Even the NHL Owners know there'll be no season...

[gi]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Yup, I look at the owners stupidity, their apparent inability to show self-restraint, control, or anything closely related to common business sense, and I find myself the whole thing goes bankrupt, and we get more owners who have a business IQ higher then a turnip.

This is generally a human trait. Players are guilty as well.

[Anthony]

some owners don't live in do-or-die cities like NYC. we don't ever get to rebuild because then the owners can't charge huge prices for the tickets. so we get more and more high priced players, increase ticket prices and fuel the vicious cycle. some owners operate in cities where the fans understand you go from periods of success to periods where you let the new generation of players learn their craft.

[henry296]

I would argue that most owners are operating with business sense. However, operating that way makes it difficult to win the games on the ice.

The owners of most teams are utilizing business sense and spending salaries proportionally to their revenues. For the most part, the owners that spend the most on salaries have the highest revenue and can support a larger payroll. The revenue of the Leafs, Rangers, Red Wings and Avalanche can and do support high payrolls. This free market system, creates winner and losers based on resources. This is how the real business world operates. Companies with more resources can use this resources to offer better prices or better products.

It is the mid size and smaller owners in this environment acting as businessmen that have a difficult decision to make. Either I treat my team as a business and only spend salaries based on my revenues which makes it very difficult to be sucessful on the ice. The other option is not show self -restraint or control run at a loss but try to win on the ice.

This former option is how the Penguins are operating today after emerging from bankruptcy. They typically breakeven from a financial perspective over the past 3 years. However, in order to do so they can only afford ~ $25 million payroll. We have seen the on ice results and attendance figures mentioned previously. If the Rangers or Leafs want to operate from a breakeven perspective their revenues support a payroll 2X the Penguins.

In the past when Howard Baldwin owned the Penguins they took a different approach and made the other decision. He wanted to be successful on the ice and didn't care if he lost money and the Penguins won 2 Stanley Cups. This strategy is one of the causes of bankruptcy.

Sports in general have a decision to make.

1. It is competitive. Those with the best resources should be more successful because it is a free market. You end up with a system where there are have's and have nots just like the real world if each owner uses business sense. The is the MLB model.

2. It is cooperative and each team the playing field is leveled so that reduce the advantages of having more resources. Success is determined more by the decision making of the team. This is the NFL model.

Either option is possible, you just need to understand what types of results to expect from each and being willing to live with the consequences.

Todd

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by henry296

Sports in general have a decision to make.

1. It is competitive. Those with the best resources should be more successful because it is a free market. You end up with a system where there are have's and have nots just like the real world if each owner uses business sense. The is the MLB model.

2. It is cooperative and each team the playing field is leveled so that reduce the advantages of having more resources. Success is determined more by the decision making of the team. This is the NFL model.

Either option is possible, you just need to understand what types of results to expect from each and being willing to live with the consequences.

Todd

Exactly. This isn't McDonalds or Coke were if they put their competetors under, they reap a reward. If one team goes bankrupt, it affects all of the teams. Further, if a handfull of teams can buy all the talent, the smaller markets and league as a whole suffers. The NFL has by far the best system as it recognize that sports leagues cannot be a total free market. Each team depends on the others for their own existance.

[SoxWin]

Originally Posted by gi

Why is he a cancer on the league? He represents the owners and the owners pay his salary. If they didn't agree with him they could fire him. Would it be too far to reach to say that what bettman says has some owner support?

I'm sure he does, of that I have no question. I do however question the sanity of the men who have paid him to run the league into the ground over the last 10 years however. Which NHL was better and a more exciting product? I'll take the pre Bettman days over the current clutch and grab, bore me to death brand of hockey. I just don't see that he cares about anything other then money, and the game has suffered mightily as a result.

[SoxWin]

Originally Posted by Hell Atlantic

some owners don't live in do-or-die cities like NYC. we don't ever get to rebuild because then the owners can't charge huge prices for the tickets. so we get more and more high priced players, increase ticket prices and fuel the vicious cycle. some owners operate in cities where the fans understand you go from periods of success to periods where you let the new generation of players learn their craft.

Or. You look to New Jersey/Vancouver/Ottawa and see what they're doing differently from you and follow that model.....

[gi]

Originally Posted by SoxWin

I'm sure he does, of that I have no question. I do however question the sanity of the men who have paid him to run the league into the ground over the last 10 years however. Which NHL was better and a more exciting product? I'll take the pre Bettman days over the current clutch and grab, bore me to death brand of hockey. I just don't see that he cares about anything other then money, and the game has suffered mightily as a result.

