I think 50/50 is fair. It is on par with the NFL and NBA, players salaries wouldnt be affected much, and it would bring a good number of teams out of the red. I think if it were scaled down, from year 1, it would be a reasonable request and the owners would/should take it. I think next time, if owners try to push the players underneath what the rest of pro athletes get, it would not fly with the public.
As far as the contracts go and blaming it on the owners, that is unfair. In a league, the owners have to compete with each other for these players which drives the price and terms up and up. You have to set up rules and framework to cap this or you have a situation again where 3-5 teams eat up every top free agent in the league and trade for every rent-a-player at the deadline. In this recent CBA, owners and player agents discovered loopholes that were exploited.
If owners decide not to give out those contracts, that is collusion and you bet NHLPA lawyers would be all over the NHL.
If a team like Nashville, Carolina, NJ, etc spend at the cap floor every year, and became farm teams to the Rangers, Flyers, Detroit, etc those teams' would be sent into oblivion. They would have no fan base at all if they couldnt afford any 'stars'.
I would bet my life, there are a percentage of players who would like the NHL to take the owners' deal or at least modify it a bit and negotiate off of that.
I am waiting for the first "Player who spoke on the condition of anonymity" to come forward.
Following the news on Twitter. This does not look good.
drivingrl: "Will I ever get to meet Gwen Stefani?"
kevinbeetle: "Yes. When her career washes up and her and Gavin move to Galveston, you will meet her at Hot Topic shopping for a Japanese cheerleader outfit.
Doug Maclean @DougMaclean
Note to players. If you dont tell Donald to get a deal done. He wont. And you wont play this year. Not good news. Sorry.
Andy Strickland @andystrickland
As multiple NHL sources have indicated... when NHL resumes players will not be getting anything north of 50% of HRR
Lance Hornby @sunhornby
Fehr repeats nhl is short changing players on salary and other issues. Says nhl wants nba and nfl player deals but pa won't go backwards.
I'm with neither really...it's spoiled millionaires fighting billionaires and its the owners league. Now I would feel differently if the players offered to do away with guaranteed contracts...
The salary cap, with loopholes closed, provides that protection. isn't 'non-guaranteed contract' a bit of an oxymoron?
(edit: was also replying to your assertion that the small market owners needed protection)
Nothing in return...really...the average NHL salary is like 2.4 million...how much money would these players be making without hockey?
It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever have sympathy for these millionaires, same goes for these billionaire owners.
and how much money are the owners making? ... yeah ... it's a lot of money compared to what we make ... but these guys are responsible for the profits owners make ... plus ... if you're a guy like brett lindros who had concussions take them out of the game ... they are sacrificing their body for the game and they gotta earn what they can when they can ...
at the end of the day - it isn't about feeling sorry for a guy who gets to make millions of dollar playing a game ... it's about what is fair ...
I'm with you. typical labour struggle, atypical dollar figures. Regardless of the industry, people seem to always side with the owners over labour these days....some weird kind of self-loathing? jealousy? stockholm syndrome? I don't get it.
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Needing a ride to Forest Hills and a ounce of weed. Please inquire within. Thanks. Or not. Posts: 58,276
I'm going to start a new league.....
All league revenue (tix/consessions/parking/tv/radio/merchandise etc) will go into one giant pot. Each franchise will then get X amount to fund local advertising, team operations, team mgmt, etc. All the rest will paid out to players. Each team will get 1/30 to play their players. Contracts will be signed as a % of team salary. so a crosby might get 15% and the 20th guy might get 2.5%, but in total, it will be 100%. A draw will be paid during the season and then at the end of the season when final numbers are tallied, the rest will be paid out.
All league revenue (tix/consessions/parking/tv/radio/merchandise etc) will go into one giant pot. Each franchise will then get X amount to fund local advertising, team operations, team mgmt, etc. All the rest will paid out to players. Each team will get 1/30 to play their players. Contracts will be signed as a % of team salary. so a crosby might get 15% and the 20th guy might get 2.5%, but in total, it will be 100%. A draw will be paid during the season and then at the end of the season when final numbers are tallied, the rest will be paid out.
