bonesmccoy
Banned
The league *could* be finished offering these so called 'concessions' for all we know. It would certainly blow up Fehr's core message to the players if they did.
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NHL Lockout With Your Cock Out |OT|
- Thread starter Marvie_3
- Start date
The league *could* be finished offering these so called 'concessions' for all we know. It would certainly blow up Fehr's core message to the players if they did.
brucewaynegretzky
Member
I never want anyone from NHL-Gaf negotiating on my behalf in an employment context. I'm certain of that.
Owned!
Freyjadour
Member
If I earned 2 million dollars a year, I'd gladly take a 15% paycut if it meant that the company as a whole grows and my other coworkers would be looking forward to more employment opportunities and guaranteed jobs themselves, without having to relocate, because only some branches of the company are making a profit. We're not talking about cutting down your minimum wage here.
They need the players back as badly as the players need the league back. A league of replacement players would never get off the ground due to legal challenges, nor would it be well received (except by members of this union-hating thread, apparently. yikes.). And while most of these owners are rich anyway, none of them would want to just walk away from their investments in the NHL.
The idea that the owners have all the power and the players should give up for the good of us all is not only inaccurate but kind of disgusting, really, because it implies that the only time you should seek fairness is when you're in a position to win.
edit: argh, double post.
Except the league has seen its best years ever recently! That's why this whole lockout has been a joke. You have a few teams struggling, but this lockout has nothing to do with them unlike the 2004 lockout, which seemed necessary for the low end teams. You are never going to fix the fact that hockey is about the 6th or 7th most popular sport in Florida or Nashville or Phoenix or Dallas.
If this was about helping those teams you'd hear arguments about lowering the cap floor, more aggressive revenue sharing, or breaks for re-signing your own players and draft picks. But these have not been issues at any time. They want a bigger slice of the pie, period, even though most of the league is doing fabulously. They also want to protect against salary cap loopholes by taking it out of the players end instead of policing their own house.
Except the league has seen its best years ever recently! That's why this whole lockout has been a joke. You have a few teams struggling, but this lockout has nothing to do with them unlike the 2004 lockout, which seemed necessary for the low end teams. You are never going to fix the fact that hockey is about the 6th or 7th most popular sport in Florida or Nashville or Phoenix or Dallas.
If this was about helping those teams you'd hear arguments about lowering the cap floor, more aggressive revenue sharing, or breaks for re-signing your own players and draft picks. But these have not been issues at any time. They want a bigger slice of the pie, period, even though most of the league is doing fabulously. They also want to protect against salary cap loopholes by taking it out of the players end instead of policing their own house.
Freyjadour
Member
Certainly not Walsh, our lord and savior.
Yeah, you wouldn't want anyone competent.
Hey guys, let's fight for a higher percentage resulting in a loss of a year which ends up as a 30% decrease in our salaries anyways! Yes! Sounds brilliant!
I live in an area which used to have a ton of manufacturing facilities but they were all controlled by unions that kept asking for more more more more more more more more
how many manufacturing jobs are in this area now? 0. The operating costs far exceeded the revenue just because a bunch of dumb fucks thought every damn contract they should have a 15-20% raise yet when the companies got into serious trouble? Nah, we'd rather lose our jobs than a little money.
What those people did and what the players are doing is similar to selling their house and using the money for lottery tickets.
Sure, it might work- but don't fuck with your future by putting the present on the line.
NEVER.
But brucewaynegretzky is right! He'd rather not negotiate until the very last second... And by negotiate I mean smearing his shit on paper and handing it over for 2 months.
Unfortunately for Bruce, there are complex structures to everything and the continued existence of opportunity. Sports... It requires attention. You start killing years and people start to forget it exists. It's not a supply - demand. It's a fad. The money isn't guaranteed.
In my area of toronto, for example, there used to be massive leafs merchandise sales... This is no longer the case. I feel toronto is a more fragile market than people realize. The only hockey conversations I have face to face is with an old red wings player who moved back after he ended his career by blowing out his knees... He played before PA was formed so he got no coverage or anything.
The point I'm making is you back fehr, the guy with a couple fucktard players who would rather decertify and put the NHLPA back in the stone ages over a minor amount of money- and that minor amount of money would end up only going to the richest instead of everyone.
So yes Bruce, you'd rather have that kind of stupidity- one that would risk all your rights and privileges as well as the entire industry they're in which basically means their jobs all over a couple $100 million and some completely misconstrued fantasy that they were beaten to a pulp the previous negotiation, something that likely only half the NHLPA members even went through.
When I'm making $5 million a year, i would gladly give up 15% of what I earn to ensure I have my medical benefits, my job among other things. Instead of souring the market, settling on 7.5% and outright losing $5 million.
