No Sir, I Don't Like It (CBA & Lockout Discussion) - Part XI

[KINGS17]

As usual, no one sees the forest for the trees. Who gives a rat's ass about year one or year five? What is import is what each side offering over the life of the deal. The NHL is offering that the players take $1.6 - $1.7 billion less then they did under the prior CBA. Obviously, the players want to give up less. For some reason, owners wanting the extra $1.6 billion is not greed bu the players are greedy for not wanting to give all that up.

I can see the forest for the trees, and I can't think of one good reason why the players deserve more than 50% of the HRR in this deal. The old CBA obviously wasn't working for the owners and they had the right to cancel it and start fresh.

 

[GoSensGo6172]

Run your numbers you freaking morons!! Of course the NHL is gonna chew you up and spit you out with that kind of approach. And they didn't run the numbers of the proposal that could have been the most enticing. What the hell did they do for two days or weeks? Why was the meeting delayed today if they weren't going over things?

The sheer stupidity here and than the players running their mouths on top of that is just mind boggling.

 

[no1b4me]

And just think, this is all because certain owners can't run a business or they are in markets that they don't belong. If a business owns a chain of stores and one or two of those store are not making any money they move them or close them because they are dragging down the profits.
Take those money losing teams and move them or close them and the NHL is stronger for it. Profits are they aren't trying to take back money they offered the players in the first place.
In 05 the players gave them 24%, now because the owners are stupid Bettman wants the players to cough up another 16%? How can anyone be on the owners side baffles me. I know some of the fans just want to see hockey but man.

I consider myself a diehard hockey fan since I watch over 400 games on tv and spend between 2 to 4K per year travelling to different arenas in the US and Canada but at this point I hope the lockout goes on for a year or more so those losing teams fold. I long lockout hurts the owners pockets more than the players pockets. Players have much less overhead and 99% would have been prepared for a long lockout.

 

[hairylikebear]

It already did

When?

 

[Mike Jones]

What the hell...how do you make a collective bargaining proposal "without running the numbers"?!

Have you been following the player tweets? Do you think these guys do or understand math?

 

[Aqualung]

Two things. First off, negotiations lasted 1 hour, not 10 minutes.

I never said the negotiations lasted 10 minutes.

The players indicated once the details of their proposals were done, there was only 10 minutes of discussion before the NHL left. Not my words and likely exaggeration, but probably closer to the truth.

 

[Ari91]

Daley said it was something like 600m going to the players on the side. No clue about that number (I assume it's over a couple years).

Honestly we need more info on all 3 proposals before they can really be evaluated. But the bottom line is the PA is saying 1.9B and not a penny less, while the NHL is saying % based, with an immediate reduction.

For there to be no escrow hit to the PA, the split would have to be 54/55% in year one. However the PA isn't interested in talking with a % based number as there's no guarantee that they won't take a hit. NHL isn't interested in talking about de-linking salaries to revenues as it almost guarantee's they take a hit (unless growth is 9%+ (in which case all PA proposals indicate they get some of that growth as well).

Of the two, I see the PA as being the big loser here with their head in the sand. They lose if they miss games. They lose if they take a paycut (although less than if they miss games). There really is no way for them to win here.

We don't need info on the first two proposals. They're delinked and based on projected growth. League will never work off of that. The third proposal is the one to focus on as it has a combination of linkage and delinkage which is at least something better than delinkage and projected numbers.

What I don't understand is that the players want to be paid in full for existing contracts yet even under the old CBA, they were never promised that. Players salaries have always been correlated with actual revenues so two years ago, Crosby's 8.7M wasn't necessarly 8.7M if revenues went down...and he knew that. So why do they think they deserve their salaries as is in a capacity that was NEVER promised to them before?

I'm hoping Bettman takes a happy pill and gets back to drawing up a proposal. He keeps talking about the calendar ticking away so hopefully he counters quickly.

 

[Crows*]

I hope the nhl doesn't sit on this , I hope they continue to be aggressive and make new proposals

 

[KINGS17]

Bettman The Liar, with three lockouts to his name, continues to brainwash the sheep into thinking the players are responsbile for the lockout.

That's why he earns the big bucks.

Doubleplusgood!

How many work stoppages did MLB have with Fehr leading the players' union?

What's the only league to ever cancel the playoffs after playing nearly an entire season?

Who is the liar?

 

[1UP]

I'll be the first to admit I'm not Bob Goodenow's best fan, but at least the guy knew how to count. Right now, Fehr and the NHLPA are making me angry. And it's not blind fanboyism.

I mean, I see a lot of posts going "Oh, you guys are just eating the league's PR!". No, we are not. We know this league. We are currently on an hockey forum, during hockey stoppage, discussing the negociation of a new CBA. Most of us try to read everything that's said about the situation. Not only by the league, or the NHLPA, but mostly by neutral sources, the ones we know we can trust. You're in one of the biggest lumps of Hockey history knowledge of the internets. So cut that crap.