All league revenue (tix/consessions/parking/tv/radio/merchandise etc) will go into one giant pot. Each franchise will then get X amount to fund local advertising, team operations, team mgmt, etc. All the rest will paid out to players. Each team will get 1/30 to play their players. Contracts will be signed as a % of team salary. so a crosby might get 15% and the 20th guy might get 2.5%, but in total, it will be 100%. A draw will be paid during the season and then at the end of the season when final numbers are tallied, the rest will be paid out.
someone please breathe some life into this NHL season.
For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
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I'm with neither really...it's spoiled millionaires fighting billionaires and its the owners league. Now I would feel differently if the players offered to do away with guaranteed contracts...
The salary cap, with loopholes closed, provides that protection. isn't 'non-guaranteed contract' a bit of an oxymoron?
(edit: was also replying to your assertion that the small market owners needed protection)
Nothing in return...really...the average NHL salary is like 2.4 million...how much money would these players be making without hockey?
It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever have sympathy for these millionaires, same goes for these billionaire owners.
and how much money are the owners making? ... yeah ... it's a lot of money compared to what we make ... but these guys are responsible for the profits owners make ... plus ... if you're a guy like brett lindros who had concussions take them out of the game ... they are sacrificing their body for the game and they gotta earn what they can when they can ...
at the end of the day - it isn't about feeling sorry for a guy who gets to make millions of dollar playing a game ... it's about what is fair ...
I'm with you. typical labour struggle, atypical dollar figures. Regardless of the industry, people seem to always side with the owners over labour these days....some weird kind of self-loathing? jealousy? stockholm syndrome? I don't get it.
If the auto worker, worker at wal mart or anyone else just try to earn a decent wage I'll side with them, and many of these people sacrifice their body just make a buck and some end up disabled and earning measly disability payments, and these employees contribute to their companies profits as well, the exception, when their company is losing money many of them lose their job. These athletes earn millions ... and if it wasn't for hockey most wouldn't be making 50 grand.
I have certain rules I live by ... My First Rule ... I don't believe anything the government tells me ... George Carlin
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If the auto worker, worker at wal mart or anyone else just try to earn a decent wage I'll side with them, and many of these people sacrifice their body just make a buck and some end up disabled and earning measly disability payments, and these employees contribute to their companies profits as well, the exception, when their company is losing money many of them lose their job. These athletes earn millions ... and if it wasn't for hockey most wouldn't be making 50 grand.
well, that's up for debate... The owners, some of them anyway, are making a ton of coin off of them. The owners are risking....what? For most, a small fraction of their money...Most of them buy these teams as an ego fix - a way to get some fame with their fortune, not as a business venture. The players are risking their bodies, moreso than most other professions, and have dedicated their lives to the game since childhood without being paid for it (I know it's a game, but a lot of these kids leave home at like 14)....
Do I feel sorry for them? Not one fucking bit! Of course not...I have no sympathy for either side. I think pro sports bring in enough money to roll back ticket prices to pretty much zilch if they shared the revenues completely....there is no reason a family without access to company seats should have to pay the equivalent of a long weekend vacation to see a hockey game together....then have to listen to these assholes bicker like they are....(while demanding the family buy them a new arena with their tax dollars, or lose the privilege of attending those games! :evil: wtf....what business treats their customers like this?)
All they should have to do is close the loopholes in the cap and be fucking done with it! leave everything else the same. how hard can that be? Is that naive? Which side would that screw, and which side is demanding more? sounds like it would be the players giving in that scenario, but the owners want even more than that.
Things were going well with the exception of a couple markets (nothing new! been happening since before expansion) and a few stupid contracts.
NHL lockout: Gary Bettman shoots down players’ counteroffer
NHL players say are willing to go to a 50-50 split. Just not this year.
And that appears to be the reason why NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and his entourage of owners walked away from three financial proposals laid out by players association on Thursday, suggesting a full season and the Winter Classic are at risk, while angering the players.
“In a nutshell, it doesn’t look good right now,” said Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, who took in the negotiations. “You come with three proposals. You think you have a chance at getting momentum and it’s shut down within minutes. That doesn’t seem like a group that’s willing to negotiate.