You jut can't think 5 minutes in front of your face.
Freyjadour
Member
Dopey, your argument goes out the window when you take into account the league has seen seven straight years of record growth.
So the guys at the top end are getting richer and want more of the pie, and the employees should be happy with whatever the owners decide to give them because they're not bad off now. That's more like hiding under the covers than a long term philosophy for stability. Under your mindset, the players should take pretty much anything because "it could be worse."
So the guys at the top end are getting richer and want more of the pie, and the employees should be happy with whatever the owners decide to give them because they're not bad off now. That's more like hiding under the covers than a long term philosophy for stability. Under your mindset, the players should take pretty much anything because "it could be worse."
brucewaynegretzky
Member
And the truth comes out. Unions are what ruined manufacturing. I present to you all DopeyFish, the guy who is totally reasonable and isn't spewing a philosophy at all. Give me a fucking break.
I'm done with this shit. I'm sick of fighting this philosophy of employers dictating what a market is without any real supply side analysis. It's complete bullshit, and like I've said it's undermined far more important industries than the NHL.
The idea that these owners are entitled to something despite their gross incompetence at management is fucking ridiculous.
Dopey, on some levels I've agreed with you, and I think anyone who's actually taken the time to read what I've posted rather than jumping on me for not spewing "LOL FEHR" knows that. What you've consistently reiterated is that the league HAS to follow the vision of what you believe it should be, with the teams in the economic environment you believe they somehow are entitled to (see, e.g., your "should be ABLE to profit" comments). The reality is that just isn't how any other business functions. There are certainly things unique to the NHL, but that doesn't mean they should be subsidized for failure, and that's what they are. You assume supply costs are determined by employers, but I don't see where the hell that comes from.
Are the players morons. Yes, of course. Are they paid well for their services? Compared to most people, sure. But again, there are VERY few players who are truly elite and a supply/demand analysis shows that they're probably close to correctly compensated.
You insist that their is an entitlement to a level of profit. Show me one other place where that exists. ONE. I firmly believe that poorly managed teams should be allowed to run at a loss for as long as they are poorly managed or incapable of competing. If losses aren't due to market factors then move them to a profitable market.
You pointed out that the surge in the Canadian dollar fueled the current market. That's obviously not wrong, but it's also simply part of being in a competitive market. Teams don't deserve "breaks" for being less competitive, and if they do they should come from the teams that benefited, not from the labor force.
The players are an easy target. We all dream of growing up and playing the game we love for more money than we'll ever earn doing something else. That doesn't mean that they're economically irrational when planning the long term financial outlook of the league just because they want a greater share. I still don't see how you get away from the analogy to other labor intensive professional fields that are high skill. Those industries don't have the proposed kind of revenue distribution either. Yet somehow it HAS to be done here for some sort of fairness.
Are the players losing money this year? Likely yes? Unfortunately players have a short career length. But this goes beyond just current players and this CBA, like I've said. This is an opportunity to set an important precedent that will last much longer and will effect current generations. Extended past just this CBA there is a more than credible argument that the players can gain value over time that exceed the lost wages from this deal. But we can just ignore that and say these players are dumb because we like to imagine ourselves in that scenario.
So again, fuck it.
joeygreco1985
Member
HOLY SHIT!
MOTORCYCLE HELMETS!
GOLF SWINGS!
ROLLER COASTERS!
BETTMAN HAS EVIL RED EYES AND MOONS THE PLAYERS!
bonesmccoy
Banned
No, they don't - aside from the 2 players that are synonymous with their teams' recent successes.
Putting aside the difficulty of establishing what's 'fair' in a dispute between millionaires and multi-millionaire/billionaires, my contention is with union leadership's approach to this round of contract negotiations, not at all with the union itself.
As far as the players go, I really hope they end up with the best possible deal, and I really hope they learn how not to sound like complete morons on twitter.
Not sure if this was posted. How is it that Patrick Kane ends up sounding like the most reasonable player regarding the lockout (last 30 seconds). If they just stuck to this script, and not cry about their bills, I think they'd have a lot more public support.
http://www.chicagonow.com/red-light-district/2012/12/patrick-kane-apologizes-for-nhl-lockout/
http://www.chicagonow.com/red-light-district/2012/12/patrick-kane-apologizes-for-nhl-lockout/
Revenue isn't profit, is that really so hard to understand? Players cried "WE ARE GONNA STARVE" last lockout too, and what happened, their concessions resulted in the league not only surviving, but growing, in turn giving them more income. Everybody won. Players don't realize that taking a 15% cut RIGHT NOW (not to mention MAKE WHOLE was offered, so really, they wouldn't even lose that) would actually result in everyone making more money again, and a healthy league.