Without question, ownership and by extension the commish, has ignored the game's entertainment value. Isn't the players partly to blame for this too?

[SirFozzie]

They do what ownership/people hired by ownership tell them, or they don't get paid.

So.. they're just following orders

[gi]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

They do what ownership/people hired by ownership tell them, or they don't get paid.

So.. they're just following orders

On the surface yes. But just like they are pushing for salary changes now, they can also push for game changes. They have power.

[Gary Gorski]

What is so hard for the people involved in this to understand? You have a mid-major sports league that can't even get a national TV contract, has expanded too quickly into markets that could care less about hockey not to mention the existing markets that don't care about hockey and is well on its way to bankruptcy thanks to spending money on players as if they were a major sports league. The league has a small but extremely rabid and loyal fan base that they have managed to piss off by trying to make changes to the sport to appease people who have never seen a sheet of ice let alone a hockey game - those same people that half of which don't even realize the NHL isn't playing and the other half quickly found a new interest and don't miss the NHL one bit.

Can the NHLPA not see that they are screwed here no matter what they do? The owners are not giving in on this and some owners are losing less money by not playing then they would by playing. With each passing day the already small interest in the NHL dwindles further and its not like the baseball strike where they pissed off fans who loved the sport and were willing to come back in time - the people the NHL is driving away are people who could take or leave hockey and those people won't be coming back because they will be onto a new sport or interest or hobby by the time this gets settled.

The owners are to blame for paying these salaries when they knew they couldn't afford it but that really doesn't matter. The owners want a cap to fix their mistakes and they will get it or there will not be a NHL anymore. The NHLPA better hurry up and realize its better to play with a cap and a lower salary than to not play and make ZERO dollars. If people here in Detroit aren't missing hockey that badly then people in L.A. and Phoenix probably don't even realize the NHL isn't playing.

BTW NHL while you're attempting to get your league off of life support why don't you do something to help out the people who really, truly care about you - CANADA. Its bad enough US cities have to compete in spending with New York, Detroit etc but how are the Canadian teams supposed to?

[gi]

Originally Posted by Gary Gorski

If people here in Detroit aren't missing hockey that badly then people in L.A. and Phoenix probably don't even realize the NHL isn't playing.

Isn't funny that we are 'Hockeytown' yet unless you listen to sports talk radio, the 'Wings are not missed that much. Local area businesses aside of course.

[Wolfpack]

I do wonder if the Pistons' winning the NBA title last year has taken a bite out of the loss of the Red Wings. Time was, the Pistons weren't that great and the only thing to get the natives through the long winter was the Red Wings. Now, however, the Pistons are the defending champs and the Wings have had a succession of poor playoff appearances.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

I do wonder if the Pistons' winning the NBA title last year has taken a bite out of the loss of the Red Wings. Time was, the Pistons weren't that great and the only thing to get the natives through the long winter was the Red Wings. Now, however, the Pistons are the defending champs and the Wings have had a succession of poor playoff appearances.

The nature of these things is always cyclical. I remember back in the mid-to-late 80's when I first really started getting into hockey, there were very few Red Wings fans about. In junior high I was the only kid in my school who had a Wings jersey (a Petr Klima jersey, of course! ). This was right before and then around the hole "Bad Boys" era of the Pistons. They were the "It" team of Detroit. Then things went south for the Pistons and the Wings started to rise. Once they won in 1997 it all broke loose. It will take a while for the Wings to drop as low as they were. I mean they really, really, really sucked for a long, long, long time. The Dead Things era was a long one.

[SoxWin]

Originally Posted by gi

On the surface yes. But just like they are pushing for salary changes now, they can also push for game changes. They have power.

Funny you should mention that. Brendan Shannahan just had a "summit" in Toronto recently to do this very thing. He had players, refs, GM's, and coaches involved and they talked for a couple of days about ways to improve the game. After it finished he was to have meetings with both Bettman and Goodenow and to deliver a list of changes the commitee thought would improve the entertainment value. He paid for everything out of his own pocket.

One of the major points they came up with was to establish a permanent commitee to oversee the entertainment in the game comprised of people from all groups (executives, players, refs)

[Karim]

12 Contracts That Sunk Hockey

[Bubba Wheels]

Originally Posted by SoxWin

Funny you should mention that. Brendan Shannahan just had a "summit" in Toronto recently to do this very thing. He had players, refs, GM's, and coaches involved and they talked for a couple of days about ways to improve the game. After it finished he was to have meetings with both Bettman and Goodenow and to deliver a list of changes the commitee thought would improve the entertainment value. He paid for everything out of his own pocket.