“For us to come down to 50-50 is pretty big,” said Coyotes forward Shane Doan. “That was a big move on our part to meet them at 50-50. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.”
Flanked by 18 players, Donald Fehr laid out three proposals the NHL deemed not good enough. Each got the split on hockey-related revenue to 50-50, just not this year.
Under the first proposal, the players — who receive about $1.88 billion this year — envision being paid the same this season, rising to $1.92 billion in year two, $1.96 billion in year three and then for the remainder of the contract, the players would take the greater of $2.06 billion or 50 per cent of revenue. That reflects five per cent growth.
Under the second, the players would take what they currently get — $1.883 billion — plus 24 per cent of hockey-related revenue – until HRR goes past $4.216 billion, at which time the sides would be at 50 per cent each.
Under the third, the players would go to 50 per cent right away, but with the condition that all players now under contract — about 60 per cent of the league — get paid in full. To do that, essentially 87 per cent of current contracts would count against the cap. The remaining 13 per cent would draw their salary from a separate pool that does not count against the players’ share of revenue.
“All we’re asking is for them to honour the current contracts we’re under and they’re still trying to find ways not to do that,” said Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews.
It was a despondent sounding Bettman who walked away from talks Thursday, intimating that a full season could be lost and the Winter Classic might be cancelled soon.
“We were done in an hour today because there was really nothing there,” Bettman told reporters. “Hopefully we’ll hear back, but I don’t know what the next step is. I’m very discouraged.”
Bettman said a deal must be in place by Oct. 25 in order to start a full 82-game season Nov. 2. He also expressed concern about the Jan. 1 Winter Classic featuring the Maple Leafs and Red Wings.
“It takes a lot of time and it takes the commitment of a lot of money to put on the Winter Classic,” said Bettman. “At some point we will have to commit millions of dollars if we’re going to play on Jan. 1.
“In these circumstances, with this uncertainty, we’re not going commit many millions of dollars if we don’t think we have a deal. The Winter Classic time frame in terms of making that decision is probably rapidly approaching.”
Bettman said the league’s offer was as good as it was going to get. As for the players’ proposals: “None of them even began to approach 50-50.”
Fehr scoffed at that comment.
“The suggestion that somehow the players are not moving in the owners’ direction seems to me to be misplaced,” said Fehr.
The players proposals dealt only with economics and not free agency, contract length, salary arbitration or any of the other matters the league’s latest offer included.
Crosby said the players just want a fair deal. “We’re negotiating in good faith with a purpose. I don’t know if there’s much purpose from their side right now.
“Today wasn’t a step in the right direction. There is still time, but things aren’t very optimistic.”
I have certain rules I live by ... My First Rule ... I don't believe anything the government tells me ... George Carlin
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
Done paying for tickets. If I fall into a pair every once in a while (happens a few times a season) I'll go. Other than that, not so much.
Believe me, when I was growin up, I thought the worst thing you could turn out to be was normal, So I say freaks in the most complementary way. Here's a song by a fellow freak - E.V
The NHLPA needs to put a gag order on the players. They are really showing their lack of smarts and making me really not want to support the league any more.
The NHLPA needs to put a gag order on the players. They are really showing their lack of smarts and making me really not want to support the league any more.
... You're expecting NHL players to be smart?
Believe me, when I was growin up, I thought the worst thing you could turn out to be was normal, So I say freaks in the most complementary way. Here's a song by a fellow freak - E.V
Antagonizing fans and crying poor on twitter is pretty low.... and also doing shit like comparing their situation to a factory worker making $40K/year.... all the while (biznasty) posting pictures of them partying it up in Vegas.
like i said - they would offer a sliding scale which makes total sense to me ... the owners don't want to pay the deals they negotiated in good faith ... that is wrong ...
it's unfortunate that there is so much collateral damage as it relates to jobs and people who rely on the NHL and those are the people i feel for the most ...
it would appear to me that the counter-offer was a very reasonable position to form the foundation of a deal ... the owners continue to play games and this is the result ... look at the owner of the oilers ... these are the kind of people the players are dealing with ...
