mudcrutch79 said:
Do you have a link for this decision? I'd like to read it.
Here's the
Court of Appeal ruling.
I was somewhat with you until this point. They are asking the players to tie their salaries to revenues on the grounds that any other system will result in salaries that the system can't maintain.
It indeed appears that they are asking for this, but the language is always very careful. They want to maintain 30
healthy franchises. They want to improve competitive balance. They want to stop salary inflation they claim is inherent in the old system. But where is any claim that they cannot afford the salaries? How can they possibly sustain that claim when they do pay them?
Small market teams unload players when they salaries become unaffordable and someone else always takes the player. The grounds the league advances is not that the system results in unaffordable salaries. It is that the system creates a salary structure wherein small market teams can't compete on the ice and as a result can't grow their revenues. That's a different claim, one that does not require profit and loss statements.
He's flat out saying that they can't afford current salaries.
I don't think so. He is saying they are inappropriate and unsustainable. He's not saying teams can't afford to pay.
Even if you leave this aside, the players are being asked to accept a proposal where they receive 54% of revenue. How can they accurately assess that proposal without a real understanding of what revenues are?
The union has been provided with the information required to negotiate a designated hockey revenue. The owners are not proposing to share revenues with the players. They are proposing to share designated hockey revenues.
The union has been told exactly how each team was instructed to divide revenue between affiliated entities. They provided an appropriate number. If the union wants to challenge a particular number, the league would be happy to document it. The players have two ways to increase their share of the pie. They can negotiate a different definition of hockey revenues, thus driving designated hockey revenues up or they can negotiate a higher percentage of the designated hockey revenues.
What other information do they need to understand and intelligently discuss the revenue issue?
You and I both know that this doesn't seem like the type of thing that will be resolved by going to impasse. We've agreed that the NHL has too much to lose by pushing it that far. The season starts...mid-February?
Maybe, but I think the owners intend to stay exactly where they are until the players buckle or decertify. More and more I think that will eventually be the choice for the players.
The reasons I think impasse and implementation is a loser is it is too risky. The strategy fails if they don't win at impasse. Even if they win at impasse all they gain is the conversion of a lockout to a strike. Then, they have to skinny the implemented CBA past Canadian anti-competition law. Next, they have to find replacement players who can provide a reasonable product, something I don't think is as easy as some think. Then they have to get the use of replacements past the four provincial labour boards. Even if they do all that, they have to be able to sell tickets and finally the players have to crack and cross. If they fail at any point, it's really bad for their position.
I don't think they risk it. A tipoff to me is all the whispers about it. I'm contrarian enough to believe that that kind of talk is cheap and it is out there for a reason. This way they have the threat (whisper, whisper), misdirection (the union is confident replacements won't work), and delays the decertification decision (why when they can break an attempt to use replacements?)
Either they take their gains at the last minute and live to fight another day, or they plan to wait forever.
Tom