One of the major points they came up with was to establish a permanent commitee to oversee the entertainment in the game comprised of people from all groups (executives, players, refs)

Right. One of Shannahan's suggestions for the game was to 'streamline' the goalie equipment. Right now its just totally out of control, goalies wear everything including the living room sofa. But guess what? This SAME rule change was suggested by the owners and rejected by the Player's Union during the last contract talks. So who's the ones playing games now?

[Bubba Wheels]

Originally Posted by gi

Isn't funny that we are 'Hockeytown' yet unless you listen to sports talk radio, the 'Wings are not missed that much. Local area businesses aside of course.

Part of that problem is the season itself is so meaningless. Folks around Detroit won't really miss hockey until the playoff part of the season starts.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Karim

12 Contracts That Sunk Hockey

I would still argue that part of the solution is not to have so many teams in small-market cities. If that is not a solution, than a hard cap would be the alternative. I believe that even after signing Sakic to a huge contract, Colorado was still profitable. The only way to realistically to not pay those types of contracts (which teams like Colorado and Rangers can afford) is to have a cap because collusion (keeping contracts artificially low) is not a solution. The ball is in the union's court, not the owner's.

[Karim]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

I would still argue that part of the solution is not to have so many teams in small-market cities. If that is not a solution, than a hard cap would be the alternative.

How is small-market defined? Calgary is a hockey-mad city of around 1 million. It's in the oil patch and has great corporate support. Combined ownership has a net worth around $2 billion US. They stick to a budget of ~$35 million US and refuse to subsidize the team beyond that even though they could. They're not looking to make money with the investment but obviously would like to break even. The currency difference obviously doesn't help.

Yet, Atlanta is three times the size, has a better local TV deal but arguably the number of fans is lower, especially hardcore fans. Is it small-market? The same could be said of many US markets. I've heard it stated that the Rangers really only have around 20,000 core fans but no one would suggest they are small-market.

[oykib]

What everyone fails to see about a cap is that they don't work with guarunteed contracts. You're guarunteeing a bunch of albatross contracts if you don't get rid of those contracts too.

Everyone talks about the NFL system. That's not going to happen in any other sport. No other sport is able to get multi-billion dollar National TV contracts.

Does anyone really think that the NBA has a good system. The NBA has the least competetive balance and the longest success cycle of any of the major sports. That's where Bettman-- the former NBA #2 man-- wants the NHL to go. That's not a great model.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by oykib

What everyone fails to see about a cap is that they don't work with guarunteed contracts. You're guarunteeing a bunch of albatross contracts if you don't get rid of those contracts too.

Excellent point. And given that Bettman continues to claim that dropping guaranteed contracts is not an owner demand, you have to wonder if he's really as serious about this salary cap as he says he is.

[Capital]

With the MLB contract due up in 2 more seasons, don't you know they are watching this situation very intently. They have extremely similar problems/issues.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by Capital

With the MLB contract due up in 2 more seasons, don't you know they are watching this situation very intently. They have extremely similar problems/issues.

Isn't the NBA up within a year or two as well?

[gi]

Based on this:

hxxp://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=1952374

I feel the NHL owners might have more resolve to get a salary cap.

[AZSpeechCoach]

Where is this parity in the NFL you speak of? Are the Cardinals not part of this parity?

[Bubba Wheels]

Originally Posted by AZSpeechCoach

Where is this parity in the NFL you speak of? Are the Cardinals not part of this parity?

Bill Ford, owner of the Lions, drops to his knees nightly and thanks the football gods (small g!) that the Arizona Cardinals exist to keep him from being the absolute worst football team owner of all time. Honorable mention to both the Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears.

[clintl]

Originally Posted by Bubba Wheels

Bill Ford, owner of the Lions, drops to his knees nightly and thanks the football gods (small g!) that the Arizona Cardinals exist to keep him from being the absolute worst football team owner of all time. Honorable mention to both the Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears.

I'd trade John York for him.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by AZSpeechCoach

Where is this parity in the NFL you speak of? Are the Cardinals not part of this parity?

What! How can you ask this? How many wins did the Cardinals have this year? Nearly all of them are due to the parity of suck. I mean Suck has been pretty well equalized throughout the NFL this season. Last week Miami even beat New England. Every week there is lots of sucking going on, by no means has AZ cornered the market on Suck.