Antagonizing fans and crying poor on twitter is pretty low.... and also doing shit like comparing their situation to a factory worker making $40K/year.... all the while (biznasty) posting pictures of them partying it up in Vegas.
The players care no more about the fans than the owners do...and the only time I'll might miss the nhl is at playoff time.
I have certain rules I live by ... My First Rule ... I don't believe anything the government tells me ... George Carlin
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
"[We're] going to get a deal done" - Gary Bettman to some dude, October 18, 2012, approximately 2:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
"We were done in an hour today because there was really nothing there." - Gary Bettman to reporters, October 18, 2012, 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Funny, that.
Why, it's almost like the NHL had no intention whatsoever of accepting whatever offer the NHL Players' Association put forward yesterday, and that everything it has done to this point has come as part of bad-faith negotiations disguised as platitudes about how much the fans matter and how important it is for them to get a deal done.
[Nick Cotsonika: Enough with the grudges and greed, get down to business and solve the CBA]
OK, maybe I shouldn't go that far. Getting a deal done is clearly on the League's to-do list, but getting one that in any way serves to protect even the slightest interest of the players (i.e. The Product) is something in which Bettman and the five or six guys driving this Cold War have no interest whatever. Period.
Let's put it this way: Both sides have likely always targeted a 50-50 endgame. How they eventually get there is the real issue, and some of the ancillary stuff — like what revenues they're going to be splitting right down the middle (but not really, wink-wink) and how players are able to actually earn money under that system — is very much up for debate.
So it should have come as no surprise to anyone on the entire planet that the League just happened that extend a 50-50 offer on Tuesday that was couched in a lot of the language uncovered by Deadspin's report on its B.S. focus groupery about 16 hours earlier.
Shared sacrifice, indeed.
Make no mistake, the League knows exactly why fans have been so quick to turn on it in this labor negotiation when they backed it near-uniformly in the last one: Its draconian power grab is as transparent as the Russian players' threat to stay in the KHL.
[Related: 'Not a good day' as NHL and NHLPA meet again, get nowhere]
That's why the Luntz Global questionnaire had all that stuff about "Which stuff about how greedy all the greedy owners are is the MOST true?" Because everyone saw through that first joke of a proposal this summer, and everyone saw through the petulant, teary-eyed foot-stomping about "The PA hasn't made an offer in weeks!!!"
To be totally clear here, the only thing Donald Fehr was brought in to do for the NHLPA was make sure the amputation wasn't as bad as the owners would have liked it to have been. Everyone involved, and even most who aren't, has always known that this deal, like the last CBA the players were bullied into signing, would end with the players losing money. Fehr's goal — and boy is it ever a crazy one — is to make sure the paycut they eventually take doesn't cost them anything that's already guaranteed in their current contracts. What a jerk. What a monster.
Yeah, 50-50 revenue splits in the NHL's deal sound super-fair, and so does increased revenue sharing (and, OK, so it's only like 80 percent of what the players wanted, but it's something). But when the owners are dictating what does and doesn't count as revenue that gets split, and oh by the way you guys have to pay for the "make-whole" issue yourselves because we're not getting involved in that … well, anyone with half a functioning brain can see that this in no way constitutes a good-faith offer.
Donald Fehr called it "borderline unfair" yesterday, and that sounds like a nice way of putting it.
[Also: The Vent: Fan cheers for Leafs to protest lockout; others plan a party]
Let's think about that 50-50 split critically, okay? The current split is 57-43 in favor of the players. We all know this. So the league is essentially asking for that 7 percent back — and in reality, it's a little more than 12 percent of what the players actually make — with what concessions going the other way. Did you guess, "Almost none?" Good job. No intention to honor contracts as currently written, no givebacks on free agency rights. Just suspension appeals going to someone other than Gary Bettman. Whoopie.
The point of the NHL's offer this week was to turn the conversation from, "Hahaha look at this stupid focus group garbage," to, "Aren't the players a bunch of jerks for trying to rob you of an 82-game season by not accepting our slightly-less-insulting-than-the-original offer? We sure think so."
