NHL Lockout for dummies? I need sports finance experts in this thread!

[avatar33]

So after seeing yesterday that the NHL has offered a 50/50 revenue split to the NHL Players' Association (in hopes of still making this season happen), I was thinking to myself: damn, it's like if an employee asked his boss for a high base salary + a 50% stake on all the company's profit. Am I understanding this thing properly? Does this whole thing make sense to you? Is this how it works with the NBA, NFL, MLB and other major sports on this continent, or is the NHLPA the greediest players association that ever existed?

 

[liams]

No, the NHLPA isn't greedy.

The NHLPA's split is what determines the salary cap for a given year. So currently, they get 57% of league revenues, or about $1.9B, split over 30 teams.

The owners locked them out because they, among other things like changing the maximum contract length and when a player becomes eligible for free agency, wanted to lower the player's share down to 50%, which would effectively cause a huge salary rollback.

 

[Benji49]

It's actually 50% or 57% of what is on the books, or what the owners report to the players (and the taxman).

Real revenue is more. Well I can't prove it, but even a stupid small businessman like me, with a scotch in my hand, could figure out how to hide revenue.

 

[RedFireGreg]

Both parties are stupid. The players are worried about how much they will loose any off there current contracts. They had a 24% roll back last lockout and it seems one of there biggest concerns is not wanting any more rollbacks. What they are too stupid to realize is because they caved to the owners (who knows best ) they received 12.5% raise each year since the lockout.

The owners want to protect themselves from each other and giving away massive contracts while trying not to loose money. HRR have gone up but Hockey related costs have gone up more and the 57% is now too high a % for the owner to give up.

It looks like the players are not being realistic in what they are asking for and have not countered anything that address the change in % of HRR to a reasonable amount. They have asked for guaranteed raises among other things. In my opinion they lack business skills/sense and can not figure that not working with people who run billion dollar business or listening to them is the smart thing to do. One would think that they would figure out that if they stop playing and lose this forward progress they have experienced the last 7 years.

I am on the owners side on this lockout. Stupid players - take the paycut, increase your market share and make more in the long run.

 

[bauss]

NHLPA doesn't understand that the owner's capital should make a reasonable return just like all capital.