Again, Revenue is NOT profit.
brucewaynegretzky
Member
League has been profitable... We've had this argument.
This is the part where I say tie rev. sharing to profit, make it robust, and make teams like the leafs pay for the privilege to have the coyotes there to beat up on while people overcrowd their stadium and pay for overpriced food, which PS Dopey seems to believe there is a robust market for outside of the hockey season because it has "nothing to do" with a hockey game going on that people buy that shit.
Time to school you, too.
Revenue growth != profit growth
The growth in the NHL is largely attributed to the Canadian dollar, the Winnipeg jets and the new TV deal in the US
This means the cap floor has escalated and outside the US TV deal, there largely hasn't been any added revenue in the US to coincide with the extreme increase in player costs. This has resulted in every Canadian team growing to having very healthy profits (as teams are paid in canadian but players paid in USD) and every American team seeing an increase in their costs largely due to the rise of the Canadian dollar.
In fact the current year even with NHL not missing a game, I expected the NHL to largely remain flat or slightly receding their revenue share y/y
People have a difficult time understanding this, but there you go.
And Bruce, I'll respond to you after I finish my current task (sorry, bro- common sense will be smacking you around later)
brucewaynegretzky
Member
Except when confronted with the league being profitable every single year under the old deal you fall back on the least common denominator approach.
The league as a whole, yes, but if half the teams aren't, that's not healthy. Yes we should definitely move Phoenix, but that fights symptoms, not causes.
I am firmly pro-union, but in this case, screw the NHLPA. Unions are there to protect the small guy with little money from being bullied by the big guy with shitloads of money, not to help players who are part of the top5% fight against owners who are part of the top1%. Their egos are so out of touch with society, I hope they are forced to learn what it means to tighten the belt, one day. But they never will, because even if they had to give up 50% of their salaries they'd still be multimillionaires. Noone's life is at risk here of those 2 parties, the people that really suffer are small businesses, restaurants and stadium workers. Sit together, agree Priority nr1 needs to be to get hockey back, not to get the best possible deal for each party.
EDIT: also, the biggest fuck you goes to the players who didn't wanna negotiate earlier just to be in a presumably better position, causing the whole lockout in the first place. Have some human decency.
The only data available says the league is very healthy right now and has never been healthier. Bettman has been saying the same thing for years. Can you please show me data that proves otherwise? Not PR from an owner or a league representative, but data. Numbers.
Sure, there are teams at the bottom end not doing nearly as well as teams at the top end, but such is the plight of a league that has drastically over expanded to get that all-important "foot print" across America to entice TV networks. Do you really think what the owners are asking for is in any way designed to help the Coyotes, Panthers, Hurricanes, et al? The way to fix their problem is by more aggressive revenue sharing (among other steps), but of course that subject is totally taboo in a league that has pretty much gotten anything and everything it has wanted from its players. So they're going back to the well for some more, except this time the well is guarded by a pretty shrewd and seasoned negotiator in Fehr, and it's driving them fucking nuts.
Fuck it
You mean where I detailed league profits year to year demonstrating where the profit levels were relative to revenue?
Revenue has been growing. Profits has not.
Every team earning $1 after all expenses is still profit. So the whole league could profit with $30- business needs more than to cover operational costs, however. The teams could then be stuck standing still -a dollar today will be worth less than a dollar tomorrow and with relatively low amounts of fixed costs there has to be a) increased revenue growth across every BU or b) a decrease in controllable costs
Players fall under controllable. It would be nice to have A and B but you can't always get what you want
brucewaynegretzky
Member
This is the part where Dopey tells you that teams losing in the $1m range a year are in serious financial trouble and that since that is a large portion of the league we need huge changes rather than just forcing the more profitable teams to pay their share.
http://www.forbes.com/nhl-valuations/list/#page:1_sort:6_direction:asc_search:
13/30 teams are operating in the red. Several others close to it.
Data that I have been reading for 3 years shows the nhl isn't healthy at all.
Competition is relatively healthy despite some teams having massive financial issues
Revenue and profit growth in Canadian sector has been insane
Revenue growth on US teams has been minor and profit growth has been massive decline (due to expansion caused by Canadian dollar)
Ticket prices!
One of the NHL's main sources of revenue is ticket prices (more so than other NA pro sports leagues) and those have been rising dramatically the past 6-7 years.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2012/09/15/hockey-fans-to-blame-for-nhl-lockout/
That article also states,
brucewaynegretzky
Member
So cut 57% to 52%. Dopey's calling for, what was it Dopey? 44%? Yeah, that's a necessary cut.
People need to realize at this point the PA is asking for nowhere near what the current salary level is. After their make whole dies we can continue at a true 50/50 for a long time. So Dopey loves to call me shortsighted by why not just pay out make whole now and stick with 50/50 for multiple consecutive deals?
brucewaynegretzky
Member
Not on the make whole. They're fighting over short term costs. The entire fight is short term costs, which the owners are in a much better position to eat.