To some extent, it worked. That's why they negotiated in public and put the whole thing, more or less, on its website, complete with a handy-dandy explanation of all the nice and cool things the NHL was offering. Not that there weren't some good things in there (some of which helped the teams that conformed to the league's war against cap-circumventing contracts in an entertaining and largely-acceptable way), but there certainly weren't enough that the players should have considered entertaining it for more than a minute.
[Sunaya Sapurji: Meet the most interesting man in junior hockey]
But again, it was a PR move, and so the NHLPA fought back in the only way it knew how, offering three proposals with all different terms, but two of them with revenue shares based on growth, rather than just flatly dropping to 50-50 as the NHL's does. The other, which they had to know the league would never accept under any circumstance, sure doesn't make Bettman look good. Basically, it said, "We'll go to 50-50 today if you give us the money you owe us on the current deals up front."
Oof. That last part really has to sting Bettman. The players were ready to capitulate to your 50-50 demands right away, as long as the owners you represent in all this gave them the money contractually owed them.
Instead you pitched a fit to the media and considered it to be in a different language than what you were asking.
This is, in the NHL's mind, not acceptable. Reason enough for Bettman to storm out of a Toronto office building after talking about how deeply disappointing all this non-capitulation is — and to be sure, that's the only thing he's upset about — then get in a hired car and take the first flight back to New York City. Second time in a row that's happened. All the PR spin in the world can't change the fact that it's the league, not the PA, that refuses to negotiate.
"There was nothing to talk about," Gary? Sounds to me like that's only because the things to talk about weren't exactly what you wanted to hear. Next time try holding your breath until your face turns blue. That'll show everyone that you and aren't being inflexible at all.
Don Fehr, the players, and the fans (one of whom you directly lied to less than two hours before your press conference) will know you mean business.
Pearls of Biz-dom
We all know that there isn't a better Twitter account out there than that of Paul Bissonnette. So why not find his best bit of advice on love, life and lappers from the last week?
BizNasty on the bright side: "Insult me all you want but I'm still tied for 1st in every single statistical category in the NHL right now."
135 games have been officially cancelled between Oct 11- November 1st
:shock:
I'm not liking the vibes i'm feeing from the " negotiations"
:roll:
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Needing a ride to Forest Hills and a ounce of weed. Please inquire within. Thanks. Or not. Posts: 58,276
For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
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I have better things to spend my time and money on besides this league. Like I said, this is all going to be a huge blow to this sport, and its already on its knees.
The product is terrible and the players/owners cant get it together.
And so you see, I have come to doubt All that I once held as true I stand alone without beliefs The only truth I know is you.
Comments
As far as the contracts go and blaming it on the owners, that is unfair. In a league, the owners have to compete with each other for these players which drives the price and terms up and up. You have to set up rules and framework to cap this or you have a situation again where 3-5 teams eat up every top free agent in the league and trade for every rent-a-player at the deadline. In this recent CBA, owners and player agents discovered loopholes that were exploited.
If owners decide not to give out those contracts, that is collusion and you bet NHLPA lawyers would be all over the NHL.
If a team like Nashville, Carolina, NJ, etc spend at the cap floor every year, and became farm teams to the Rangers, Flyers, Detroit, etc those teams' would be sent into oblivion. They would have no fan base at all if they couldnt afford any 'stars'.
I am waiting for the first "Player who spoke on the condition of anonymity" to come forward.
Donald Fehr is not going to get a deal done.
kevinbeetle: "Yes. When her career washes up and her and Gavin move to Galveston, you will meet her at Hot Topic shopping for a Japanese cheerleader outfit.
Next!"
Note to players. If you dont tell Donald to get a deal done. He wont. And you wont play this year. Not good news. Sorry.
Andy Strickland @andystrickland
As multiple NHL sources have indicated... when NHL resumes players will not be getting anything north of 50% of HRR
Lance Hornby @sunhornby
Fehr repeats nhl is short changing players on salary and other issues. Says nhl wants nba and nfl player deals but pa won't go backwards.
(edit: was also replying to your assertion that the small market owners needed protection)
I'm with you. typical labour struggle, atypical dollar figures. Regardless of the industry, people seem to always side with the owners over labour these days....some weird kind of self-loathing? jealousy? stockholm syndrome? I don't get it.
