Players build your own league!

[J.I.A.H.N]

Interesting point made today on that's hockey. Did Minnesota Owners sign Suter and Parise knowing that they had already agreed that they wanted a 43/57 slit and only willing to move to a 47/53 split of hockey related revenue? If so they bargained in bad faith...small point and not really what I wanted to say

but......anyways here we go!

In 1972 to 1979 the World Hockey League came into existance, and really changed hockey contracts forever. It was only after the NHL started bucking up did the league start to fall apart.

My thought is why don't the players band together with all their millions, borrow against their pensions and their talents and start their own league.

The last time I checked Toronto Maple Leafs and NY Rangers were both worth more than 500 Million

each, with the Canucks coming in 7th at a cool 300 million. The total value of the league franchises are worth in the neighborhood of what 8 or 9 Billion dollars. That is with a "B"

Maybe if the owners could appriciate that their losses could be much larger and they would loose total control, maybe then they would understand that the players are partners, and "are" the comodity.

To me I think that then the players would not have to share any of the profits with the owners and we would not have to go through this every 5, 6, or 7 years.

The owners are free market people, so compete with the players for TV contracts. parking, gate revenues etc ( HRR ) what a joke!

I love my Canucks, but honestly, if the bottom dwellers get their way, our Canucks won't look the same anyways...and frankly I am tired of it.

It is the owners and GM;s that have raised the level of pay, and if they weren't so greedy, they wouldn't have to keep going back to the players........funny, I don't remember these stoppages in the 60's, 70's or 80's......or if my memory serves me the 90's

So Players! Get with it and form your own league and take everyone with you! Keep the same amount to teams, and make a collective that shares all profit within youselves!

( Note to Moderators......this is a free speach test! Don't lock me out, please!)( I am sure there are lawyers on this site who would agree with my right! )

[J.I.A.H.N]

Second though is that maybe even some of the owners whould like to come into this new league with their existing teams, just not having the same ownership percentages......I don't know just a thought!

[Where's Wellwood]

Gomez? You mean Parise?

[goalie13]

Just curious... under your plan, what arenas will the players teams play out of? If they are competing directly against the NHL teams, I am guessing that they won't be able to get ice time in those rinks.

[canucklax]

Just curious... under your plan, what arenas will the players teams play out of? If they are competing directly against the NHL teams, I am guessing that they won't be able to get ice time in those rinks.

[Grapefruits]

Players don't have the resources to form their own league.

[J.I.A.H.N]

So if you walked into a bank and said that your buisness earned 3.5 annually and your franchise was worth say 250 million, how much operating capital could you raise, not to mention their own personal wealth.

And exactly what players would the NHL owner being playing with? If the NHLPA owned the team and all played for the new franchises exactly what would the owners have left? And how many arenas are owned publicly, and of those that are not, if they have nothing to sell, well I guess those dates are open aren't they.......hey not easy, but the World Hockey League did it for 7 years and that is with only a few stars.........not the whole group........I make it sound so simplistic, and I know it's not....but it could be done!

[J.I.A.H.N]

Gomez? You mean Parise?

[UFCanuck]

Mike Gillis should be the Commisioner. So the Canucks get all the calls.

[elvis15]

Here's an interesting point, people have already suggested both that the owners knew full well that the contracts they were signing could be reduced and that the players should form their own league. But I'm glad you made this thread after there have been a bunch of other CBA/Lockout/etc threads over the past few days.

[canucklax]

So if you walked into a bank and said that your buisness earned 3.5 annually and your franchise was worth say 250 million, how much operating capital could you raise, not to mention their own personal wealth.

And exactly what players would the NHL owner being playing with? If the NHLPA owned the team and all played for the new franchises exactly what would the owners have left? And how many arenas are owned publicly, and of those that are not, if they have nothing to sell, well I guess those dates are open aren't they.......hey not easy, but the World Hockey League did it for 7 years and that is with only a few stars.........not the whole group........I make it sound so simplistic, and I know it's not....but it could be done!

[J.I.A.H.N]

Here's an interesting point, people have already suggested both that the owners knew full well that the contracts they were signing could be reduced and that the players should form their own league. But I'm glad you made this thread after there have been a bunch of other CBA/Lockout/etc threads over the past few days.

[Grapefruits]

So if you walked into a bank and said that your buisness earned 3.5 annually and your franchise was worth say 250 million, how much operating capital could you raise, not to mention their own personal wealth.

