Hockey is about to be officially cancelled. It seems certain now that there will be no NHL hockey for a long time. Last chance meetings toward an abbreviated season ended badly Friday afternoon.
Basically, undisciplined owners handed out hefty contracts that they could not afford to pay. As a result, they began to lose lots of $$$. Debt accumulated. They began to realize that the system wasn't working and so they have locked the players out of the arenas (in a manner of speaking). The players, on the other hand, have been enjoying the $$$ in recent years. They want things to stay the same.
The owners are arguing for a salary cap system in which teams are only able to spend a certain amount on players (42 million/team) and individual contracts (6 million/player). The players reject the idea of a built in bookend to how much they can make and, at most, have offered a one time 24% reduction of their current contracts.
I agree with the owners that the system needs to be dramatically changed. As it stands, hockey has the worst financial arrangement of the 4 major sports. Here are the basic systems in order of their effectiveness:
NFL-A very structured salary cap inceases as league revenue increases. This system is working great.
NBA-A salary cap is in place, but you can spend beyond it as long as you pay some extra taxes
MLB-The rich teams share their riches with the poorer teams in exchange for their good players
NHL-Players are given NFL sized contracts despite hockey's clear financial inferiority. Debt grows. Owners quit. Players get mad. Fans get forgotten/upset/bored/etc.
2 comments:
pretty accurate, as far as i can tell here, matt. it's not that difficult to figure out. take 100% of the league's revenue. split it roughly 55-45 owners to players. after the expenses, they are roughly equal. a cap makes sure things stay like this (at least until the CBA they agree on runs out). geez. i hear some NHLers are are sucking it up in europe (incl. bryan mccabe). also, what do you think of the hypocrisy of some players not playing in the NHL with a salary cap, but finding no problem playing in smaller leagues that have salary caps and taking some Joe Shmoe's job who actually needs what money he makes from hockey? to quote doc holliday: their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Unlike some people, I don't have a problem with players making a lot of money. If fans are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to watch them play then good for them. My problem with the NHL players is that they're expecting to make MORE than what fans are willing to PAY. They want to be payed like players from the NFL, MLB, and NBA, but they simply don't have the audience to do that (which stinks, b/c hockey is awesome, but that's the reality).
As far as the hypocrisy goes, yeah...I'd say that is hypocrisy
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