2012 CBA Negotiations Thread

[Britishbulldog]

I will assume what was meant was "rabid."

;D

Yes. Stupid spell check. Rabid. Rabid, as in foaming at the mouth, wild eyes. Time to put down. Rabid.

Oh.  That makes more sense. 

Sounds like most of my university friends in the 80's....

 

[caver]

A popular quote from Bettman is that the league is losing $20 million dollars a day so the owners group can't possibly make a better offer. But looking at it from a layman's perspective if the players as a collective currently get 57% of revenue aren't they losing more per day than the ownership group? If it is true that flushes Bettman's complaint down the toilet.

 

[Corn Flake]

You know what I find funny - after years of not listening to prime time sports because I found it just so irritating, I'm now finding it very listenable - I'm actually enjoying it again. I guess because there's no hockey so there isn't any constant leafs bashing...

Yes. Same here.  You think it's just no Leafs bashing going on, or has Bob dialed back the miserable factor a few hundred points?  I think Stephen Brunt balances him out really well too... have grown to really enjoy listening to those two.  Cox? Mmmmmm not so much but he's nowhere near as bad as he was the last time around. 

I'd listen to Bob 100x over James Cybulski and his band of swollen headed jerks.

 

[bustaheims]

A popular quote from Bettman is that the league is losing $20 million dollars a day so the owners group can't possibly make a better offer. But looking at it from a layman's perspective if the players as a collective currently get 57% of revenue aren't they losing more per day than the ownership group? If it is true that flushes Bettman's complaint down the toilet.

The $20M figure refers to total revenue, not the owners' share. Also, the players no longer receive 57% of revenue. When the previous CBA expired, so did their entitlement to that percentage.

 

[princedpw]

If these sums of money are irrelevant to the players then why didn't they just agree to the owners economic demands right away?

(If they give in on money, they could clearly get the contract flexibility they want -- it's not primarily about that.)

Well, just right away that's entirely baseless conjecture on your part. There's nothing to indicate that owners are any more flexible on the backdiving deals than they are on the economic issues.

You are exaggerating.  It's based on common sense and economics.  Various degrees of contract freedom have a price.  But, sure, it is a conjecture -- my original post started with "suppose."

Edit:  Perhaps you care that I used the word "clearly".  I just don't type that carefully when posting on a message board.  Feel free to replace it with "probably, mostly" if that makes you happy.

As to your question though, it's not a mystery. Just about every player has said why. They're making that sacrifice for guys who come after them. Just in getting the owners from their initial demand of 43% to the 50-50 split that people think would get a deal done would represent a roughly 10% bump for every player who comes into the league afterwards. So Crosby sacrifices 3.75 million on the 150 million he'll make but that could be worth 15-20 million for the next Sidney Crosby. Armstrong sacrifices 500K and the next guy makes 1.5-2 million more. Likewise, with the make whole money, they genuinely seem to think there's a principle at stake. 

It's a sad commentary when so many people are so befuddled as to why some people don't look at making money as the end all be all of their existence.

That last line really over-generalizes and exaggerates given we are talking about a contract negotiation. 

By the way, my original post began by supposing the players gave in to 50-50 across the board more rapidly to save more of the season.  (Yes, I conjectured that it would work -- roughly speaking.)  The biggest difference between that and what we have now economically is the make-whole provision going to current players.

 

[Kin]

You are exaggerating.  It's based on common sense and economics.  Various degrees of contract freedom have a price.  But, sure, it is a conjecture -- my original post started with "suppose."

Edit:  Perhaps you care that I used the word "clearly".  I just don't type that carefully when posting on a message board.  Feel free to replace it with "probably, mostly" if that makes you happy.

It's still baseless. Every single report out of the negotiations has said that's a point the owners are as intractable on as can be. It could be the case but there's nothing to indicate that it is.

That last line really over-generalizes and exaggerates given we are talking about a contract negotiation.

