NHLOL Offseason

[Timby]

Is it just me or does Bettman pull all his offers off the table instead of negotiating from them?

I said this earlier. Bettman doesn't negotiate, he puts an outrageous offer on the table, the players make a counter-offer, then he yanks everything off the table, screams "fuck you everything is gone and we're back to square one," then runs to the media and cries that the greedy players aren't trying. In the past, the league didn't have to worry about that, since Eagleson was a corrupt crook and completely in bed with Ziegler, and Goodenow was an incompetent, ineffective boob who had no idea of how to deal with the league pushing back hard at him. Bettman has never dealt with a union that actually knows how to negotiate, and it is completely infuriating him after two decades of kicking the union around whenever he felt like it.

 

[gblews]

Re: NHL Offseason

I`m not on either side.

Uh, say what?

I see the players as what they are: spoiled little rich kids. They work for the owners. It`s that simple. They receive far better benefits, perks and salaries than those that pay their salaries (the fans) and have no regard for the jobs they've taken from European players or the loss of income to those who work in the arenas or the businesses nearby.

And so you aren't biased (for the owners) because you tell us you aren't? Is that what you're going with?

 

[Winterwind]

Re: NHL Offseason

I`m not on either side.

Uh, say what?

I see the players as what they are: spoiled little rich kids. They work for the owners. It`s that simple. They receive far better benefits, perks and salaries than those that pay their salaries (the fans) and have no regard for the jobs they've taken from European players or the loss of income to those who work in the arenas or the businesses nearby.

And so you aren't biased (for the owners) because you tell us you aren't? Is that what you're going with?

Beyond your ability to comprehend? It's pretty simple. As I've said many times, I have no sympathy for either side. Just because I view a certain segment of players as coddled and spoiled doesn't mean I side with the owners.

 

[Timby]

Re: NHL Offseason

Beyond your ability to comprehend? It's pretty simple. As I've said many times, I have no sympathy for either side. Just because I view a certain segment of players as coddled and spoiled doesn't mean I side with the owners.

You weren't segmenting it out. You said, "I see the players as what they are." That's a generalization, you can't backpedal from it.

Still waiting for an answer to this, also:

Okay, so, since you agree that the CBA was essentially fine, how is Fehr the issue when the union went to the league and said, "Let's fix the contract loopholes and otherwise keep the CBA the way it is?" I don't think you're fully grasping just how ideologically driven the lockout is on the owners' part. They're the ones who opened up with offering the players 47 percent of hockey-related revenue, down from 57 percent. They're the ones who have demanded (another) salary rollback. They're the ones demanding that you have to play for ten years before hitting unrestricted free agency. They're the ones demanding that entry-level contracts run for five years.

The owners were signing players to contracts all summer with full intention of not honoring them. It's reprehensible.

 

[Winterwind]

There's no backpedalling involved. Learn to read all of a post, not just the parts that suit your fancy. I've stated quite clearly that the only players I have any sympathy and respect for are the third and fourth line guys making barely more than league minimum or the players that stayed here in NA to play charity games instead of bolting to Europe to take jobs from other people.

You're pro-player. I'm not. I don't support either side. Some of the owners are a problem. Not all of them. Some of the players are a problem. Not all of them. Bettman has flaws and I've never liked him. Fehr has flaws and I've never liked him either. But it's hardly worth the long, drawn out back and forth you seem to be seeking. The subject just isn't that interesting and making sure I've dotted all my I's and crossed all my T's to your satisfaction, and expanded on every single little point so there can be no room for even the teensiest tiniest bit of misinterpretation, on a quick reply on a message board isn't something that I need to do.

Another poster posted views similar to my own one page back. See if he's interested in debating the issue with you.

 

[Timby]

You are being so intellectually disingenuous that it's bordering on hilarious. You keep on saying that you're not on either side and you take some passing shots at Bettman, and then you go on about how the big bad Donald Fehr is the real problem.

