NHL: Season to be Uncancelled?

[Cush]

http://www.thn.com/en/headlines/detail.asp?id=27358&cat=954945254360

[tuvor]

1. What, the whining millionaires decided the could

actually subsist on $42.5 million?

How can anyone root for any of these guys anymore?

[Telly Savalas]

2. On the flip side...

as somebody else asked here: if there's gonna be a salary cap is there gonna be a profit cap too?

The players are indispensible to hockey. The owners aren't. If things really fall apart, mayors of major municipalities in Canada and hockey-loving parts of the U.S. ought to get together to discuss building a league of publicly owned teams.

[tuvor]

3. There is already a "profit cap" based on what the market will bear.

So the owners' profits are finite, too. It's just harder to know what that figure is.

I don't pretend to understand all of this. I'm just really sick and tired of listening to "news" about hockey for the past half-year. Really, it all belongs in the business section.

Besides, I'm trying to figure out how to pay for a few necessary upgrades around the house. If they can't deal with 42.5 million for a salary cap (and really, how many players qualify for that?), they can cry me a fucking river. I'll trade places with them.

Hey, are they still getting their $10,000 monthly strike pay? Damn, they may have to downgrade to Mercedes-Benz.

</rant>

[Telly Savalas]

5. The salary cap is for the entire team, not individual players.

Hockey fans pay money to see players play hockey, not to see capitalists collect revenue from ownership of assets. So why single the players out for being greedy for wanting a slice of the pie they create, then give a pass to the owners who are fighting for the same thing?

[tuvor]

8. How much profit did the owners make in the last full season?

Versus their investment?

Just curious if it was more than just putting their money in a high-interest bank account.

[nickgutierrez]

4. The problem with that...

... is that this particular work stoppage is a lockout.

So, the whining millionaires, in this case, are the people that own the teams, not the players.

[tx_dem41]

10. Don't forget the whining millionaires that couldn't stop themselves

from paying the players. Oh, and the fans that support the whole system making it possible in the first place.

[Awsi Dooger]

6. Siding with the owners is beyond belief

Yet almost every casual or avid fan I know is smack in their corner. You would think DU, of all places, would be opposite.

I went to college with three individuals who majored in sports administration and later worked for professional franchises. The stories they told me of management lies and shenanigans could fill dozens of DU threads.

Go employees. These guys put themselves in position to make that type of cash. Thousands who made similar sacrifices with the same goals never came close, and are a physical wreck at a young age in many cases.

[MikeG]

7. And fuck the small market teams, Right? I don't think so.

[Ravenseye]

9. Don't Forget The Peripheral Workers

While the players are striking over whether they should make 1.3 or 1.5 million with a chance at 6 million or 10 million, thousands of arena workers, refs, bars and restaurants near the arenas, etc are suffering.

Not to mention people like his friends who work for sports franchises. Most of the Penguins employees had to find new jobs.

Fuck those people so millionares can argue about how much pie to eat.

Not everyone at DU just mindlessly always sides with labor. Both sides here were wrong, but when it comes down to it neither the players or the owners are suffering, it's all those thousands of 'peripheral' people who are.

We don't care about them though, they're not making millions of dollars.

[lazarus]

11. players aren't striking

So there goes that. The owners locked them out.

The players have offered huge concessions (25%+ pay reductions, for example), but the owners simply want to break the union. They want a hard cap tied to revenue. The problem with that is that they can't be trusted. The last time the NHLPA got a look at the books, they came up with wildly different numbers than the owners were presenting.

Sort of how the motion picture studios slide things around with creative accounting to avoid having any "net" out of which to pay actors, etc. Corporations can't be trusted.

It's Bettman's fault for letting things get out of hand. They expanded into the wrong markets, expanded too fast, and let the game degenerate into an unwatchable slugfest.

[Ravenseye]

13. You say tomato I say tomato

Yeah it's a 'lockout', but the difference between the two in my opinion are low.

yeah you can't trust corporations, but motion picture studioes don't have to do the same kind of bookkeeping. Look at the NFL. You have open books and third party accountants who figure out the numbers. Sure there is some cooking going on, there always is it seems, but it's close enough that the difference is minimal.

The players offered concessions that wouldn't fix the long term viablity of the league. I'm totally in favor of a hard cap tied to revenue. It's certainly worked for the NFL where every team has the opportunity to be successfull.

[tx_dem41]

12. One major correction....

the players are NOT striking. I would think that every hockey fan, much less a DU participant, would know that.

[Ravenseye]

14. Tomato tomato

yeah you're right. They are 'locked out' but it's bullshit semantics. The people who own the business want to do things one way, the people who work for them are unionized and don't want to do it that way.

The difference is that the players say "we'll keep working under the current conditions" and management says "we can't afford to pay you under those conditions" and lock the doors.

In a strike it's different yes. It's sort of a role reversal which ends up doing the same thing, shutting down the business. Then the owners say "We'll keep paying you under the current conditions" and the wokers say "We can't afford to work under those conditions"

Though different people are doing different things the same thing is occuring which is no work, no product, everyone losing money. Strike, Lockout, whatever I wrote the wrong thing, but it makes no difference.

I find the progessive blindess of always siding with unions to be a bit problematic especially in these situations. If a union demands something that would bankrupt a business what do they expect besides the business to go under and nobody to have jobs?

[tx_dem41]

15. Of course the real problem is the fans that fed the beast in the first...

place. n/t

[nickgutierrez]

16. It's more than semantics

The players offered to give back 25% of their salaries. Wouldn't that solve the problem? Of course it would.

There's no way the league is hemorrhaging money the way the owners say they are -- they are clever businessmen who know how to Enron a bank balance.

I do always side with unions in cases like this -- if the owners make money off of a player's labor, then the players deserve to be paid in a manner that is proportional to the income that player brings in. It's that simple.

[Ravenseye]

17. It is more than semantics, but I disagree

Look I agree with you. If owners make money off a workers labor then the worker needs to be paid ina manner proportional to the income the worker brings in. Totally agree with that 100%.

Well the league wanted salaries tied to revenues, but the players didn't want it. The league even offered profit sharing. Remember it's not just the players who are a part of the organization that 'bring in money'. The owner's secretary also fits in there as far as salaries.

I think you'd also, hopefully, agree that an owner can hope or expect to make, if he runs the business well, at least a decent profit. Doesn't have to be obscene or anything, but a profit at least.

The players giving back 24% of their salaries would have helped this year but wouldn't have solved the problem in the long run. Yes, they are clever businessmen and know how to cook the books, but a number of the teams have gone into bankruptcy. You don't do that for a tax dodge when you own a professional team.

The long run health and popularity of the league are at stake and regardless of what deal is struck I firmly believe that a hard salary cap, with salaries tied to revenues...pretty much what the owners wanted...is what is best for the league. I've thought that for years for all professional sports. Look at how well it works in the NFL.

The only caveat to making it work is that you have to have completely open accounting, and third party accountants checking the books to make sure they're legit. If they are though, what's the problem? Guarnateeing players a certain piece of the pie.

[nickgutierrez]

18. I don't think the NFL works that well at all.

Yeah, the NFL has what some might refer to as 'competitive balance' -- I call it 'league-enforced mediocrity'. It's made the NFL not as fun to watch, and has hurt the quality of play immensely, IMO. I don't want that to happen to any other sport.