All league revenue (tix/consessions/parking/tv/radio/merchandise etc) will go into one giant pot. Each franchise will then get X amount to fund local advertising, team operations, team mgmt, etc. All the rest will paid out to players. Each team will get 1/30 to play their players. Contracts will be signed as a % of team salary. so a crosby might get 15% and the 20th guy might get 2.5%, but in total, it will be 100%. A draw will be paid during the season and then at the end of the season when final numbers are tallied, the rest will be paid out.
boom....
someone please breathe some life into this NHL season.
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
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"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
If the auto worker, worker at wal mart or anyone else just try to earn a decent wage I'll side with them, and many of these people sacrifice their body just make a buck and some end up disabled and earning measly disability payments, and these employees contribute to their companies profits as well, the exception, when their company is losing money many of them lose their job. These athletes earn millions ... and if it wasn't for hockey most wouldn't be making 50 grand.
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
counter proposal,
rejection
mother f'er
someone break the cycle
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
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i bleed hockey as most of us in this thread
i will say...if their are no games this year IAM DONE paying for tickets
if they can't solve this....it would be evident neither side cares about us ...the people who make them who they are
we cheer ...scream cry laugh and have near heart attacks every game
i know everyone wants their piece of the pie...and deserve it
but i will say a BIG "FUCK YOU " TO EVERYONE INVOLVED if their is no season
Do I feel sorry for them? Not one fucking bit! Of course not...I have no sympathy for either side. I think pro sports bring in enough money to roll back ticket prices to pretty much zilch if they shared the revenues completely....there is no reason a family without access to company seats should have to pay the equivalent of a long weekend vacation to see a hockey game together....then have to listen to these assholes bicker like they are....(while demanding the family buy them a new arena with their tax dollars, or lose the privilege of attending those games! :evil: wtf....what business treats their customers like this?)
All they should have to do is close the loopholes in the cap and be fucking done with it! leave everything else the same. how hard can that be? Is that naive? Which side would that screw, and which side is demanding more? sounds like it would be the players giving in that scenario, but the owners want even more than that.
Things were going well with the exception of a couple markets (nothing new! been happening since before expansion) and a few stupid contracts.
NHL lockout: Gary Bettman shoots down players’ counteroffer
NHL players say are willing to go to a 50-50 split. Just not this year.
And that appears to be the reason why NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and his entourage of owners walked away from three financial proposals laid out by players association on Thursday, suggesting a full season and the Winter Classic are at risk, while angering the players.
“In a nutshell, it doesn’t look good right now,” said Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, who took in the negotiations. “You come with three proposals. You think you have a chance at getting momentum and it’s shut down within minutes. That doesn’t seem like a group that’s willing to negotiate.
“For us to come down to 50-50 is pretty big,” said Coyotes forward Shane Doan. “That was a big move on our part to meet them at 50-50. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.”
Flanked by 18 players, Donald Fehr laid out three proposals the NHL deemed not good enough. Each got the split on hockey-related revenue to 50-50, just not this year.
Under the first proposal, the players — who receive about $1.88 billion this year — envision being paid the same this season, rising to $1.92 billion in year two, $1.96 billion in year three and then for the remainder of the contract, the players would take the greater of $2.06 billion or 50 per cent of revenue. That reflects five per cent growth.
Under the second, the players would take what they currently get — $1.883 billion — plus 24 per cent of hockey-related revenue – until HRR goes past $4.216 billion, at which time the sides would be at 50 per cent each.
Under the third, the players would go to 50 per cent right away, but with the condition that all players now under contract — about 60 per cent of the league — get paid in full. To do that, essentially 87 per cent of current contracts would count against the cap. The remaining 13 per cent would draw their salary from a separate pool that does not count against the players’ share of revenue.
“All we’re asking is for them to honour the current contracts we’re under and they’re still trying to find ways not to do that,” said Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews.
It was a despondent sounding Bettman who walked away from talks Thursday, intimating that a full season could be lost and the Winter Classic might be cancelled soon.
“We were done in an hour today because there was really nothing there,” Bettman told reporters. “Hopefully we’ll hear back, but I don’t know what the next step is. I’m very discouraged.”