You have agreed that the existing CBA was perfectly fine, outside of the loophole mega contracts that the NHLPA already agreed to fix. The players first said they'd love to continue playing under the CBA, with a few tweaks to fix things like those contracts. Then, after the league dug in, the union began making concession after concession -- remember, the players have consented to going down from 57 percent of hockey-related revenue to 50 percent of hockey-related revenue. They don't see a cent of arena, concession and parking revenues (think about that the next time you pay ten bucks for a stadium beer). In terms of overall revenue, the players' share was already 50 / 50 at best under the former agreement.

I'm not necessarily pro-player -- I'm pro-the side that did not decide to start an ideologically driven labor war and start the league's third work stoppage in two decades when the system was working perfectly fine. Do you know why Major League Baseball hasn't had a sniff of labor strife outside of a possible strike over drug testing in 2002 (which Fehr quashed) for decades? Because after he got Bud Selig and company finally behaving like adults and bargaining like equals, everyone realized that the league and the players are in it together it's best for both sides to benefit. That's why the NHLPA hired Fehr. After tossing Bob Goodenow out on his worthless ass, they knew from the two prior lockouts that they'd be going through the same lockout song and dance seven years later, and they knew they needed a strong representative.

You still have yet to answer the question: When you agree that the CBA was fine, how are the players -- and Fehr -- the problem? This isn't the union going on strike to go back to the pre-2005 CBA, this is the owners deciding to blow up a collective bargaining agreement that was making everyone money hand over fist.

 

[Timby]

After word broke that the NHLPA Executive Board had voted to give the union membership a vote to authorize a disclaimer of interest (which is essentially identical to de-certification, but requires far fewer steps), the NHL got pre-emptive and filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court to have the lockout declared legal and that any such disclaimer filing would be illegal. The NHLPA is certain to file a counter-suit.

This is going nuclear, and unless there is a swift resolution, this could easily impact next season, too.

 

[Timby]

By a vote of 706 - 22, the players have authorized the executive board to file a disclaimer of interest and dissolve the union. Shit's getting real.

 

[Gil T.Azell]

..
This is going nuclear, and unless there is a swift resolution, this could easily impact next season, too.

DEFCON 3 ??

Not liking this at all.

 

[Timby]

..
This is going nuclear, and unless there is a swift resolution, this could easily impact next season, too.

DEFCON 3 ??

Not liking this at all.

When the disclaimer of interest is filed, the situation would be at DEFCON 2. And when the first antitrust lawsuit is filed (within about ten seconds after the disclaimer filing), then we're at a whole new level of warfare and shit has gotten real.

The NHL has been trying to divide the union for months and saying that Fehr is manipulating a broken, divided union ... and then 97 percent of the union membership voted to go nuclear. Yep, Fehr sure doesn't have the support of his constituents, Bettman.

This is the situation that the league has been terrified of from the moment the NHLPA hired Fehr (and why they've been trying to demonize him for well over a year). If this reaches the court, there is a very real, non-zero possibility that it establishes precedent that changes the landscape of professional sports in North America, in that it would provide a path forward for players defeating lockouts and forcing them to continue being paid under the terms of existing contracts while CBA negotiations continue. That would be a real issue because the NFL and NBA have become accustomed to being able to lock players out and use their superior financial resources to outlast the players until a new CBA is reached. There's also the very real possibility that the non-statutory labor exemption gets blown up in court. That exemption is basically the backbone for all of the cartel-like stuff that North American sports leagues get away with: Drafts, restrictions on free agency, salary caps, etc., that would normally be laughed out of court because they are so ridiculously anti-competitive.

The key provision of the non-statutory exemption is that it HAS to be run in cooperation with a legitimate, adversarial union through a negotiated CBA. No union, no exemption. That is very scary to owners who want to have their private boys' club where they control all the strings and can manipulate civic governments and players and fans in ways that no other business ever could.

I've always found it very ironic that here in the United States, land of the free market above all, we've allowed arguably our largest entertainment product (pro sports) to be run essentially as something roughly analogous to pre-capitalist feudal fiefdoms. Meanwhile, those commie Europeans and their communist Marxisms have taken much more of a pro-competition free-market approach to their sports leagues.

tl;dr: Roger Goodell and David Stern will have Bettman murdered if this gets to the courts and a decision is reached in favor of the players.

