*Official* CBA Negotiations and Lockout Thread

[-Vintage Canuck-]

Alex Ovechkin confirmed he’ll head to the KHL if there is a lockout. Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Datsyuk and Ilya Kovalchuk have already said the same.

“Mainly I think it’s going to be a lot of additional marketing potential for the league and hockey itself as a game,” KHL vice president Ilya Kochevrin told The Canadian Press on Tuesday. “The stars bring additional attention … to a lot of people who probably don’t consider hockey the sport of choice.

“I think as a marketing tool it’s a great opportunity.”

http://www.csnphilly.com/hockey-philadelphia-flyers/flyers-talk/Players-rethink-options-as-deadline-near?blockID=769571&feedID=695

[Sully2Cool]

[VancouverCanucksRock]

I'm confused by this massive pro-NHLPA boner that everyone has, really I do.

The NHL is a business, no matter which way you look at it. Let's pretend that they're Subway franchises. If I owned a franchise, I hereby own the liability on the franchise, so if anyone is to ever go on the chopping block, it's me. Financial losses or lawsuits won't affect the players bank accounts so why should I even consider splitting revenues if they don't have any liability?

Why in the hell would I ever consider splitting revenues 50/50 with my employees. I pay them a salary (wage) and give them a benefit (pension, dental/health) package that is more than reasonable. Players are employees. Yes, they are talented and driven, but they are still employees.

[SamJamIam]

I'm confused by this massive pro-NHLPA boner that everyone has, really I do.

The NHL is a business, no matter which way you look at it. Let's pretend that they're Subway franchises. If I owned a franchise, I hereby own the liability on the franchise, so if anyone is to ever go on the chopping block, it's me. Financial losses or lawsuits won't affect the players bank accounts so why should I even consider splitting revenues if they don't have any liability?

Why in the hell would I ever consider splitting revenues 50/50 with my employees. I pay them a salary (wage) and give them a benefit (pension, dental/health) package that is more than reasonable. Players are employees. Yes, they are talented and driven, but they are still employees.

[kylecanuck]

When looking for places to expand the NHL to, there are a few places that make most people stand back and say "What were they thinking...Florida, Phoenix?" When the NHL or any viable business is looking to expand, you do your demographic analysis, average age, working class, average income, population, etc. Surely if a market like Vancouver (population of 600,000) can sell out every night, a team like Phoenix (population 1,500,000) can do well as well? After your due diligence, these high populated cities should be able to support these teams, but they're not. In Arizona there's more than ten times the number of children under 12 playing hockey now than there was prior to the Coyotes setting up in Phoenix. Which indicates it can work. But it does take a great deal of time.

Just because a city has a high population doesn't mean it will support a franchise for any sport. if 1.5 million people don't care about the game a team is playing it's not going to work.... you can bring a pro team to a city that has a fan base of 15000 people and if they are willing to go to the games it'll succeed. I say 15000 because if even half went it would equal phoenix attendance....

People often say "Move teams like Phoenix to a Canadian market, like Quebec"; common sense dictates that of course the new franchise will be tremendously more profitable then its current Market. But lets analyse the decision from a business standpoint.

Fans=Dollars

Will the net fans increase?

When you look at Quebec, what percentage of their population is already supporting NHL teams like Toronto and Ottawa? You don't want to simply absorb these fans, thus taking away from Toronto's and Ottawa's profits; you want to acquire new fans that didn't support any NHL team in the first place. These new fans you gain must exceed the fans Phoenix will loose due to the move.

This is the issue with relocating to a saturated market like most of Canadian cities, we are Hockeys greatest nation, were already loyal fans of current teams... giving them a local team will simply reallocate profits, not increase the fan base enough to compensate for the relocation costs.

Yes moving the team to quebec would mean more money, do you think these fans are willing to drive 6 hours to see a game? I'm going to say no but I bet they would be willing to drive two hours... if you can fill a stadium with fans it'll bring the market up. DO you think montreal or toronto are whatsoever worried about quebec taking away from their massive fan base, maybe a bit but they don't need to be.

In addition, past relocations are almost always due to arena issues. So do these prospect citys (Seattle, Quebec etc.) now have arenas to support an NHL team? Nope they would have to be built/renovated first.

[oldnews]

Searched and didn't see this article posted.

Oldnews yes, but imo a good read regardless.

