Contract discussions: Why so long?

[alko]

Very often we see, that some players say, they will start to discuss about their new contract in season. Or after season. Overall process of this "discussion" seems to be very long.
Why? What all do they have to talk? I mena, when i say, give me 5 millions per season, they say we give you 6 millions. Ok, done. Signed. All this can be done in a pub between 2 beers.

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[Hoek]

You might be forgetting the cap. Teams have to think about how all the other pieces of the puzzle are going to fit down the line. Then there's signing bonuses and NTC/NMCs and timing of them and whatnot.

 

[LadyStanley]

Very often we see, that some players say, they will start to discuss about their new contract in season. Or after season. Overall process of this "discussion" seems to be very long.
Why? What all do they have to talk? I mena, when i say, give me 5 millions per season, they say we give you 6 millions. Ok, done. Signed. All this can be done in a pub between 2 beers.

Sometimes it can be a simple negotiation. Other times it can be more drawn out.

The longer, more contentious are usually when the team and player are far apart on $$ and/or term.

While contract specify $$ and term, sometimes the former contains signing bonus(es). Sometimes contracts contain performance bonuses ($$ amount and condition to make bonus) have to be negotiated as well.

That's all in the boilerplate.

Perhaps a "promise" is made about linemates or other things.

 

[Panthera]

Sometimes when you ask for 5 and they offer 3 and neither of you like 4, you need to stare at each other in silence for months before you decide it's time to talk some more.

 

[Lunatik]

Sometimes it can be a simple negotiation. Other times it can be more drawn out.

The longer, more contentious are usually when the team and player are far apart on $$ and/or term.

While contract specify $$ and term, sometimes the former contains signing bonus(es). Sometimes contracts contain performance bonuses ($$ amount and condition to make bonus) have to be negotiated as well.

That's all in the boilerplate.

Perhaps a "promise" is made about linemates or other things.

to add to this, there is also NTCs and NMCs, both full and limited. Then there is the discussion about how the NTC and MNC might affect the salary... etc.Then two-way deals have 2 salaries to negotiate.

 

[alko]

Suddenly, it could be very fast. After Mark Stone was traded, in a few minutes he signed a new huge contract. I suppose, he had already written contract in hands, hes agent only faxed it to Vegas for signing.

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Suddenly, it could be very fast. After Mark Stone was traded, in a few minutes he signed a new huge contract. I suppose, he had already written contract in hands, hes agent only faxed it to Vegas for signing.

It was obviously negotiated before the trade and still can’t legally be signed yet I believe.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Suddenly, it could be very fast. After Mark Stone was traded, in a few minutes he signed a new huge contract. I suppose, he had already written contract in hands, hes agent only faxed it to Vegas for signing.

So a very large part of what I do for my job is to negotiate deals (I'm a lawyer). Absolutely deals can be negotiated very quickly. But in order to do so, both sides have to be motivated to sign a deal, and both sides have to have a common understanding of what the market is like.

So why would someone not be motivated to sign a deal? Maybe they just don't want to be bothered by it right now. Maybe they're waiting to get more information. Maybe they can't afford it right now. Or maybe they're just not super interested in making a deal unless it's very much one-sided.

And then there's understanding what the market is like. Are there good, recent comparables? There's nothing unusual about this situation that might make it tougher to value? If one side says 8 and the other says 6, and both believe that's truly fair value, it's hard to just say "well lets meet an 7", since both sides would feel like that's a bad deal.

 

[SotasicA]

A player is hoping his value potentially goes up if he doesn't sign immediately. A team may wait till the asking price drops to what they feel is more appropriate.

 

[LadyStanley]

AIUI WRT Stone.... There's cap tagging or some CBA thing involved so the actual contract cannot be signed until Friday 3/1.

LeBrun: Behind the scenes of the Mark Stone trade and why...
Paywall. LeBrun on the timing of negotiations. Ottawa and Vegas agreed to trade pieces about 45 minutes before deadline. Only THEN could VGK talk to Stone's agent about an extension. There was offer/counter offer and more -- all happening in real time; deal in principle reached. Everything finalized so trade could be submitted to Central Registry with about 15 minutes before deadline.

Lots of pressure and lots of ducks lined up to get deal done fast. And also a desire to get things done. And a hard deadline.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

I get the purpose behind the tagging rule [you don't go sign a bunch of contracts and land yourself way over the cap for the following season], but the CBA made how it works far too difficult. Teams shouldn't have to time out when an extension can get signed because "well, we won't have free tagged space until [date]" because of accruals and whatever. It should be a pretty straight-forward, "here's all your 1-way contracts for the next season; add them up, subtract that from the current season's cap, there's the amount of tagged space you have for contract extensions" calculation.

Instead, it's "payroll room" and "expiring SPCs" and "was a contract previously tagged" and . It's unnecessarily complex for no other reason than "someone had an idea and got a hold of a pen and starting going nuts, and no one said STOP!"