NHL CBA negotiations, heading towards another lockout?

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I have trouble feeling sorry for either side (and I'm always suspicious when somebody wants me to feel sorry for them anyway).

And while I understand that it's a different game for the low end players, I don't really feel very scared for their welfare either, at least no more than I would for somebody in any other profession who made $300,000 for even one year.

As long as you didn't live like a pimp for that one year (no pimp cars or homes), it might cost you, what, $50,000 to live decently? (No doubt your team pays for all meals and accomodations and health care during the season.) I'm assuming these are young guys who might not even be married or have kids. That leaves $250,000 to sit in the bank and gather interest while you go out like every other lame chump and get a job at Tastey Freeze to make ends meet, which puts you $250,000 plus yearly interest up on all your other chump co-workers at Tastey Freeze. Sorry, but no tears here for that dude while the guy next to him can't afford a taco for lunch.

 

Actually, that's quite different than how just about every sport in the US works. The major sports leagues in the US are surprisingly socialistic in nature.

With the NFL, everything is shared. Not just the TV contracts, but owners don't own their own team logo. Those rights are maintained by the league. So any sold merchandise like hats and jerseys is evenly divided among all the teams in the league, even though the Cowboys sell much more of it than a team like the Jaguars. In the NFL, the only thing that differentiates the profits of the individual teams are ticket sales and concession sales at the games. And there's a hard salary cap of $130 million, so owners can't overspend on their team, and a salary floor of 90% of that, so you can't cheap out and not spend on your team either.

With the NBA and MLB it's a little different. The TV contracts are evenly divided, but teams DO own their own logo. So if you buy a Yankees jersey, the Yankees get the profit from that. There's a soft salary cap in both leagues, which, if you go over that, requires you to pay into the revenue sharing plan, and that money goes to the teams that don't make as much money.

That's one of the gripes I have with baseball. I have no problem with a team like the Yankees having to pay for spending so much more than most other teams, but the owners that receive money from that don't necessarily have to spend that money on their teams. A particularly egregious example was the last year's Marlins. They received $30 million from the rich teams that year, and fielded a team with a payroll of $32 million. That's balony. There should be some type of rule that states you have to spend a dollar of your own money for each dollar you take out.

 

In one sports columnist that I read frequently, he has started referring the Bettman as Gary Bruce Bettman, in the style of using all three names like we do for serial killers and assassins, as Bettman has already presided over the assassination of one NHL season, and looks like he is working on two. There have also been two other NHL work stopages under Bettman's tenure, although those did not result in lost seasons.

 

Hockey players aren't the smartest people in the world - or even the smartest athletes for that matter. When was the last lockout? Seven or so years ago? So many of the players involved in this lockout were already playing during the last one. We know how that ended. If the owners aren't making money on the games, they aren't going to cave the players demands. They have the players over a barrel, just like last time, and the longer the players hold out waiting for more, the less they'll end up receiving. So, essentially the players are going to take it in the shorts - just like last time.

 

Here we are, two and a half months after the last post on this thread BUT IT'S FINALLY OVER!!!

 

Honestly, it can still be a very good season. IMO, both the NHL and NBA seasons are too long to begin with. It doesn't make sense to have so many games when so many teams make the playoffs. (Unlike in baseball, where only 8 of the 30 teams make the playoffs. They play a ton of baseball games, but with a small playoff field, you're pretty confident that the teams that make it to the playoffs are the best teams.)