Essentially - owners of rich teams won't assist owners of poor teams, not willing to co-operate to maintain the stability of smaller market teams, and the NHL refusing to mirror other major sports that have more viable revenue sharing models. Bettman works for/won't take on the rich owners, so he is turning to squeezing the players in order to sustain the small markets.

Why NHL teams cry poor despite the league’s record growth

Time for another by the numbers look at the money fight that is the NHL and NHLPA’s current collective bargaining negotiations.

First of all, you’ll note there’s a decidedly different tone this time around than there was in 2004-05.

Back then, there were cost overruns, endless losses and the Levitt Report.

More Related to this Story

• DAVID SHOALTS NHL ownership, union philosophies far apart

blog

A closer look at the NHL’s new CBA wish list

Now, commissioner Gary Bettman can’t stop trumpeting just how wildly successful the league has been over the last seven seasons.

Revenues have risen from roughly $2.2-billion to $3.3-billion – or an average of about $160-million a season – over the length of the current CBA, pushing the average revenue-per-team figure to $110-million.

Overall, the league is profitable, too.

Take that imaginary average team making $110-million a season. Their player costs would be 57 per cent of that figure, or $62.7-million, and their other, non-player related expenses are likely to be in the neighbourhood of $35- to $40-million, depending on their lease arrangement and various other complicating factors.

What’s left is the profit – which according to these rough estimates here would be between $7- and $12-million per team.

Sounds good, right?

For as many as a dozen teams, it is. On the high end in the NHL, the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens are all pulling in more than enough revenue to be very profitable and they don’t lose all that much of it to revenue sharing.

What’s not exactly news is that many teams on the low end struggle, and it’s that vast revenue disparity which is to blame for a lot of the problems the owners are once again making noise about correcting.

That’s why we can have a team like the Philadelphia Flyers sign a free agent defenceman like Shea Weber to an enormous, $110-million deal even as owner Ed Snider is part of talks to eliminate those long-term contracts.

These deals make sense for some teams and not others – just as the system is “working” for some and not others.

Below are two graphs I’ve put together that highlight how vastly different revenues are for the high and low teams in the NHL. Note that these figures are all estimates from the 2010-11 season and that they rely on the data provided by Forbes as part of their annual Business of Hockey series.

Their revenue estimates are not perfect, but they are a usable approximation and illustrate why we’re in another labour war, seven years after the last one:

Estimated NHL team revenues (2010-11)

Before revenue sharing, the NHL's top 10 revenue generating teams are believed to averaged close to $150-million in revenue the 2010-11 season. The bottom 10 teams are likely closer to $70-million each.

SOURCE:

Forbes (with alterations made for estimated revenue sharing figures)

Now, the way the NHL’s current CBA works, it’s not that difficult to come up with a general estimate of the profit levels of the 30 teams as a group.

In 2010-11, for example, the league made roughly $3.1-billion and, as per the CBA, 57 per cent – or $1.76-billion – of that went to the players.

That then leaves 43 per cent for the owners or about $1.33-billion ($44-million per team).

Expenses beyond what teams pay players then take a big bite out of that figure, with those costs going to things like executive and staff salaries, minor league operations, arena operations, travel and marketing, etc.

According to the Levitt Report in 2002-03, these operating costs were roughly $26-million per team nearly a decade ago. Accounting for inflation and rising costs in several areas, we can probably safely assume they have since risen into the $35-million range.

Multiplied by 30 teams, that would have eaten up roughly $1-billion of that owners’ share mentioned above.

So in terms of our roughed out numbers here that leaves about $280-million as our “profit” estimate.

The NHL as a whole, in other words, now makes money – and if revenues were 100 per cent shared among owners, they’d all be profitable.

(That’s looking at only hockey-related revenues, by the way. Getting into non-HRR sources such as increases in franchise values and the like is a whole new topic.)

The major issue, however, is that the $280-million profit margin (or whatever the precise figure is) is going almost entirely to the league’s top teams.

The Leafs, for one, likely make up $100-million or more a season of that figure, even after giving up the league’s largest revenue sharing donation to the less fortunate teams.

Add in the Rangers, Habs, Canucks, Red Wings, Bruins, Blackhawks and Flyers – all healthy franchises – and there’s another $240-million or so.

So there’s eight franchises and we’re already well over the $280-million profit figure we’ve estimated for 2010-11.

