2012 CBA Negotiations Thread

[Redleaf]

Here's an interesting idea, re-tweeted by Mirtle.....

http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/2012/10/19/how-a-make-whole-salary-cap-would-provide-a-win-win-lockout-solution/

 

[Nik]

Here's an interesting idea, re-tweeted by Mirtle.....

http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/2012/10/19/how-a-make-whole-salary-cap-would-provide-a-win-win-lockout-solution/

So...a soft cap? I mean, that's a great idea and everything but it's not exactly re-inventing the wheel. The league has heard a lot of proposals for a soft cap in the past.

 

[Redleaf]

Here's an interesting idea, re-tweeted by Mirtle.....

http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/2012/10/19/how-a-make-whole-salary-cap-would-provide-a-win-win-lockout-solution/
[/quote

So...a soft cap? I mean, that's a great idea and everything but it's not exactly re-inventing the wheel. The league has heard a lot of proposals for a soft cap in the past.

No. It's a "Make Whole" cap. 

 

[Nik]

Personally, I think this is a problem in a nut shell. These are the top and bottom teams last year in terms of revenue, according to Forbes:

Toronto - 193 million
Phoenix - 70 million

These are those two teams in terms of their cap hits:

Toronto - 61 million
Phoenix - 49 million

So this is what percentage of those teams revenues are going to players

Toronto - 31.6%
Phoenix - 70.2%

This is the system that the NHL, essentially, wants to leave intact. Well, you know, except for the slashing of both team's expenses. But even then, under the NHL's proposal calling for a cap around 60 million and a floor at 44 you're talking about Phoenix, if they're at the minimum, getting their player expenses cut to 63% of their revenues with the Leafs, if they're at the maximum, having theirs cut to 31%

At some point, when they stop kidding themselves, the NHL is going to have to do what every other pro sports league in the world does. Either they're going to have to take major steps to equalize the revenue side, or allow the poorer teams to set budgets that accurately reflect their financial situation.

People have talked a lot about the NBA and NFL deals but both of those deals were made with the knowledge that you cannot have it both ways.

 

[Corn Flake]

I don't. These sort of exchanges while "normal" really should have been made weeks (or even months) ago.

That's like saying that any peace process is easy provided everyone agrees to meet in the middle.

It's really not. They really needed to just meet earlier (much earlier.)

or just agree to talk vs. throwing binders over a wall.

I would just like to clarify these should be binders full of women.  :-*

 

[bustaheims]

I would just like to clarify these should be binders full of women.  :-*

There's an idea! The WNHL! Problem solved!

 

[Corn Flake]

I would just like to clarify these should be binders full of women.  :-*

There's an idea! The WNHL! Problem solved!

Bill Clinton, commissioner.

 

[Nik]

It was expected but more cancelled games:

League cancels games until Nov. 1

 

[lamajama]

If we could get away with it, I would get both parties in a room, order them a large pizza, and see how they divvy that up first. Then I would lock the door and tell them they'll be let out when a deal is reached. I guarantee they'd have it figured out by sun up the next day.

I would actually lace the pizza with ex-lax. That will get things moving. 

 

[L K]

Well consider the insanity of the owners.  They are crying poor so much it makes you wonder how they got the money to buy the teams in the first place(or why they would want to buy money losing teams).

And those owners are fighting over money with players who throw out the victim card after several in their membership have signed career-long deals in excess of $100 million guaranteed dollars.

Seems more like we have Monopoly man vs. Richie Rich... hard to see why either side gets a sympathy card from the fans.

While there certainly are several players on massive deals, most of them still aren't.  Huge in comparison to "real jobs" but most of them aren't making Parise dollars.

 

[TML fan]

Well consider the insanity of the owners.  They are crying poor so much it makes you wonder how they got the money to buy the teams in the first place(or why they would want to buy money losing teams).

And those owners are fighting over money with players who throw out the victim card after several in their membership have signed career-long deals in excess of $100 million guaranteed dollars.

