Lockout/CBA Discussion Thread

[phenom1990]

Re: Potential Issues with the CBA

Football has a better structure. No guaranteed contracts, franchise tags and salary cap. The other three major sports only have one or none of those. Also the NFL is making money hand over fist. When you have your lowest franchises worth a billion...you dont have a reason to lose games.

Football is also different from the other 3 sports, in that a team's local media contract is not significant because its only for radio and preseason games. The National TV contract dominates the majority of money that the team's receive.

[WesternStateWR]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

I completely agree.. The NHL is going to hurt its self WAY more then the first time if this season gets cancelled.

Bettman is a horrible President for the NHL in my opinion. his response the other day didnt look very promising for their to be hockey this season when he said " Well if we lockout for a season again, we will bounce again just like we did last time, because we have the greatest fans in the world"

First of all smart guy... Lets not kid yourself it took 4-5 years for hockey to truly bounce back from that lost season. The NHL is an awesome sport, but other then the die hards the casual fan doesnt care if hockey is around, and once the season is cancelled they find something else to get involved with NFL, NBA, College Sports...

I truly feel that if they have another lost season the NHL will be in a deeper hole then it was the first team and possibly lose some casual fans for LONGER then the 4-5 year period before.

I am a big Avs fan and before the Lockout i have no idea how many consectitive sellouts they had, but after the Lockout i remember going to games and over 5-6,000 seats are empty. Granted some of that is due to the lack of success lately but still? to go from selling out to 5-6,000 empty seats and increased ticket prices is not going to get people coming back.

I pray hockey plays this year but im not optimistic at all

[AC]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

If there isn't a season, there's gonna be a real lottery draft, a la 2005. It's a great draft, too. The teams with the best chances are Toronto, Colorado, and Dallas, in that order.

I'm pretty sure that contracts will run out, as well. So, guys like Corey Perry will be free agents (excellent ). Maybe Tim Connolly will finally be gone!

[Money99]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

First of all smart guy... Lets not kid yourself it took 4-5 years for hockey to truly bounce back from that lost season.

When the '05 lockout ended and the NHL said "Sorry", this is how the fans responded:



The NHL bounced back in full force without missing a beat.
It's profits grew 1.1 BILLION in a matter of 6 years.

And you know what? The same thing will happen this time.
The NHL fanbase is small, but it's incredibly loyal and rabid.
Lockouts hurt the casual fanbase, but that portion is almost non-existent to begin with.

Every single NHL fan will be back in droves. It won't matter if this lockout takes a decade; we'll all be back.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is why the NHL and the NHLPA don't give two craps about you or me and will gladly engage in one lockout after another without thinking twice about it.

[DJ]

Re: Potential Issues with the CBA

Football has a better structure. No guaranteed contracts, franchise tags and salary cap. The other three major sports only have one or none of those. Also the NFL is making money hand over fist. When you have your lowest franchises worth a billion...you dont have a reason to lose games.

Thank you for finishing my thought. I didn't have time to type the rest up myself, lol.

Like phenom said, the TV contract for football is 1,000x better than any other sport. Each football team doesn't have to negotiate with cable stations to carry their games. Everyone gets a share from the pot that is collected with all the national TV deals the league has. Teams typically do have some deals with local channels and have a Coach X show or something like that, but that's just whipped cream on top of the sundae.

[Money99]

Re: Potential Issues with the CBA

Football has a better structure. No guaranteed contracts, franchise tags and salary cap. The other three major sports only have one or none of those. Also the NFL is making money hand over fist. When you have your lowest franchises worth a billion...you dont have a reason to lose games.

True. But I wonder how well football would be doing if it had the same TV ratings as the NHL?

With such a massive TV deal, everyone can go home rich regardless of how many people buy tickets or how many losses you get. Just look at the Lions. 0-16 and still made money.

Hockey will never get more fans than the ones it has now. It's a very small, but extremely loyal group.
The problem is, that fanbase will never ever grow as long as lockouts keeping happening every 5-7 years.

[slickdtc]

I wish they wouldn't try to cater to the casual fans that don't exist.