And exactly what players would the NHL owner being playing with? If the NHLPA owned the team and all played for the new franchises exactly what would the owners have left? And how many arenas are owned publicly, and of those that are not, if they have nothing to sell, well I guess those dates are open aren't they.......hey not easy, but the World Hockey League did it for 7 years and that is with only a few stars.........not the whole group........I make it sound so simplistic, and I know it's not....but it could be done!

[J.I.A.H.N]

You don't exactly walk into a bank with that kind of cash.

Almost all arenas are owned by the franchise owners, who would certainly not open up their arenas to the new player league.

Also, the players now are not making anything from their contracts, so they only have as much money as they have currently saved up. Even if they pooled their money together, they could only play at arenas tat have no hopes of ever having NHL teams as they would immediately become blacklisted by the current 29 owners.

That money would then have to go to pay salaries of players, game day staff, training staff, marketing staff, etc.

To sum up: If this were to hypothetically happen, it would be in c-grade markets that wouldn't be profitable, and would come with little to no start up capital for all the expenses.

At the same time, they could just play oversees in Europe...

[Grapefruits]

I wonder how many arena's that the NHL uses for it's teams have exclusivity rights when it comes to hockey and rival leagues?

[canucklax]

I am sure your ownership point is pretty close to being spot on, but who owns the Canucks Arena, Edmontons, Winnipegs, not all arenas are private. And I don't think you could just close your door completely even if you own the rink......sort of like going into a coffee shop and being told to leave, we won't serve you, just can't do that.......I think that applies in both the USA and Canada

Not to mention how many of the banks might call their loans if they knew the owner did not have a way to pay the bill....but the players did.

[Lundymaphone]

Couple of things;

One: It was the World Hockey Association, not the World Hockey League.

Two: The WHA was always in trouble, even its "successful" teams were on the edge of a knife financially, the majority of the teams were in a

situation that we would recognize as Atlanta Thrashers-Like.

Three: The WHA, while acquiring a handful of very good players (Hull, many new kids on the block like Messier, Gretzky, etc) was never a

league that really was able to compete skill wise with the NHL. Their teams had severe depth problems.

Four: The WHA was formed by rich business persons, not players.

Five: Assuming the new player run WHA could somehow get fair arena access (something the old WHA had issues with), they would still

(probably) need to pay AHL or even NHL level fees to use said arenas, something a new league with lack of revenue would have

issues with.

Six: It would take an enormous amount of capital to start one franchise, let alone a dozen or more. We are talking hundreds of millions.

Seven: Sports teams in general are crapty investments, why would 100's of players throw away most/all of their fortunes for an idea that is

almost certainly going to fail? If the NHL failed tomorrow, yes players would lose income, but they would have no outstanding debts

(due to the League folding, other debts of course are another matter).

Eight: How would the ownership system work? Do players create some sort of bastard co-op team? Then how do they get traded, etc, when

can they pull out their investments? This is different then one very well regarded player (Lemieux) owning a stake in a team and

playing form them. 99% of players are in a situation no where near that of Mario Lemieux. If you have the league owned by the players,

who owns the franchises? And how do players that wish to exit do so financially?

Nine: This is a privately run forum, your rights to free speech are unimportant here. They can prevent you from accessing the forum for no

particular reason. An internet forum =/= a public area. Any "rights" to free speech you have are given to you as a privilege by the

moderators.

[elvis15]

Sarcasim aside, it there another " players form your own league threat? Cause if so. I miss it. If you're just trying to be a jerk..........wlecome anyways, just add your two cents into it....do you think there were be less labour unrest?

[J.I.A.H.N]

Restaurants all have the right to refuse service to anyone they want

Owners can fill dates with concerts

The publicly owned arenas wouldn't dare offer services to the league because they would be blacklisted by the NHL, a proven entity and cash cow that could take away 41 profit generating days away from those cities

[J.I.A.H.N]

Yes, there has been:

/topic/336288-would-you-support-resurgence-of-a-rival-league-such-as-the-wha/">http://forum.canucks...uch-as-the-wha/

There's another one I remember specifically that I can't find, but it's been discussed in the CBA/lockout thread as well (and in others) and the common consensus is it'd never happen.

It's just not feasible financially apart from a few one off games for charity, and the logistics would be horrible. Think of all the support staff you'd need to hire, the arrangements to be made for uniforms, scheduling, booking arenas, selling tickets, TV deals, what players play for what teams, etc.

It'd be one thing to try and organize it in an area that didn't have the equivalent already setup, or at best a lower level league, and another to do it where the NHL is already established. The KHL didn't have a comparative top-level league in place, but was still probably only able to do it because they have stupidly rich billionaires paying for their teams (even still, most don't even come close to covering costs with revenues so have to rely on huge contributions from owners).