I clearly disagree. Leaving aside that this is a collective bargaining process that, as a rule, will involve a degree of putting the collective interest above one's self interest there are lots of contract negotiations that aren't entirely motivated by stuffing one's pockets as much as possible.

By the way, my original post began by supposing the players gave in to 50-50 across the board more rapidly to save more of the season.  (Yes, I conjectured that it would work -- roughly speaking.)

Well, your original post also referred to someone saying that the players had gained relative to what the owners initially wanted to take away so, again, you should be using the 43% figure that represented the owner's original offer compared to where they are now.

 

[Redleaf]

My biggest hope, besides actually getting hockey back this season, is to have a new CBA that majorly penalizes the teams that have given these back diving contracts, and helps out the ones, like the Leafs, that didn't. 

Does anyone have an idea of what could be the best possible scenario for the Leafs coming out of these contract negotiations, as far as how this sort of thing gets sorted out?

 

[Kin]

I don't think either side has proposed anything that would penalize the deals already signed, have they? Doesn't strike me as something that's likely to come out of it.

 

[maplesyrup]

I really tried to avoid looking at this thread of late because frankly, I just hate it. - Anyhoo, I just want to say that when these knobs eventually come to a deal, I hope it's something for substantially longer than 5 years. I'm really not digging this '5 on, 1 off' thing they seem to enjoy.     

 

[Bates]

Nik the league had in their offer that the team who signs a long term deal will be responsible for the cap hit for the entirety of the deal if the player retires before deal ends even if the player has been traded.

 

[Kin]

Nik the league had in their offer that the team who signs a long term deal will be responsible for the cap hit for the entirety of the deal if the player retires before deal ends even if the player has been traded.

Was that their most recent offer? Huh. Well, there you go. I guess that would be the best case scenario for RedLeaf and the rest of the folk who are glad Burke could golf in April, principles firmly intact.

 

[Kin]

Has anyone (Forbes?) done a report on the combined profitability of the league's teams? 

As long as we're talking about revenue sharing, shouldn't we really know how much needs to be spread around?

I just added up all of the numbers that Forbes had for the various teams operating incomes and the total came to being +114.3 million dollars. That said the top five teams(Toronto, NYR, Montreal, Vancouver and, surprisingly, Edmonton) added up to +211.7

edit: but I realize that may not be super helpful. If you just add up the combined operating losses from the teams in the red what you get is -127.1

Forbes just came out with a new set of numbers. Now they have the leaguewide operating income at 250.3 million with 16 of the 30 teams as being profitable and 12 of the 30 profitable to the tune of 8 figures.

 

[bustaheims]

Forbes just came out with a new set of numbers. Now they have the leaguewide operating income at 250.3 million with 16 of the 30 teams as being profitable and 12 of the 30 profitable to the tune of 8 figures.

Though, I think this new article shows how Forbes' numbers aren't all that reliable. They state the NHL's 11/12 revenue at $3.4B, whereas both the league and PA seem to agree that it was $3.3B. It may be a minor difference of the surface, but, if all their numbers are off by a similar percentage, that could represent a significant difference between their numbers and reality.

They're still the best numbers we have available, but, they're definitely to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[Kin]

Though, I think this new article shows how Forbes' numbers aren't all that reliable. They state the NHL's 11/12 revenue at $3.4B, whereas both the league and PA seem to agree that it was $3.3B. It may be a minor difference of the surface, but, if all their numbers are off by a similar percentage, that could represent a significant difference between their numbers and reality.

They're still the best numbers we have available, but, they're definitely to be taken with a grain of salt.

While I agree that the numbers are and remain an estimate I think you may be overstating the difference slightly. I just did a quick round-up and Forbes' numbers have the 30 teams' revenue totaling 3.374 billion. I never thought of that 3.3 billion figure as being exact so the difference could be nothing or attributable to the difference between "revenue" and HRR. Even if 3.3 billion is exact a difference of 74 million would be...what, 2.3 percent or thereabouts?