Seems more like we have Monopoly man vs. Richie Rich... hard to see why either side gets a sympathy card from the fans.

While there certainly are several players on massive deals, most of them still aren't.  Huge in comparison to "real jobs" but most of them aren't making Parise dollars.

Does a single one of them make less than 100k?

 

[armche123]

Well consider the insanity of the owners.  They are crying poor so much it makes you wonder how they got the money to buy the teams in the first place(or why they would want to buy money losing teams).

And those owners are fighting over money with players who throw out the victim card after several in their membership have signed career-long deals in excess of $100 million guaranteed dollars.

Seems more like we have Monopoly man vs. Richie Rich... hard to see why either side gets a sympathy card from the fans.

While there certainly are several players on massive deals, most of them still aren't.  Huge in comparison to "real jobs" but most of them aren't making Parise dollars.

+1

 

[bustaheims]

While there certainly are several players on massive deals, most of them still aren't.  Huge in comparison to "real jobs" but most of them aren't making Parise dollars.

Sure, but every full time NHLer is earning at least $550K a year, and average salary is close to $2.2M per.

 

[princedpw]

Has anyone seen an analysis that estimates what the median player stands to gain and lose if there is a lockout that cancels a season?

Here's how one might approach such a calculation.  According to this website:

http://www.quanthockey.com/Distributions/CareerLengthGP.php

The median NHL player has a career that last 4 NHL seasons.  That means that 50% of the players voting concerning contract negotiations should have a career that lasts 4 seasons or less.

I will assume that if there is no season this year, the median player will play 1 fewer season than he would otherwise.  It is difficult to know if this is *exactly true* or if the median player will play an expected 1.1 fewer seasons or .9 fewer seasons but it seems this is the best estimate I can make.  The lockout doesn't prevent current players from getting 1 year older or stop the development of young players in the minor leagues or junior.  If you think that's a bad estimate and you have a better one, please let me know what it is and why.

Now, let's try to estimate how much the median player will make in two situations:

(1) the players accept the owners 50/50 proposal right now and play a full season with an expected 5% boost per season of HRR.

(2) a season is cancelled and after a single cancelled season the players get 57%, 56%, 55% and the revenues are flat with last season in the first year and rise 5% in each following year.

Option (2) to me seems ludicrously optimistic but it serves the purpose of placing an upper bound on what they could possibly earn in the best case scenario of a cancelled season. 

ok, so suppose the median salary would be X based on a 50/50 split and that median salary varies as the player's share of HRR varies.  Here's what the players could expect to gain under the scenarios:

(My apologies for my embarrassingly poor continuous math skills ...)

(1):

X + X*1.05 + X*1.05^2 + X*1.05^3
= X (1 + 1.05 + 1.05^2 + 1.05^3)
~= 4.31X

(2):

X * 57/50 + X * 1.05 * 56/50 + X*1.05^2*55/50
= 1.14 + 1.176 + 1.213
= 3.52

So the bottom line is that the median player loses massively if there is a year-long lockout -- though let me know if I botched the math. 

The goal for the median player in this negotiation should be to acquire as much money as possible, not to acquire the greatest percentage of a diminishing share of the pot as seasons are cancelled.  In other words, players should realize that they are not playing a zero-sum game.  All parties lose when a season is cancelled but the median player loses most of all (aside from the fans): more than the owners and more than the stars who both have so many more years to reap the benefits of high salaries.  Don't let Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin dictate the negotiation.

 

[L K]

While there certainly are several players on massive deals, most of them still aren't.  Huge in comparison to "real jobs" but most of them aren't making Parise dollars.

Sure, but every full time NHLer is earning at least $550K a year, and average salary is close to $2.2M per.

Well absolutely, you aren't going to have to push me very hard to go on a "we should be paying people who do 'real work' kind of rant that money, not athletes" thing, but the bottom line is it doesn't really matter.

