always about who could win the Cup. The owners wanted competitive balance. They didn't want teams hording talent who couldn't win. The league already tried the old model & it didn't work. We had teams that nearly failed & teams that moved, and a whole year of a lockout. There's no appetite by anyone in league circles to go backwards.

 

[Golden_Jet]

go back and actually look at that system. Did the Rangers win the cup in the UFA era with their 80M payroll? Did Toronto?

The UFA age > 31 was something most young bucks cannot fathom

Not every team spent like drunken sailors either. There was a large discrepancy between the big and small spenders

Yes Rangers did win the cup in 93/94 , when UFA was 31, they did it with the second highest payroll at the time. It wasn’t as high as 80 million at the time though.

Salary did go crazy after though and resulted in a salary cap luckily.

 

[KevFu]

Yes Rangers did win the cup in 93/94 , when UFA was 31, they did it with the second highest payroll at the time. It wasn’t as high as 80 million at the time though.

Salary did go crazy after though and resulted in a salary cap luckily.

The Rangers won the Cup with a payroll of $19.2 million. Which doesn't sound terrible at all.

Of course that was more than double Quebec's payroll of $9.2 million. Quebec couldn't keep up with that financial reality; especially not with an old building that didn't generate the same kind of revenue streams as modern venues.... That's not a financial model I'd want to go back to.

That's also the main thing I don't get about being anti-revenue sharing. The more revenue sharing you have, the less it matters what market you are in.

I'd rather hockey markets like Quebec, Winnipeg, Buffalo, Calgary, Edmonton have teams and keep them because they're supported by the entire league, than have people thinking "they could make more money in San Diego, Houston, Atlanta, San Antonio, Austin or Jacksonville."

 

[Golden_Jet]

The Rangers won the Cup with a payroll of $19.2 million. Which doesn't sound terrible at all.

Of course that was more than double Quebec's payroll of $9.2 million. Quebec couldn't keep up with that financial reality; especially not with an old building that didn't generate the same kind of revenue streams as modern venues.... That's not a financial model I'd want to go back to.

That's also the main thing I don't get about being anti-revenue sharing. The more revenue sharing you have, the less it matters what market you are in.

I'd rather hockey markets like Quebec, Winnipeg, Buffalo, Calgary, Edmonton have teams and keep them because they're supported by the entire league, than have people thinking "they could make more money in San Diego, Houston, Atlanta, San Antonio, Austin or Jacksonville."

Agree and yes they did,
and league average was 12, so about 60% higher, and second highest payroll, about 1 million behind Pittsburgh.