The NHL model: Profitable for some

Using Forbes' figures for team revenues, here are some estimated revenue and expense figures for the three wealthiest and three of the poorest teams in the 2010-11 season. "Difference minus expenses" uses an estimate of $35-million for non-player costs such as staff

Where the league is suffering and why we may have yet another lockout (the third under Bettman) is (a) the bottom 10 teams have revenues so low they can’t cover their expenses and ( those at the top have little intention of helping them do so more than they already are.

It’s an owner versus owner problem more than it is an owner versus player one, with Thursday’s massive offer sheet the perfect example of how a high spending team can go after one receiving revenue sharing and just hanging on.

The fact the players are again being asked to save the stragglers rubs many on the PA side the wrong way.

“Under the current CBA, NHL teams have received over $3-billion in revenue that would have previously gone towards player salaries,” one such source said this week. “The issue is not whether the players should now give up more revenue, it’s what did the owners do with this $3-billion?

“We know what they didn’t do. NHL clubs did not meaningfully revenue share between the big and small markets. After accepting a salary cap, a 24 per cent rollback and making other significant concessions last time, with revenues up over 50 per cent since 2005, why look to the players again?”

The answer is easy: Bettman and Co. believe they will have far more luck prying $200- or $300-million out of the players than the big moneyed teams, the owners of which feel they’ve given up enough of their advantage by agreeing to a cap, some limited revenue sharing and greater parity.

But even under the league’s recent proposal, which would cut the players’ share to 46 per cent, many teams on the low end would continue to lose money.

You simply can’t turn a profit while bringing in $80-million or less unless we’re talking about a cap of $45-million or less, which at current revenue levels would require giving players only a 37 per cent share.

To make a team like Phoenix profitable, they’d have to take closer to 25 per cent.

Neither of those will come to pass.

In a lot of ways, this CBA negotiation is still tied directly to the NHL’s path down the overexpansion road in the 1990s, one it hasn’t fully recovered from. Yes, revenues are way, way up, but they are up in large part due to its biggest hockey markets (including Canadian teams).

Those that have struggled in the past for the most part continue to do so.

The frustration on the players’ side is that in many instances this is more a revenue problem than a player salary problem – and they have little say in how to correct the vast revenue imbalance in the league.

Relocation is one option – going from Atlanta to Winnipeg alone had to have boosted league revenues $30-million or more – but there really aren’t many places to go beyond perhaps franchises in Toronto, Quebec City and Seattle.

Another is to drop the salary floor and allow teams to simply spend what they can afford, giving up on forced parity when it means forced losses for those on the low end.

More robust revenue sharing could also certainly help – and I expect that’s what union leader Donald Fehr eventually pushes for – but how willing are the Leafs, Habs, Rangers et al to bail out the league’s perennial problem children?

“Not very” has always been the word, and that’s why they currently share only a tiny fraction (rumoured to be roughly 7 per cent) of their share of revenues.

But pushing the players to fix this can only take them so far here. For the rest of the solution, this is a league that needs to look in the mirror at what’s really happening and why some of its teams are losing this much money.

Or give up the ruse that that’s what they’re fighting to correct in the first place.

“I know other leagues have meaningful revenue sharing,” one agent said this week of the NHL’s revenue gap dilemma. “The NHL hopes that the media and fans ignore that fact. Owners would rather try to pound on players than pound on each other.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/globe-on-hockey/why-nhl-teams-cry-poor-despite-the-leagues-record-growth/article4429817/

[King Heffy]

I'm confused by this massive pro-NHLPA boner that everyone has, really I do.

The NHL is a business, no matter which way you look at it. Let's pretend that they're Subway franchises. If I owned a franchise, I hereby own the liability on the franchise, so if anyone is to ever go on the chopping block, it's me. Financial losses or lawsuits won't affect the players bank accounts so why should I even consider splitting revenues if they don't have any liability?

Why in the hell would I ever consider splitting revenues 50/50 with my employees. I pay them a salary (wage) and give them a benefit (pension, dental/health) package that is more than reasonable. Players are employees. Yes, they are talented and driven, but they are still employees.

[oldnews]

^^^

The analogy doesn't work El Capitan because a Subway franchise sells sandwiches - and there are millions and millions of people you could interchange to staff your franchise.

