NHL Should Drop Cap & Negotiate 1 Time

[Whakahere]

Wake up and smell the coffee!

This tax offer would be great for the tops teams, lets not kid ourselves here. Now detroit could tell the fans they need to CUT payroll to stay under the tax. As fans we understand that, who wants to pay tax? By staying under the tax Detroit would start rolling in the cash. Now if they go over the the first tax bar by a little they could easily say to the fans
"Look what we are doing this year to win" - owners just have to make sure that they don't do it very often or us FANS will expect this every year.

This would help the weaker teams as their would always be some teams over the cap. This would improve the game a lot better than any CAP will ever do.

More and more I read I find that the CAP is not the way to go. A tax with REAL bite to it would make the league a lot better. Richer teams can spend that little more while poorer teams will have some tax money to spend on players too.

 

[likea]

If you go and read the document on the NHLPA website, you'll see that the players have offered higher luxury taxes which would reduce revenue disparity further. They base their proposal on a tax which generates 65 million because that's what the owners want.

thats just not true, the NHLPA wants HIGHER REVENUE SHARING and they state the in their CBA proposal....

not higher luxery tax...your using the wrong wordd

 

[fan mao rong]

WOW!! that luxury tax certainly does have some bite and I like..

..only problem I see with the 1 time offer is if this baby does end up in an impass - from what I understand (correct me if I'm wrong) the league would have to unilateraly impose its last offer which could be the luxury tax.

So with that in mind, if this league offered this proposal - even once - wouldn't they essentially be giving up their cost certainty quest if this goes to court?

I do not believe this is the case necessarily. If ownership went for a high tax rate and union stayed at or near it's current level, and the parties became fixed in their positions, and this continued for a time with no compromise position likely, then IMPASSE has been reached. The Major League Baseball case which many believe proves otherwise, had different facts of the case which rendered a different outcome. Baseball had , at first, wanted a salary cap, then backed off , and said they would not impose one. The Union offered a luxury tax and the Baseball hierarchy began to negotiate on the rate. Then shortly thereafter they declared impasse and tried to impose a salary cap. This was not an unfair labor practice, but it was the basis for the ruling that impasse had not been reached. Baseball also claimed that the elimination of Unrestricted Free Agency and the old CBA clause prohibiting collusion were not mandatory items of negotiations (not related to wages terms and conditions) and tried to implement them as non-mandatory. Baseball never recieved a ruling of practicing Unfair Labor Practices, but an injunction was issued prohibiting them from implementing what they wanted as impasse had not been reached. That was covered in that link I put on here a couple of times way back when.

 

[sabu says]

That's all fine and well bowser, but youre missing one point.

The players are the first to blink. That's a sign of weakness on their part. Why should the owners negotiate now, when they can hold out for all the cards and perhaps rid themselves of this troubling union once and for all. Check your history books, they have broken up the players unions before.

Its too early for compromises. Especially on their first offer

 

[A Good Flying Bird*]

Collectively NHL wants atleast stiff luxury taxes if they don't get hard cap. Sure, Ilitch and Dolan are probably the least enthuastic about it but it seems they fully support Bettman in this issue.

I think you're confusing Luxury Tax and Salary Cap.
One the one hand, a stiff tax and a cap will both keep contracts down.
But a tax does something a cap does not do.
A tax sends Detroit Red WIng revenue to Nashville. A cap does not.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Wings and other revenue-rich teams will join bettman's ride for a salary cap (all those profits, afterall) but quickly jump off the wagon if Bettman starts talking about revenue sharing.

 

[Pepper]

I think you're confusing Luxury Tax and Salary Cap.
One the one hand, a stiff tax and a cap will both keep contracts down.
But a tax does something a cap does not do.
A tax sends Detroit Red WIng revenue to Nashville. A cap does not.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Wings and other revenue-rich teams will join bettman's ride for a salary cap (all those profits, afterall) but quickly jump off the wagon if Bettman starts talking about revenue sharing.

I think Ilitch wants to retain small competitive advantage but he's not going to pay huge taxes.

So if there's a 35M limit with 100% tax, he will most likely spend ~50-60M and get a 7.5M to 12.5M advantage compared to teams under the cap. I have no problem with that really. But it's all speculation anyway.