Bettman said a deal must be in place by Oct. 25 in order to start a full 82-game season Nov. 2. He also expressed concern about the Jan. 1 Winter Classic featuring the Maple Leafs and Red Wings.
“It takes a lot of time and it takes the commitment of a lot of money to put on the Winter Classic,” said Bettman. “At some point we will have to commit millions of dollars if we’re going to play on Jan. 1.
“In these circumstances, with this uncertainty, we’re not going commit many millions of dollars if we don’t think we have a deal. The Winter Classic time frame in terms of making that decision is probably rapidly approaching.”
Bettman said the league’s offer was as good as it was going to get. As for the players’ proposals: “None of them even began to approach 50-50.”
Fehr scoffed at that comment.
“The suggestion that somehow the players are not moving in the owners’ direction seems to me to be misplaced,” said Fehr.
The players proposals dealt only with economics and not free agency, contract length, salary arbitration or any of the other matters the league’s latest offer included.
Crosby said the players just want a fair deal. “We’re negotiating in good faith with a purpose. I don’t know if there’s much purpose from their side right now.
“Today wasn’t a step in the right direction. There is still time, but things aren’t very optimistic.”
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
The NHLPA needs to put a gag order on the players. They are really showing their lack of smarts and making me really not want to support the league any more.
Antagonizing fans and crying poor on twitter is pretty low.... and also doing shit like comparing their situation to a factory worker making $40K/year.... all the while (biznasty) posting pictures of them partying it up in Vegas.
like i said - they would offer a sliding scale which makes total sense to me ... the owners don't want to pay the deals they negotiated in good faith ... that is wrong ...
it's unfortunate that there is so much collateral damage as it relates to jobs and people who rely on the NHL and those are the people i feel for the most ...
it would appear to me that the counter-offer was a very reasonable position to form the foundation of a deal ... the owners continue to play games and this is the result ... look at the owner of the oilers ... these are the kind of people the players are dealing with ...
The players care no more about the fans than the owners do...and the only time I'll might miss the nhl is at playoff time.
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
"[We're] going to get a deal done" - Gary Bettman to some dude, October 18, 2012, approximately 2:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
"We were done in an hour today because there was really nothing there." - Gary Bettman to reporters, October 18, 2012, 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Funny, that.
Why, it's almost like the NHL had no intention whatsoever of accepting whatever offer the NHL Players' Association put forward yesterday, and that everything it has done to this point has come as part of bad-faith negotiations disguised as platitudes about how much the fans matter and how important it is for them to get a deal done.
[Nick Cotsonika: Enough with the grudges and greed, get down to business and solve the CBA]
OK, maybe I shouldn't go that far. Getting a deal done is clearly on the League's to-do list, but getting one that in any way serves to protect even the slightest interest of the players (i.e. The Product) is something in which Bettman and the five or six guys driving this Cold War have no interest whatever. Period.
Let's put it this way: Both sides have likely always targeted a 50-50 endgame. How they eventually get there is the real issue, and some of the ancillary stuff — like what revenues they're going to be splitting right down the middle (but not really, wink-wink) and how players are able to actually earn money under that system — is very much up for debate.
So it should have come as no surprise to anyone on the entire planet that the League just happened that extend a 50-50 offer on Tuesday that was couched in a lot of the language uncovered by Deadspin's report on its B.S. focus groupery about 16 hours earlier.
Shared sacrifice, indeed.
Make no mistake, the League knows exactly why fans have been so quick to turn on it in this labor negotiation when they backed it near-uniformly in the last one: Its draconian power grab is as transparent as the Russian players' threat to stay in the KHL.
[Related: 'Not a good day' as NHL and NHLPA meet again, get nowhere]
That's why the Luntz Global questionnaire had all that stuff about "Which stuff about how greedy all the greedy owners are is the MOST true?" Because everyone saw through that first joke of a proposal this summer, and everyone saw through the petulant, teary-eyed foot-stomping about "The PA hasn't made an offer in weeks!!!"