Anyhow, today those trusted sources came out with pretty much the same data. The 3 offerings by the NHLPA were unacceptable. The first 2 are unviable economically, and based on the very shaky premises of constant growth in a struggling economy - something any company that wants to survive needs to avoid doing. The 3rd is literally mathematically impossible - and "running the numbers" would have quickly made that apparent.

On the other side, the League went and grabbed the offer they wrote, tossed it on the internet and went "you go at it fans". And what most people thought is that it was a very fair offer. Both the fans and media. Yeah, the NHL hired a PR master. And that PR master is probably behind the whole "show the fans what you're offering" thing. But it wouldn't have worked if the offer wasn't fair. When you have some of the most talented sport journalists and their crew studying the offer in every angle and coming to the conclusion that it's a good offer that should litterally give a big spark to start negociations again on very solid middle ground, yeah, you're going to root for that side a bit, because you see some good will.

And then when the other side comes and tosses 3 badly thought out offers, you're going to see some bad will.

No one is going to go out and buy a big #1 handfoam with Bettman written on it. We still hate the guy. Look at my city of origin if you need more cred. But at least today we got confirmation that the League and the owners were trying harder than the PA to solve this. Moreover, we also got confirmation that the PA is not trying very hard at all at solving this - and this to us reeks of 2004-2005. We know what it leads to.

So what I see is not love for the league, but hate for the PA.

Damn, I miss Hockey. Yesterday, I had hope. This morning, I had hope. Now I'm back from work, I read most of the thread, and I lost hope. The players need to start understanding the situation and rein in Fehr. This can't keep happening to our game.

 

[hairylikebear]

We don't need info on the first two proposals. They're delinked and based on projected growth. League will never work off of that. The third proposal is the one to focus on as it has a combination of linkage and delinkage which is at least something better than delinkage and projected numbers.

What I don't understand is that the players want to be paid in full for existing contracts yet even under the old CBA, they were never promised that. Players salaries have always been correlated with actual revenues so two years ago, Crosby's 8.7M wasn't necessarly 8.7M if revenues went down...and he knew that. So why do they think they deserve their salaries as is in a capacity that was NEVER promised to them before?

I'm hoping Bettman takes a happy pill and gets back to drawing up a proposal. He keeps talking about the calendar ticking away so hopefully he counters quickly.

Maybe they thought they were promised those salaries.

I think it's a stretch to assume that every NHL player precisely understands the terms of the contracts they're signing. Obviously that's their own fault, but they have the right to negotiate for the process to be less convoluted.

 

[Riptide]

The alternative is playing for another league. The only one that offers a competitive salary is in Europe. It's not like they really had a choice.

Sure they had a choice - that they had to choose the lesser of two evils is still a choice. They choose to sign with an NHL team for X dollars past the expiration of the last CBA. They knew that things could and likely would change in the CBA. They could have waited until after a new CBA was ratified. Why do you think a bunch of players signed new deals right before the CBA expired? They went into this with their eye's wide open. I have very little sympathy for player's who willingly signed deals past July 1st 2012, who are now crying wohoo's me.

 

[Ari91]

I never said the negotiations lasted 10 minutes.

The players indicated once the details of their proposals were done, there was only 10 minutes of discussion before the NHL left. Not my words and likely exaggeration, but probably closer to the truth.

Of course it didn't take long. It seems their proposal was only on HRR and not contractual rights (though that was supposedly an issue for the PA that they didn't bother to address) and the numbers itself were all based on delinkage which was a non-starter for the league and clearly still is. You don't need hours to mull over a deal when the very core of the deal is a system that you will not work with. Keep in mind, the NHL took a day to review their first proposal and essentially it's the same kind of proposal they've given ever since. The league doesn't care about the PA's numbers when it's ALL based on projected numbers. I wouldn't waste my time either looking over a structure that I've already said no to 3 times previously.

 

[Hammer Time]

And just think, this is all because certain owners can't run a business or they are in markets that they don't belong. If a business owns a chain of stores and one or two of those store are not making any money they move them or close them because they are dragging down the profits.
Take those money losing teams and move them or close them and the NHL is stronger for it. Profits are they aren't trying to take back money they offered the players in the first place.
In 05 the players gave them 24%, now because the owners are stupid Bettman wants the players to cough up another 16%? How can anyone be on the owners side baffles me. I know some of the fans just want to see hockey but man.

I consider myself a diehard hockey fan since I watch over 400 games on tv and spend between 2 to 4K per year travelling to different arenas in the US and Canada but at this point I hope the lockout goes on for a year or more so those losing teams fold. I long lockout hurts the owners pockets more than the players pockets. Players have much less overhead and 99% would have been prepared for a long lockout.

The players' salaries have increased dramatically, but costs of travel, food, etc. have also gone up and owners aren't making money. Even if the players coughed up 13% from their share of the pie they would still be making way, way more than they were in 2005. And the NHL is honouring all existing contracts. What's not to like?

 

[UsernameWasTaken]

Think about it - if you guarantee face value from last CBA, it's essentially playing under the old CBA. Basically it will be a 57/43 split until the bulk value of all existing contracts is expended. So cap space is essentially coming from money resulting from UFA's and retired players every year. Players becoming UFA's represent the end of the 'old-CBA' contracts so you can think of that money being absorbed into the new CBA.

