ukcanuck wrote:Seriously, you would really pay half price to watch replacement players? why when junior hockey is even less than that and the AHL is down the road in Abby? more to the point, the CFL is a bargain at less than half the price but suggest to half the guys on here that its worth watching and get the buckets out to clean up the vomit. Don't you think it's gonna be the same with replacement players? any player not under contract to play somewhere right now is no better than half the guys playing beer league.
The CFL isn't worth watching because it's an 8 team league. There is no variety. Plus the mickey mouse rules that allow for teams to score points on MISSED opportunities. Terrible comparisson. The point of ticket price is that the owners will be making somthing and the players won't. Although I'm not sure replacements are an option when it is an "employer" imposed lockout. My main point is that players come and go, true fans cheer for the team.....which the owners bankroll.
ukcanuck wrote:Sounds reasonable to me, I suggested that the other day but I'm sure Bettman won't go for it. They seem to want the savings in salary all up front.
I didn't see all the details, I just saw that there would be no roll-back on salaries and that the players currently under contract would get all the money promised in said contracts. To me that is a no-brainer.
meds wrote:And there should be a 50/50 split. It should be linked to HRR and not projected growth. What's the big deal if the players total figure goes up and down with HRR? The owners total dollar amount will be exactly the same and fluctuate the same way. Sounds pretty fair.
ukcanuck wrote:Except then it wouldn't be fifty fifty would it ? What is so hard in understanding that HRR is a moving goal post. First define what exactly it is and don't hide behind it is whatever was agreed too in the last CBA crap, before you can divide something you have to know what it is.
If it is 50/50 and it is linked to revenue and said revenue is $3 billion then $1.5B goes to owners and $1.5B goes to player salaries etc. If the revenue dips the next year to $2.6 billion then $1.3 goes to each. If it climbs to $3.4B then $1.7 goes to each. Sure it's a moving post, but a 50/50 split is still a 50/50 split.
Maybe the answer here is instead of hard salaries in contracts players can opt to sign deals that pay them a certain percentage of the salary cap. Owners/GM's just have to adjust accordingly and make sure that they leave a few percentage points as wiggle room for FA, re-signings, etc. So if the cap is set at $60M and the league determines that no one player can make more than 13% of the overall salary cap, then say Crosby signs for the max, $7.8M per year. HRR goes up that year so the next year the cap jumps to $65M, now Crosby makes $8.45M. In this season HRR drops a bit and the cap falls to $63M, Crosby now makes $8.19M To me that would be a fair system for both parties. Players are continually guaranteed their share, they don't have to try and get the best deal they can and worry about leaving futures on the table, owners still control their payroll and have the salary cap that is linked to HRR from the previous year, which is what they apparently want. This motivates the players and the owners to ice the best game they can in order to draw the most fans. As it stands now the players can coast once they've signed and the owner has to foot that bill.
ukcanuck wrote:
This is just emotional overreaction, if contracts were just burnable like that would you accept the total free agency that would be the legal result of ramming that through? where do you want to play next year Crosby? " The non hockey markets will never get anybody decent to stay.
Not sure how this is an emotional overreaction.....do you know what that actually is? It's not as if there wouldn't be measures in place to protect players from owners just pissing on a contract because the player had a bad attitude. But the flip side every employer is entitled to some kind of protection from an employee who just wants to mail it in. Nothing emotional about that at all. As for non-hockey markets? I actually don't care. If hockey is setup somewhere that it isn't popular and can't draw a fan base large enough to support the team then that team should move or fold. Phoenix should have been moved long ago. Bettman is a moron for not letting Balsillie purchase and move the Coyotes to Hamilton.
ukcanuck wrote:oh yeah it's obvious that Bettman has an equitable agreement as his goal...that's rich, he wants the best deal he can get for the owners ...that's not going to be the best deal for the players purely by definition is it?
Obviously both sides are going to want the best deal for themselves. It's Bettman's job to get the owners the best deal and it's Fehr's job to get the players the best deal. The last offer from the league was a good STARTING point. The PA is well aware that the owners are not moving away from a system with linkage to HRR. None of their offers have included that linkage. It's pretty clear that Fehr would prefer no salary cap at all, and we have seen what that has done for MLB.....hey owners, come buy your championship.
ukcanuck wrote: The owners can have security without putting it all on the player's backs. there are other options like revenue sharing and accepting the players as partners. But that would mean that the original six team owners who are raking it in would have to share more than they are willing.
From an owners perspective it makes sense to want security. Even as an employee I can see it. Why should the owners have to foot the bill for teams that can't make it? The revenue sharing thing is a good idea, but when you have franchises that are losing money and never contributing to the over profit pot, then I think it's fair to fold up those teams or move them. I work for a company that has a provincial union, there are people working for this company in towns where the billables do not come close to paying the overhead, the demand for the job is ridiculously low. I'm in a town where that is not the case, but my income is effected because the company feels that it needs to maintain these other locations and that the system needs to be equitable for all employees. Sucks to be me, and probably 65% of our work force. If there is no demand for a hockey team in Phoenix or Dallas, than why should the owners from Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, and San Jose (examples) have to pay for those two franchises? Shouldn't the owners who are footing the bill have more say? Shouldn't they be able to say enough is enough, fold the team or move it.....
meds wrote: [quote=ukcanuck"]But right now the players are content to reject everything outright and submit proposals that they know full well are not even starting points for the owners.
The same can be said for the owners too[/quote]
Except for the fact that the owners have made several concessions from their original offer at the start of all of this.
[quote="ukcanuck"It's called a lockout, that means the players are being kept from working, they have said repeatedly that they would play and negotiate but the league won't have it. The threat that the players would strike when it's most inconvenient is crap, what difference will it make this spring if its a lockout or strike?
[/quote]
Yeah, that would have been a good idea. I wonder if that would have been something the owners would have considered if someone
other than Donald "no MLB playoffs" Fehr was the guy putting that idea on the table.....
When the owners come to the PA at the all-star break and say, "Let's start hashing this out." And the PA responds by saying, "No." And then the PA won't even sit down with them for over half a year, well that tells me that the union has its head up its ass and is not looking to get a deal done. The lockout may be owner imposed, but it could have been avoided if the last 9+ months had not been squandered doing nothing (because the NHLPA didn't want to). If the players were willing to play with no deal in place and negotiate one with an ongoing season, why were they not willing to negotiate during an ongoing season back at the all-star break? Could it be because there was a CBA in place until after the playoffs were over that they had to honor. With no agreement in place they could just walk off and strike.....say at the end of March or beginning of April after they had all made their entire salary for the year and just the playoffs were left. Then what? There has been nothing done "in good faith" from the players side of things this time around.
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