To be totally clear here, the only thing Donald Fehr was brought in to do for the NHLPA was make sure the amputation wasn't as bad as the owners would have liked it to have been. Everyone involved, and even most who aren't, has always known that this deal, like the last CBA the players were bullied into signing, would end with the players losing money. Fehr's goal — and boy is it ever a crazy one — is to make sure the paycut they eventually take doesn't cost them anything that's already guaranteed in their current contracts. What a jerk. What a monster.
Yeah, 50-50 revenue splits in the NHL's deal sound super-fair, and so does increased revenue sharing (and, OK, so it's only like 80 percent of what the players wanted, but it's something). But when the owners are dictating what does and doesn't count as revenue that gets split, and oh by the way you guys have to pay for the "make-whole" issue yourselves because we're not getting involved in that … well, anyone with half a functioning brain can see that this in no way constitutes a good-faith offer.
Donald Fehr called it "borderline unfair" yesterday, and that sounds like a nice way of putting it.
[Also: The Vent: Fan cheers for Leafs to protest lockout; others plan a party]
Let's think about that 50-50 split critically, okay? The current split is 57-43 in favor of the players. We all know this. So the league is essentially asking for that 7 percent back — and in reality, it's a little more than 12 percent of what the players actually make — with what concessions going the other way. Did you guess, "Almost none?" Good job. No intention to honor contracts as currently written, no givebacks on free agency rights. Just suspension appeals going to someone other than Gary Bettman. Whoopie.
The point of the NHL's offer this week was to turn the conversation from, "Hahaha look at this stupid focus group garbage," to, "Aren't the players a bunch of jerks for trying to rob you of an 82-game season by not accepting our slightly-less-insulting-than-the-original offer? We sure think so."
To some extent, it worked. That's why they negotiated in public and put the whole thing, more or less, on its website, complete with a handy-dandy explanation of all the nice and cool things the NHL was offering. Not that there weren't some good things in there (some of which helped the teams that conformed to the league's war against cap-circumventing contracts in an entertaining and largely-acceptable way), but there certainly weren't enough that the players should have considered entertaining it for more than a minute.
[Sunaya Sapurji: Meet the most interesting man in junior hockey]
But again, it was a PR move, and so the NHLPA fought back in the only way it knew how, offering three proposals with all different terms, but two of them with revenue shares based on growth, rather than just flatly dropping to 50-50 as the NHL's does. The other, which they had to know the league would never accept under any circumstance, sure doesn't make Bettman look good. Basically, it said, "We'll go to 50-50 today if you give us the money you owe us on the current deals up front."
Oof. That last part really has to sting Bettman. The players were ready to capitulate to your 50-50 demands right away, as long as the owners you represent in all this gave them the money contractually owed them.
Instead you pitched a fit to the media and considered it to be in a different language than what you were asking.
This is, in the NHL's mind, not acceptable. Reason enough for Bettman to storm out of a Toronto office building after talking about how deeply disappointing all this non-capitulation is — and to be sure, that's the only thing he's upset about — then get in a hired car and take the first flight back to New York City. Second time in a row that's happened. All the PR spin in the world can't change the fact that it's the league, not the PA, that refuses to negotiate.
"There was nothing to talk about," Gary? Sounds to me like that's only because the things to talk about weren't exactly what you wanted to hear. Next time try holding your breath until your face turns blue. That'll show everyone that you and aren't being inflexible at all.
Don Fehr, the players, and the fans (one of whom you directly lied to less than two hours before your press conference) will know you mean business.
Pearls of Biz-dom
We all know that there isn't a better Twitter account out there than that of Paul Bissonnette. So why not find his best bit of advice on love, life and lappers from the last week?
BizNasty on the bright side: "Insult me all you want but I'm still tied for 1st in every single statistical category in the NHL right now."
135 games have been officially cancelled between Oct 11- November 1st
:shock:
I'm not liking the vibes i'm feeing from the " negotiations"
:roll:
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
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"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
:fp:
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
ORGAN DONATION SAVES LIVES
http://www.UNOS.org
Donate Organs and Save a Life
I have better things to spend my time and money on besides this league. Like I said, this is all going to be a huge blow to this sport, and its already on its knees.
The product is terrible and the players/owners cant get it together.
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you.