The players are not merely "employees" - they are also the "product" (precisely because they are the best in the world) without which there are no "owners". If you want to ask why you would bother to share your profit with employees, you might wonder why franchises are bidding 100 million dollars to retain certain "employees" services.

The concept of the owner owning the liability is ironic in this case in the sense that it was the NHL and not the NHLPA that chose to locate franchises in oddball US markets. Now the rich franchises are reluctant to adequately revenue share - Bettman and the NHL are expecting the players to assume that liability. I find it ironic that the players are proposing 260 million in revenue sharing if they are to compromise, whereas the league (currently sharing 150 million) is proposing 190 million. The big market / extremely profitable franchises are opting not to compromise with their fellow owners, but to collectively leverage the players to essentially prop up the weak franchises. That is why I consider the NHL owners position to be riddled with contradiction (their internal competition), not to mention the fact that some of them were conducting business as usual signing players to 100 million contracts on the eve of this dispute while subsequently playing the lack of revenue card (which only really applies to the franchises they are not really prepared to adequately sustain).

[-Vintage Canuck-]

Bill Daly said in an email on Saturday, “No meetings are scheduled at this point.” Wild Zenon Konopka was at the meetings and had this to say,

“A lot was said and a lot needs to be processed and I think it probably takes a day or two to think about it and come up with some new ideas,” Wild centre Zenon Konopka, who sat in on Friday’s session, said from New York on Saturday.

“It’s hard to know, to be honest with you,” said Konopka. “I think there’s going to be some new ideas in the next week or so. As for a proposal, you’ve got to think there’s going to be something before Sept. 15 but I can’t say that for sure.”

http://www.ottawasun.com/2012/09/08/nhl-nhlpa-in-think-tank

[Mauii]

Keep it status quo except marginally adjusting revenue share between players and the league, and lowering the bottom line. The less profitable markets can still stay in the game without having the pressures of meeting the bottom line, heck why even have a bottom line. It's a capitalist world/system. If the less profitable teams can keep sustaining themselves with reduced player salary expense...great! If not, take responsibility for your business and make the right business decision. They need to be responsible for themselves. The disparity is working out for the MLB.

[Drive-By Body Pierce]

Owners go back on collective word

The impending NHL lockout isn’t as much about spreadsheets and definitions of revenue as it is about honor — as in the 30 NHL owners’ refusal to honor the existing contracts into which they have entered with their respective players.

Because even as Gary Bettman’s league and Donald Fehr’s union attempt to hash out the considerable differences between the sides eight years after the Board of Governors won the most smashing victory in the history of pro sports negotiations through the 2004-05 lockout, the owners’ attempts to welch on their collective word provides the underlying theme to these talks.

There were relatively few long-term contracts in place when the owners extracted a 24-percent rollback the last time around. Now, with long-term deals an industry standard, the owners are attempting a massive take-back via escrow deductions that would begin at 15-to-20 percent this year and likely would remain in double digits over at least the following two seasons.

These owners don’t simply want the players to get smaller pieces of the pie they might order in the future, these owners and this league intend to cut into the pieces of the pie that already have been delivered to the players’ table.

We’re talking about contracts that have been signed by both parties, ostensibly at good faith, that amount to approximately $1.65 billion yet outstanding for 2012-13, $1.34 billion for 2013-14 and $835 million for 2014-15, not including potential entry level bonuses.

Who are these guys who sign contracts then use the guise of collective bargaining to rewrite them? What gives corporate barons like Boston’s Jeremy Jacobs, Philadelphia’s Ed Snider and Carolina’s Peter Karmanos Jr. the audacity to use the end of a labor agreement to conduct what is presumably a legal mass breach of promise?

The commissioner and his allies consistently refer to last year’s NFL and NBA lockouts, through which the owners in those respective leagues were able to get the players to agree to a smaller percentage take of revenue going forward.

Yet not a single player in either league lost money on an existing contract as a result of those settlements. According to information provided by the NFL Players Association, the average salary increased from $2 million to $2.25 million in the first season of the new agreement.

It is true that escrow has been part of the system under which the NHL and the players have operated the last seven years, as deputy commissioner Bill Daly mentioned the other day.

But the fact is the players received at least 97.51 percent of their contracts’ full value in five of those seven seasons, with the average escrow loss over their seven years amounting to 3.2 percent.

