coppernblue said:
i read on espn.com
that the projected salary cap in a couple years in the NFL will approach in excess of 100 million
up from 50.1 in 1998 someone said earlier in another thread
is it unrealisitc to expect the NHL to not neccesairly jump 100% on the camp but to greatly increase to shut up the people who are so against a linked cap?
A lot of the NFL jump can be attributed to TV revenues:
1997: $1.1B
2005: $2.2B (expiring TV deal)
2006: $3.1B (new TV deal)
In addition there have been several new stadiums which opened in the last 8 yrs which increased revenues. Are there any new NHL Arena expected in the next 5 yrs (maybe Pittsbugh, anywhere else?).
Yes its likely the NHL Revenues will increase over the life of the new CBA, but I don't expect it to in the 50%-100% range that the NFL has seen. The big question is how low will they drop before they recover. It would not surprise me to see a situation where the Cap is set for 05-06 based on some revenue estimates (It seems any in year correction via escrow accounts is off the table) and revenues fall short and the cap for 06-07 is actually lower. I wouldn't be surprised if total league revenues don't reach pre lockout levels until the last year or two of the CBA - a 30-50% hit followed by maybe 10% annual increases.
I don't think many people here are against a linked cap. I think it's the best deal for both the players and owners - owners are protected against a revenue downside and the players are protected in case of a revnue upswing. Unfortunately, it would have been better if the players had agreed before the season was canceled and economic damage done, so they wouldn't be sharing 54% of a much smaller pie. Whether a linked cap turns out to be better or worse than the $42.5M unlinked cap deal that was on the table in Feb will depend alot on how well the league can do damage control and grow revenue. I don't think we'll know that answer until 3 or 4 years out.