 

[bustaheims]

While I agree that the numbers are and remain an estimate I think you may be overstating the difference slightly. I just did a quick round-up and Forbes' numbers have the 30 teams' revenue totaling 3.374 billion. I never thought of that 3.3 billion figure as being exact so the difference could be nothing or attributable to the difference between "revenue" and HRR. Even if 3.3 billion is exact a difference of 74 million would be...what, 2.3 percent or thereabouts?

The "official" number the league and PA have been using is $3.303B, so, yeah, we're looking at a $71M difference (a touch over 2%), but, a 2% difference on all their numbers? That could be significant, depending on which way those differences go. I mean, if expenses are 2% higher with revenues being 2% lower . . . well, that would away more than half of the profit margin that Forbes has estimated.

The most we can really glean from these numbers is that a significant number of NHL teams are operating at a loss - somewhere in the vicinity of half - and that outside of the teams at the very top of the tree, profit margins are pretty thin for the teams that are turning a profit - by Forbes' estimates, only 7 teams have a profit margin of greater than 10%.

 

[bustaheims]

Another little note about the Forbes estimates is that they don't include interest payments and non-cash expenses.

 

[Kin]

The "official" number the league and PA have been using is $3.303B, so, yeah, we're looking at a $71M difference (a touch over 2%), but, a 2% difference on all their numbers? That could be significant, depending on which way those differences go. I mean, if expenses are 2% higher with revenues being 2% lower . . . well, that would away more than half of the profit margin that Forbes has estimated.

Except, again, that the number you're talking about is the number for HRR which we know excludes some minor amounts. 71 million or so strikes me as a fairly reasonable number there.

The most we can really glean from these numbers is that a significant number of NHL teams are operating at a loss - somewhere in the vicinity of half - and that outside of the teams at the very top of the tree, profit margins are pretty thin for the teams that are turning a profit - by Forbes' estimates, only 7 teams have a profit margin of greater than 10%.

Well, no, because as I argued earlier these are snapshots. So all this tells us, if the numbers are accurate, is that 14 of 30 teams operated at a loss last year. Likewise it tells us that the risk involved is relatively minimal outside of a few terrible situations. As a whole, as an industry, it does not paint the picture of catastrophic circumstances.

 

[rdowdall]

The "official" number the league and PA have been using is $3.303B, so, yeah, we're looking at a $71M difference (a touch over 2%), but, a 2% difference on all their numbers? That could be significant, depending on which way those differences go. I mean, if expenses are 2% higher with revenues being 2% lower . . . well, that would away more than half of the profit margin that Forbes has estimated.

Except, again, that the number you're talking about is the number for HRR which we know excludes some minor amounts. 71 million or so strikes me as a fairly reasonable number there.

The most we can really glean from these numbers is that a significant number of NHL teams are operating at a loss - somewhere in the vicinity of half - and that outside of the teams at the very top of the tree, profit margins are pretty thin for the teams that are turning a profit - by Forbes' estimates, only 7 teams have a profit margin of greater than 10%.

Well, no, because as I argued earlier these are snapshots. So all this tells us, if the numbers are accurate, is that 14 of 30 teams operated at a loss last year. Likewise it tells us that the risk involved is relatively minimal outside of a few terrible situations. As a whole, as an industry, it does not paint the picture of catastrophic circumstances.

At least not as catastrophic as locking out a major portion of your workforce for a year.

 

[Kin]

At least not as catastrophic as locking out a major portion of your workforce for a year.

At the very least it paints a significantly rosier picture of last year than it did the year before so if the league had continued to play and continued to experience significant growth one would assume things would look even better next year.

 

[rdowdall]

At least not as catastrophic as locking out a major portion of your workforce for a year.

At the very least it paints a significantly rosier picture of last year than it did the year before so if the league had continued to play and continued to experience significant growth one would assume things would look even better next year.

Which makes the league's position in this lockout a little more exasperating.