Perceptions are all relative.  For every time I hear people say "we should be paying doctors, nurses, teachers, and police that kind of money", you get the flip side where any time the financials of said professions are mentioned it results in their work being raked over the coals for making way too much money.

It doesn't seem to matter what profession it is, or how much the salary is, someone will complain about it.

 

[Brian Glennie]

^^^^ Dynamite post.

Since the last lockout, automatic payroll contributions from thousands of workers making extraordinary amounts of money have been collected in preparation for this year's lockout. I bet the strike pay the players are receiving from the NHLPA is really good.

Go Idaho Steelheads!

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

While there certainly are several players on massive deals, most of them still aren't.  Huge in comparison to "real jobs" but most of them aren't making Parise dollars.

Sure, but every full time NHLer is earning at least $550K a year, and average salary is close to $2.2M per.

Well absolutely, you aren't going to have to push me very hard to go on a "we should be paying people who do 'real work' kind of rant that money, not athletes" thing, but the bottom line is it doesn't really matter.

Perceptions are all relative.  For every time I hear people say "we should be paying doctors, nurses, teachers, and police that kind of money", you get the flip side where any time the financials of said professions are mentioned it results in their work being raked over the coals for making way too much money.

It doesn't seem to matter what profession it is, or how much the salary is, someone will complain about it.

Plus there's the whole fact that it's our appetite to pay money/support these teams that leads to them being able to make so much money.  Almost all of the top performers in any entertainment industry make significantly more than the average person.

 

[Nik]

I will assume that if there is no season this year, the median player will play 1 fewer season than he would otherwise.  It is difficult to know if this is *exactly true* or if the median player will play an expected 1.1 fewer seasons or .9 fewer seasons but it seems this is the best estimate I can make.  The lockout doesn't prevent current players from getting 1 year older or stop the development of young players in the minor leagues or junior.  If you think that's a bad estimate and you have a better one, please let me know what it is and why.

I don't know if it's that straight forward. It'd be interesting to look and see if there's a big dip in terms of median years of players who would have played around 2004-2005 but I don't think it necessarily follows. You're right, the lockout doesn't prevent players from getting a year older but the reality of the league is that most guys who have the shorter careers don't leave the league because their age leaves them physically diminished. Those are guys who are typically out of the league at 27 or 28 and the reason those players leave is because they establish themselves as unable to play in the league.

True, there is an extra year of development for younger players but there's also a year less of injuries. I don't know what the balance is or whether it's safe to assume any impact on a player's career from a lockout. I think the guys who are definitely and concretely hurt by the lockout are the Crosbys and the Ovechkins who are losing an amount of money that any deal short of a no cap, no fixed link deal wouldn't get them back.

Also, and I admit I may just be reading it wrong, but it looks like the site you linked to has 4 as the median amount of seasons where seasons are counted simply as any season in which a player made an appearance. It says the median number of games for a player is 84 so when figuring this out I don't know if you can try to do the math on this the way you did.

Leaving aside the sort of tricky premise there, namely, that you seem to think that a marginal or median player is going to base their opinion on perceiving themselves as such if the median player is a guy who's only drawing an NHL paycheck for 84 games, I don't see that player have a ton of influence on the PA. 

 

[princedpw]

Leaving aside the sort of tricky premise there, namely, that you seem to think that a marginal or median player is going to base their opinion on perceiving themselves as such if the median player is a guy who's only drawing an NHL paycheck for 84 games, I don't see that player have a ton of influence on the PA.

I agree that those median, marginal players probably don't have much influence -- when it comes to negotiations the crosbies are the guys who get invited to the table with Fehr.  But I believe a benevolent leader would be looking out for the majority, not the elite so I was trying to compute what would actually be best for the majority -- is it best to cave to the owners current proposal or to lose a season and assume you win out in the end?

Also, I would love it if somebody could do a better job with the math than I have -- please go ahead and try.  I'd like to get the most accurate picture possible of what it costs players in different income categories to lose a season.

 

[Damian]

Not even gonna try bro... not even gonna try....