How to Fix the CBA Negotiation

[Matthewkyleyoung]

Taken from Nosebleeddebates.blogspot.com

Gary Bettman needs to go. That's it, plain and simple. Just go.

We've all heard both sides of the ongoing NHL negotiations. We know the owners are going bankrupt. We know the players took a huge pay reduction on the last CBA and can't possibly go on living their destitute lifestyle. We know this system obviously isn't working when Sidney Crosby is cutting in line in front of Mike Ilitch at the local soup kitchen. So let's just do the simplest, smartest, and honestly, the thing that would make us feel the greatest.

Fire Gary Bettman.

Now, to the best of our knowledge here at NoseBleedDebates, only about 80% of the NHL owners read our blog religiously, but I'm hoping that will be enough. They already know they want to, they just need a concrete plan for what to do after. That's obviously where we come in.

How will we fix the system you ask? How will we revive the NHL? How will we keep the players, the fans, and the owners happy? Simple. Here's how.

1. Lose the hard cap. It's ridiculous. They've made a minimum that a bunch of teams can't afford, and have made a limit that a bunch of teams would love to go over. The players don't lose any money with this adjustment, because the spending will balance itself out, and the poor owners can become profitable. Simple.

2. Implement a luxury tax similar to Major League Baseball. You can spend whatever you want, it's totally up to you, but once you're over a specific point, let's say 55 million, you then match the amount you're over the cap, and put it into a revenue-sharing pool. At the end of the year, you divide that money, equally, to the bottom ten teams in terms of revenue. It gives the owners in weaker markets an opportunity to compete in the long term. The catch is, you are only given your share of the money if you raise your team salary for the next season. Less simple, but still, fairly simple.

3. Free agency rules have to be adjusted in order to help the small market teams retain their players. For this we are going to borrow a bit from the NFL. First off, a player is restricted to the team that has drafted him for 7 years after the year he was drafted, not the year he finally makes it to the NHL. This promotes the younger players to the big clubs, and avoids hiding potentially great players in the minor leagues for a couple years. Second, we're going to introduce the franchise player tag(thank you NFL). After the 7th year, the club will have one year to tender an offer to any player, at a league average of the top 5 players at that position. After that contract is complete, they will be an absolute free agent, able to sign wherever they may like. Each team will be given one franchise tag, every TWO years. Again, not incredible basic, but pretty simple.

That's it!

Yes, I realize there are other things like retirement savings, health insurance, etc. But those can all be negotiated on, once you have a simple system like this in place.

The owners win for a couple of reasons. Television ratings will undoubtedly increase with the top teams in the largest cities being able to bring in the top stars, and theoretically become part of the elite group. The NHL, as much as people don't want to admit it, is the fourth most popular sport in North America. Americans are the key to growing the sport, and Americans would like to watch teams they know battling in prime time throughout the playoffs. People want New York and LA, Chicago and Boston, Philadelphia and Dallas. They want the largest markets, with the biggest stars, battling for Lord Stanley's Cup.

All of this will increase profits across the board for every team, which is what everything in professional sports boils down to.

This new system also will allow owners to spend according to their market. No longer will a last place team in Columbus be forced to pay 54.3 million dollars for a team that could be spending 20 million for the same amount of wins, revenue, and fan support. Forcing a rebuilding team to spend money that they don't have, on veterans that they don't want is completely ridiculous and backwards. The new system corrects this by using something Gary Bettman had lost many, many years ago. Common Sense.



The fans also win in this scenario. Everybody has a favorite team and everyone obviously loves to see their team win. Although this structure makes winning harder for some smaller market teams, with a good front office, a plan, and a couple lucky draft choices, every single team in the NHL has a chance. Whether it's building with a young core after struggling for a few years like the Oklahoma City Thunder, or buying a powerhouse like the New York Yankees, each team has a story. Everybody loves the underdog and seeing the years of hard work pay off. On the other end of the spectrum, when you have an evil empire like the Yankees, you either love them or hate them, but no matter what, you know who they are and you follow them.

That is the key for specifically the American hockey base. Having someone to cheer for, but also to root against. It's the ultimate David vs. Goliath, and it drives ratings like a Tiger Woods Major win. Ratings go up, coverage goes up. Those fringe fans become die-hards, and the die-hards become old-school, looking down upon the new bandwagon jumping fans, thus creating yet another rivalry. Sports are all about rivalries, whether its in the stands or on the field (or ice). Rivalries make everything more interesting and entertaining, and that is how the fans win.


Let's not forget the players. This system works wonders for them as well.

They have to spend seven years with the club that drafted them, in whatever market that might be. That puts them on average at age 25, immediately entering their prime. In their eighth year, they will either be signed for the average salary of the top 5 salaries at their position (not a bad payday), or they will be free and clear to sign with whichever team they may want to sign with. Anywhere on the open market. What more could you possibly want as a professional athlete? Other than drinking from the Cup.

Like so many things in life, years of little adjustments has turned something that could be so simple and beneficial for both sides, into something that makes no sense, and once again threatens the stoppage of professional hockey in North America. It's time to correct the wrongs of the current regime. It's time for a new era. A simple era.

After all of this though, and even if I won't be elected the new NHL commissioner for the upcoming year, I'd like to think if we can all walk away with one thing from this article, I hope it is this.

Fire Gary Bettman.

[thedudedominick]

I am completely against removing the hard cap. With the cap restrictions right now the league has the most parity in any professional sport. Without the hard cap it would turn into the NBA, max contracts going to guys to build 4-6 superteams leaving the rest to just compete for playoff spots and not championships.

NBA- 9 Teams with a championship the past 32 years.
NHL- 9 different champions the last 10 years. (Only time it wasn't a new champion was the lockout year.) (Only 7 different NHL Champions the 50 years in the NHL before that)

[Matthewkyleyoung]

I'm not saying the cap doesn't provide parity, but besides the NFL which can print money, parity does not equal higher ratings.

Having different levels of teams, like the NBA, Premier League, and Baseball promotes ratings. When the larger markets succeed, the entire league wins with increases in revenue and popularity for everyone.

It's not an ideal system, but from the owners and players standpoints, it is the best possible way to increase the sports popularity, especially south of the border.

[thedudedominick]

Quote: Originally Posted by Matthewkyleyoung

I'm not saying the cap doesn't provide parity, but besides the NFL which can print money, parity does not equal higher ratings. Having different levels of teams, like the NBA, Premier League, and Baseball promotes ratings. When the larger markets succeed, the entire league wins with increases in revenue and popularity for everyone. It's not an ideal system, but from the owners and players standpoints, it is the best possible way to increase the sports popularity, especially south of the border.

I think not having parity kills the game in non-hockey markets. When the non-traditional markets can't compete with the big boys those teams would just fold. We would be left with less popularity in the US outside of the traditional markets. I know some people here don't care if there are teams in non-traditional markets and would prefer the traditional teams to always win, but that would kill the growing popularity in the non-traditional markets in the US.

[phenom1990]

The NBA has 2 different distinctions from the NHL:

1. The "hot goalie" does not exist anywhere near the extent in the NBA that it does in the NHL.

2. There is much less separation between the 1 seed and the 8 seed in the NHL.

In the NHL this past season, I believe the separation was around 10 wins which is about 12%.

In the last NBA full season, it was around 18 to 22 % depending on conference.

[TheMatrix31]

We've already got a CBA discussion thread.