Well I looked up on capgeek and it looks like $400M is coming off the books in UFA's each of the next two years, then $200M the next two after that, then $80M. So it would take $1.3B of the current $1.8B in player salaries off in around 4 years, assuming that once a guy goes UFA his share of that $1.8B is fully removed. After that the number of UFA's on capgeek gets really small.

Assuming 5% growth and the proposed 12.28% 'off the books', $400M would be off the books in each of the first two years. After that, the 12.28% is taking off too much money compared to the contracts being eliminate.

Keep in mind that after four years, you'd still be paying $500M of 'old' salaries league-wide.

In effect the NHLPA's 50/50 deal is the old CBA for a minimum of FOUR YEARS. Not to mention that cap space only comes from UFA's but there should be more players + UFA's fighting for 87% of the UFA dollars that come off the books each year.

No...if salaries are locked in at the face value of the contracts and revenue continues increasing then the % is going down. But that would require some de-linkage (because it would mean guaranteeing the amount the players are to receive). The question becomes how do you decide what the cap is going to be? If you set a fixed cap (de-linked from revenue) then the only space you have is by players retiring or the teams trading them...unless you get the extra space by linking cap to revenue and assuming that revenue increase - this brings you to the problem re what happens if revenue decreases and you end up with a cap below the "frozen in" payroll that comes from guaranteeing the face value of the contracts.

I actually don't mind a temporary de-linkage to guarantee the face value of the contracts because I think that revenue will continue to increase - however, you have to figure out what to do about the cap...and I think the players have to understand they can't generously agree to also get raises to go along with the guaranteed face value.

 

[Ari91]

Maybe they thought they were promised those salaries.

I think it's a stretch to assume that every NHL player precisely understands the terms of the contracts they're signing. Obviously that's their own fault, but they have the right to negotiate for the process to be less convoluted.

It doesn't matter what they THOUGHT. The reality of their contracts was right there in writing, you can't pin that on the owners.

If they don't understand the terms and conditions of the contracts they're signing, why the hell is that the owners fault? That's the responsibility of the player and if he's stupid enough to sign a contract that he doesn't understand then it's only himself he has to blame. Besides, I'm pretty sure that's why these guys have agents - to help them understand all of the business jargon that they aren't well versed in.

 

[Powdered Toast Man]

Why is the NHL the only party that is permitted to have non-starters?

 

[Crows*]

This is where Jeremy Roenick should say - 'NHLPA, wake up!'

He told them to take the nhls last offer

 

[Milhouse40]

Fehr is a lying, manipulating genius/jerk.

The guy made a publicly false offer of 50-50 seems like the best one they could think of, while in fact it's the worst offer they've made so far.

They talked about what's fair.

Is it fair now that $50 000/years worker don't get to work because of them.
No it's not.....they suck it up because of them.

I would give one last try if i were the owners.
With a little bit more goods in the offer.

But if they still don't want to work with same framework....i say BREAK them.

 

[stug*]

Well one thing we know now, is that the players dont care about playing, they only care about money. Must be hard on them.

And if a lockout occurs we can be happy that many players careers are over. **** them all. Greedy *****es.

 

[Riptide]

here's the problem with set dollar values though. lets assume the players were to get 1.8 billion based off of 57% as calculated under the old CBA. if revenues drop to 3 billion during this full season (if it were to happen), then the players would get 62.7% of revenue. is that exactly fair to the owners? that's not what they negotiated in the original agreement either, am i right?

Correct. If that had happened under the old CBA, the owners would have received a massive chunk of escrow back from the players until that number was back down at 57%.

 

[shortshorts]

I hope the nhl doesn't sit on this , I hope they continue to be aggressive and make new proposals

They can't afford to move any further from that offer in terms of HRR.

 

[MikeK]

Not that I disagree but does anyone think the NHL is functioning at a high level? They essentially never get these things right and even if they crush the union and write the new CBA themselves, there's no reason to believe we won't be doing this again within a decade.

The way things have gone it will be before that. The real problem is that there is no pressure on Fehr to get a deal done. Hockey is different from every other major sport in that there are outlet options for the players. No other North American sports league has the options these NHLers have when it comes to finding work elsewhere. For that reason and that reason alone we have a guy in Fehr who is able to run the show with very little interference from outside parties.

If the players were truly a "Union" and every single player was sitting at home not getting paid then you can bet the players would be more hands-on and a deal would be close to, if not already, done.

 

[Hammer Time]

I hope the nhl doesn't sit on this , I hope they continue to be aggressive and make new proposals

I'd also really appreciate it if Fehr could make an offer with a linked cap. How about (say) 54-52-50-50-50, and cap contracts at 8 years (vs 5 in the original NHL offer)? That would at least be progress towards the NHL position.

 

[Tra La La]

I hope the nhl doesn't sit on this , I hope they continue to be aggressive and make new proposals

I think they were pushed by sponsors and NBC to save a full season. Tuesday may really have been their best offer.