Ray of hope?

[MikeC44]

I didn't see the mentioned anywhere (not that I looked all that hard for it".

Regarding Burke's proposal:

"Player union representative Ted Saskin said Burke's plan was worth "exploring," but described it as being basically the same plan Burke proposed during the 1994 lockout as a member of the NHL's front office.

"We see it as a middle ground," Saskin told Topcat Sports. "I'm not saying the points in Brian's outline represent the middle ground, but we're prepared to talk about anything frankly other than a salary cap."


http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/2004/09/22/639490.html

Click to read more...

 

[Digger12]

Burke said that type of hard-line stance on behalf of the owners could irreparably harm the league and severely reduce revenues.

"That type of warfare would be a purulent victory for the owners," Burke told the Philadelphia-based sports show. "It would earn the undying hatred of the players and we'd have a cap (but) we would have gone from a $2-billion industry to a $1-billion industry."

This is the part that scares me the most about this whole 'negotiation'. The lines are so ingrained and immobile in the sand here that it's set up to have one winner and one bitter loser...and you can be sure that loser will come back next time with a redoubled effort.

This could be akin to thermonuclear war...and there's no such thing as a winner of that. All you govern are ashes and dust.

I've liked Burke's proposal from the start, but there's no way his luxury tax would stand as is. The way I read it, if a team wanted to have a $50M payroll they'd have to pay a total of $110 (50M + (12 X 5M=60M)) for it. That sure as heck would be tantamount to a salary cap in my world.

 

[littleHossa]

Lol Burke made a 10 year old proposal, way to go. I liked some of his ideas, his cap idea is too strict ( why the hell a minumum budget? ) and it gets really high really fast, my calcs say if you want a $50 million dollar payroll, you'd have to pay ($50 + $46.5) = $96.5 millions, that's crazy. It's too obvious that it's a hard cap more than anything.

The more I think about it, the more there shouldn't be a hard cap. Teams just don't have consistent revenue from year to year, this isn't the NFL, where each team gets $72 millions from the TV deal and the cap is at around $78 millions. Teams go up and down with their attendances depending on their rebuild/contending stages. A team that's rebuilding would be able to sqeeze a maximum of $25m for a payroll but if the same team grows and goes deep in the playoffs and contends, they can go all the way up to $45m-$50m.

Team payrolls/revenues just fluctuate all the time, it's part of the NHL more than other major sport. I think what the CBA should bring is cost certainty and eliminating the large market advantage. If Bettman sees that a $31m cap won't solve anything to making a better NHL, he could actually *think* for once and bring a system which might be around a luxury tax that the players want and get everything the owners want as well.