LordHelmet
Registered User
Since this seems to be the system we're going with, I'm curious as to how it works. Other than one horribly written article that just added to the confusion, I haven't seen any details about how this system that the PA has proposed will work out.The union and the league are trying to find common ground on what constitutes revenue in order to flesh out the union's April 4 offer. That system featured an upper and lower limit on team-by-team payrolls - a salary cap - which fluctuates year to year depending on revenues.
What I can figure out:
"an upper and lower limit" - there's a floor and ceiling, and it's a 'limit' or hard cap (for this discussion, assume it's 53% and 56%)
"team-by-team" - tells me that one team's limits might be different than the next team's..
"fluctuates ... depending on revenues" - provides the owners with some form of linkage..
The simplest explanation for this is each team being able to spend between 53% and 56% of its own revenue. If Toronto makes $80M, their range is $42.4M to $44.8M. Carolina pulls in $50M, so their range is $26.5M to $28M.
Although this explanation is simple and it fits the wording that we keep seeing, there's no way that this is correct. I don't think the players would agree to it because 53%-56% of team-by-team revenues is the exact same thing as 53% to 56% of league wide revenues. The owners (more specifically Bettman) wouldn't like it because it doesn't address the economic disparity between high revenue and low revenue teams. Fans wouldn't like it because it doesn't address the (perceived) competitive disparity between high-revenue and low revenue teams.
There's gotta be something else to it. I have a few ideas, but what do you all think?