Freyjadour
Member
TV deals and the publicity they bring fuel increased ticket sales, prices, concessions, etc.
So you're saying because players want "100 mio now" instead of "50-30-20" (or whatever it is), they should cancel a season and lose multiples of that? You would rather LOSE money than have part of your 5mio salary delayed by a few years? What delusional world do you (or the players) live in? Noone is gonna starve because they have to wait for parts lf their 5mio salary another year. Apart from, you know, small businesses that rely on the NHL.
$200 million in revenue is roughly the same money as leafs earn in revenue
Yeah. Inconsequential alright!
(Hint: it's 6% of league revenue)
BigJonsson
Member
I propose all players fight to the death until 100 players left
Eventually all that will be left is 4th line guys who would be ecstatic to get $1 million
Oh and as bob mckenzie pointed out, only 89 players have contracts over 5 years and half of them are 6 or 7 years
Meaning... NHLPA is fighting for roughly 7.5% of league, or 3.5% of all players represented by NHLPA
BigJonsson
Member
And the players who don't have long term deals think that they just need to have one decent season to cash in for life.....when almost all of them will not even come close to that kind of season
bonesmccoy
Banned
Were no NHLPA 'staff' present in these conversations? It's weird to think that the owners had Daly there, and the players had no one.
STEVE FEHR WAS IN EVERY MEETING WITH BILL DALY.
Then why did owners seemingly flip out when the players said they have to run this by Donald and the rank and file players first before agreeing to anything? Did they really think it was going to go any other way? Getting Bettman and D. Fehr out of the way was supposed to hopefully be the making of the framework to a deal, finding common ground, not getting a deal signed.
They got pissed because it was the final offer and they just needed a simple Yes or No answer, when leaks came out that Fehr wanted the mediator back in and Fehr was working on a counter proposal then got pissed and started leaving the city.
You could continue negotiating till the end of time but at the end of the day its still negotiating and there is no final offer, the player knew it was the final offer and they let Fehr gamble on it by trying to call the League's bluf, it turned out to be a shit gamble, also seeing how some players wanted were ready to accept it there but Fehr said no.
bonesmccoy
Banned
Who said that's what caused the flip out? I thought it was the players (alleged) change in tone/behaviour that upset the ownership group. Which to me is hilarious; how dare these pesky players return to bargain in a more serious and steadfast mindset.
Considering that the owners *allowed* the player group to present their offer to Don Fehr and the other team reps/players present, rather than back away from the deal on Wednesday night, suggests that they were quite fine with how things were going to proceed. It wasn't until Thursday - when it became clear the PA was going to provide a counter-proposal rather than accept the offer - that the involved owners themselves stopped participating and called in the goons.
Alfie wouldn't lie to us would he ?Alfredsson said:
LeBrun still thinks a season is close :
Rest here:
http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/id/20654/heres-why-were-still-close-to-a-deal
Nah people probably misunderstood
Maybe what the owners were suggesting that adding Donald fehr to the process he might kill the deal- Which he did- by taking things out of players hands and throwing in his usual BS. because players and owners were having goodwill give and take until fehr showed up - and the way he acts is we will have this and this and this and this
It's not about being negotiators, it's about knowing as a group WHAT you want. If you're begging to throw a negotiator in, then you don't know what you want - Steve fehr was there and could explain every issue.
If you throw everything down on paper and it looks good then ok
But when you go back to fehr and he's like "that's bad" and the players start repeating it because they believe the guy even if the deal was completely fair
The whole point of getting rid of fehr and Bettman was a) the illogical disdain towards Bettman b) because Donald fehr is a poison pill to negotiation process. C) collectively churn something out that both sides could agree on... Which they were well on their way to doing before the fehr factor hijacked the process and nuked everything.
Those 4 owners that responded with letters are considered very moderate pro-player and pr even deal owners... Yet they certainly said their piece about how bad everything really was.
Especially tannenbaum - that guy doesn't give a shit- he's one guy that would agree to the last CBA again and again and again - hed probably easily agree to 60% player share! but the players still somehow managed to piss him off. Jacobs is no surprise but tannenbaum? You piss him off, you know you've done something so very wrong
Mathieu Schneider just said this on TSN raidio :
"We're acting like children in a playground" Claims one owner said: "If Don comes (into the room) it's a deal-breaker"
Sooooo he says an owner said that, and Miller says that no one said that......
"We're acting like children in a playground" Claims one owner said: "If Don comes (into the room) it's a deal-breaker"
Sooooo he says an owner said that, and Miller says that no one said that......