Free market capitalism?

[uber_pwnzor]

I was thinking, why don't just let the NHL be run under wild capitalism? No split revenues, no salary cap, no max length contracts?

Just let the owners pay the players as much as they want, and if the players don't like it; fine, they won't sign with that team.

If a team doesn't do well in a certain area; move it to a city where people are intrested in hockey.

If the owners think the salarys are too high, then they'll just not pay too much money?

They players don't get any revenue share, they just get paid to play hockey, just like in any other company. I mean the people working for Apple or Microsoft aren't guaranteed a certain share of all the money the company makes. They have to talk to their employer and agree upon a certain salary. Why not make the NHL players do the same?

[Riviera82]

I like the idea but Bettman probably wouldn't.

[Gretzky's Mullet]

In some ways, it makes sense. However, you have to remember that the league itself is a business in which the teams are all stakeholders. TV revenues, league-wide marketing, promotions, scheduling, etc are all controlled by the league and not the individual teams, so that already tosses the "free market" idea out the window. Furthermore, the NHL operates effectively as a monopoly, and in that way, the teams are in collusion, rather than competition, with each other with the goal of making profit. That's why the players association (effectively a union) came into effect in the first place, because the lack of other employment opportunities in hockey outside of the NHL (especially during the pre-WHA era) and the lack of free agency meant that teams could pay their players peanuts and the players had basically no bargaining power. The stars could naturally bargain by refusing to play, but that was pretty much it. Nowadays, the situation is a little different, however the PA is still a necessary counterweight to pro sports' anti-competitive business model, and collective bargaining goes along with that.

[goalie13]

Isn't that what we pretty much had before the last lockout?

Weren't we all perfectly willing to lose an entire season as long as it meant they got a salary cap to level the playing field?

[Jägermeister]

The salary cap was just to avoid perennial contenders who only got that good because they could spend so much.

I like the idea of a high salary cap just to avoid gross overpaying, but at the same time keeping each team responsible for their own financial situation for the most part. The fact that there are money bleeding teams (Phoenix) in the NHL does nothing to help the league.

[Jaku]

I could see why this would be a great idea, but without the salary caps, rich owners can run wild and buy themselves a Stanley Cup at any given moment. I like the idea of players getting paid to play hockey and not deal with all this revenue sharing and labor disputes.

[Gretzky's Mullet]

You're all missing the point. The PA was brought in originally to protect the players, not the owners. And the league can never be a true "free market" because while the teams compete on the ice, in the front office they all share in each others' success. The only way for the system to be a free market is if the teams were completely independent of each other and there was no NHL, and they all just contracted to play each other of their own volition without any collective organization. That is not going to be on the table, ever. And until it is, the market for players isn't free either.