If the league were to offer to cap escrow on all existing contracts at 3.2 percent, the discussion immediately would be transformed into a serious negotiation on all other issues. An immediate offer to cap escrow at, say, 5 percent on all existing contracts would all but ensure a settlement within weeks that would allow the season to open as scheduled.

But no. The league not only hasn’t made that sort of an offer, its people have repeatedly indicated the NHL’s requirement of immediate and dramatic take-backs from the players, or else.

Or else they won’t allow the league to open for business. They’re quite something, these corporate entities lined up on the NHL’s side of the table, a group absent the intention of honoring their collective word.

[VegasCanuck]

If we want to have any effect on the outcome as fans, we have one option only. Initiate a North America wide boycott of all business owed and operated by team owners.

Issue our own demands. Either you guys settle this by the 30th or we will extend the boycott for the duration of the hockey season.

The problem with fans is we love to bitch and complain, but we're never willing to actually do anything about it.

If 20% of Canadian hockey fans switch to non Molson beers until the lockout is resolved, do you think the ownership in Montreal would take notice?

Let's setup a site where we track down the owners business interests and start boycotting them.

I don't think this should be just targeted at the owners either though. Let's hit companies that use players for endorsements.

We love the hardest hitting sport in the world, but very few of us are actually willing to do any of the hitting ourselves.

This is the age of digital and social media.

This wouldn't be that hard, it would only take commitment of the fans to make it happen!

[Drive-By Body Pierce]

If we want to have any effect on the outcome as fans, we have one option only. Initiate a North America wide boycott of all business owed and operated by team owners.

Issue our own demands. Either you guys settle this by the 30th or we will extend the boycott for the duration of the hockey season.

The problem with fans is we love to bitch and complain, but we're never willing to actually do anything about it.

If 20% of Canadian hockey fans switch to non Molson beers until the lockout is resolved, do you think the ownership in Montreal would take notice?

Let's setup a site where we track down the owners business interests and start boycotting them.

I don't think this should be just targeted at the owners either though. Let's hit companies that use players for endorsements.

We love the hardest hitting sport in the world, but very few of us are actually willing to do any of the hitting ourselves.

This is the age of digital and social media.

This wouldn't be that hard, it would only take commitment of the fans to make it happen!

[Ossi Vaananen]

If we want to have any effect on the outcome as fans, we have one option only. Initiate a North America wide boycott of all business owed and operated by team owners.

Issue our own demands. Either you guys settle this by the 30th or we will extend the boycott for the duration of the hockey season.

The problem with fans is we love to bitch and complain, but we're never willing to actually do anything about it.

If 20% of Canadian hockey fans switch to non Molson beers until the lockout is resolved, do you think the ownership in Montreal would take notice?

Let's setup a site where we track down the owners business interests and start boycotting them.

I don't think this should be just targeted at the owners either though. Let's hit companies that use players for endorsements.

We love the hardest hitting sport in the world, but very few of us are actually willing to do any of the hitting ourselves.

This is the age of digital and social media.

This wouldn't be that hard, it would only take commitment of the fans to make it happen!

[Everybody Hates Raymond]

Multiple French NHL players are going to the Quebec Labor Board if the NHL chooses to lockout in an attempt to prevent it according to TSN

[UFCanuck]

Multiple French NHL players are going to the Quebec Labor Board if the NHL chooses to lockout in an attempt to prevent it according to TSN

[gmen81]

--

[VegasCanuck]

If we want to have any effect on the outcome as fans, we have one option only. Initiate a North America wide boycott of all business owed and operated by team owners.

Issue our own demands. Either you guys settle this by the 30th or we will extend the boycott for the duration of the hockey season.

The problem with fans is we love to bitch and complain, but we're never willing to actually do anything about it.

If 20% of Canadian hockey fans switch to non Molson beers until the lockout is resolved, do you think the ownership in Montreal would take notice?

Let's setup a site where we track down the owners business interests and start boycotting them.

I don't think this should be just targeted at the owners either though. Let's hit companies that use players for endorsements.

We love the hardest hitting sport in the world, but very few of us are actually willing to do any of the hitting ourselves.

This is the age of digital and social media.

This wouldn't be that hard, it would only take commitment of the fans to make it happen!

[Drive-By Body Pierce]

Multiple French NHL players are going to the Quebec Labor Board if the NHL chooses to lockout in an attempt to prevent it according to TSN

[SamJamIam]

http://www.nypost.co...tD1XepsxEoyeRGL