[SPTO]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

The NHL bounced back in full force without missing a beat.
It's profits grew 1.1 BILLION in a matter of 6 years.

And you know what? The same thing will happen this time.
The NHL fanbase is small, but it's incredibly loyal and rabid.
Lockouts hurt the casual fanbase, but that portion is almost non-existent to begin with.

This is true though IIRC the first year after the lockout the US numbers were a little weak. A lot of the money generated came from, you guessed it; the Canadian fanbase. It was the combination of the Canadian fanbase coming back like gangbusters and the Canadian dollar gaining strength and then finally breaking parity a couple years ago that has artificially made the NHL look healthier than it is.

The US fanbase did eventually come back though but it took about a year or so for them to really come back in droves. I can see the same kind of situation this time around though at least two of the markets that took some time to come back are actually a lot better now. Carolina and Tampa Bay have a small but VERY dedicated fanbase. I've heard reporters and such describe it this way:

The rest of the city has no clue/are ignorant about the hockey team unless they're in the playoffs/Finals so you get this odd sensation of dullness everywhere else but once you get 2 or 3 blocks within the arena the atmosphere changes completely and you've got rabid fans all over the place. It's a pretty weird phenomenon. Actually we all probably saw some of that with LA winning the cup last season.

[DrJones]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

If there isn't a season, there's gonna be a real lottery draft, a la 2005. It's a great draft, too. The teams with the best chances are Toronto, Colorado, and Dallas, in that order.

If they follow the same rules as 2005, Toronto will have no better odds than any other team that missed the playoffs in each of the 10/11/12 seasons (Columbus, NY Islanders, Carolina, Calgary, Winnipeg, Minnesota, Dallas). The Leafs don't get extra credit for their extra suck.

[DrJones]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

The NHL bounced back in full force without missing a beat.
It's profits grew 1.1 BILLION in a matter of 6 years.

Over 1/3 of that increase (400M) is from last season alone. Mostly due to Year 1 of the NBC contract, in addition to swapping Atlanta for Winnipeg and the Rangers lengthy playoff run, I'm guessing.

[AC]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

If they follow the same rules as 2005, Toronto will have no better odds than any other team that missed the playoffs in each of the 10/11/12 seasons (Columbus, NY Islanders, Carolina, Calgary, Winnipeg, Minnesota, Dallas). The Leafs don't get extra credit for their extra suck.

Ooh, cheap shot.

It's not only playoffs, it's teams that've had the #1 pick. The teams with three lottery balls:

Calgary, Carolina, Columbus, Dallas, Minnesota, Toronto, Winnipeg.

[DrJones]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

The US fanbase did eventually come back though but it took about a year or so for them to really come back in droves. I can see the same kind of situation this time around though at least two of the markets that took some time to come back are actually a lot better now. Carolina and Tampa Bay have a small but VERY dedicated fanbase.

This is deceptive, though, because Carolina's and Tampa's ticket prices are dirt cheap compared to the rest of the league (23rd and 27th respectively), almost $20 per ticket under the NHL average. No disrespect to Canes or Bolts fans, but even if they sell out every game, they're still losing money.

[SPTO]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

This is deceptive, though, because Carolina's and Tampa's ticket prices are dirt cheap compared to the rest of the league (23rd and 27th respectively), almost $20 per ticket under the NHL average. No disrespect to Canes or Bolts fans, but even if they sell out every game, they're still losing money.

Yeah that's true but at least there is a small contingent of fans that are knowledgeable about the game to some extent which was the point I was trying to make. It's those fans that at least keep them from being Phoenix.

[DrJones]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

Ooh, cheap shot.

It's not only playoffs, it's teams that've had the #1 pick. The teams with three lottery balls:

Calgary, Carolina, Columbus, Dallas, Minnesota, Toronto, Winnipeg.

Plus the Islanders. Tavares was 2009.

[AC]

Re: NHL Officially Locks Out

Plus the Islanders. Tavares was 2009.

Ah, yes, them as well. Got my years mixed up.