 

[gblews]

By a vote of 706 - 22, the players have authorized the executive board to file a disclaimer of interest and dissolve the union. Shit's getting real.

About damn time. Now, after the first anti trust lawsuits are filed, we;ll see if the owners are forced to negotiate in good faith.

 

[Thestral]

There's also the very real possibility that the non-statutory labor exemption gets blown up in court. That exemption is basically the backbone for all of the cartel-like stuff that North American sports leagues get away with: Drafts, restrictions on free agency, salary caps, etc., that would normally be laughed out of court because they are so ridiculously anti-competitive.

This going away would be terrible - terrrible - for NA sports leagues. Just more reason to be pro-strong union!

 

[Gil T.Azell]

Seems to me to be a bit redundant?

 

[BigFoot]

^

 

[Danny99]

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=412368

Here we go again.

 

[Timby]

TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun adds that the new offer includes the 'Make Whole' provision that stays at $300 million and allows each team one compliance buyout prior to the 2013-14 season. The buyout would not count against the cap, but it would against the players' share.

Bullshit, that's just a minor variance on the NHL's position of not wanting to pay the contracts they signed -- that counts as a deduction of hockey-related revenue, and since the cap is determined as a percentage of that, it reduces the player share of the overall pie.

It's good to see the NHL moving on contract limits and salary variance, but their demands for unrestricted free agency are still completely unreasonable. I'll wait to see further details emerge, because it seems like each time the league makes an offer, there's some poison pill for the union that doesn't come out until they've had a chance to actually read the fine print. "We will give you the eight-year contract length you request (but we will round up all of your dogs and cats and dunk them in hydrochloric acid)."

In non-lockout news, the Red Wings haven't been paying their bills to the city. Oops.

Christine MacDonald of The Detroit News reports the team and owner Mike Ilitch may owe the struggling city up to $70 million thanks to an old provision in the team’s television contract as it concerns the city-owned Joe Louis Arena. As you might suspect, this isn’t going over well with city politicians.

“The Ilitches are a multibillion-dollar operation, and they are inside a city that is sinking,” said City Councilman Kwame Kenyatta. “(Mike Ilitch), I am sure, knows about this and should be forthcoming to help the city. Help us by writing a check, not by negotiating a new lease.”

Oh yeah, the lease. The team’s lease to play at The Joe expired in 2010. Since then, the team reportedly hasn’t paid rent nor property taxes to play there and the city hasn’t gotten their cut of concessions either.

Under the current Red Wings' TV contract, Mike Ilitch owes the city of Detroit around $76,219.51 for every home game broadcast on FS Detroit, plus potentially more from games on NBC Sports Network.

For those keeping score at home, not only have the Red Wings been stiffing the City of Detroit for the Joe, but they strong-armed the state into giving out public funding for Mike Ilitch's new pizza palace.

Few things make my blood boil as much as public funding for billionaires to build stadiums.

 

[Gil T.Azell]

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=412368

Here we go again.

They should take this offer, enough of this Fucking Bull shit!

 

[Danny99]

Watching Sportsnet lockout coverage tonight just reminded me how bad of a sportscaster Nick Kypreos really is.

 

[Timby]

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=412368

Here we go again.

They should take this offer, enough of this Fucking Bull shit!

It still isn't a realistic offer. It establishes a $60 million salary cap, and sixteen teams are over that number right now, with a half-dozen others butting right up against it. There would be blood in the water if this offer became the framework of a new CBA. It still doesn't give any traction on service time towards unrestricted free agency (ten years is patently ridiculous; given how long it can take to actually reach the NHL, and how bruising the sport is, it shouldn't take ten years for someone to get a payday), and having the buyouts not count against the cap but still counting against the players' share of hockey-related revenue is just another way of further cutting the players' share of the already inequitable "pie." There also isn't any movement towards meaningful revenue sharing -- if the league actually cared about struggling small-market teams, it would institute some form of revenue sharing beyond the joke that exists today.

The NHL is clearly spooked (I don't think they expected the players to vote so overwhelmingly in favor of decertification; all along they've been operating under the assumption that Fehr is leading a divided union and they finally realized that isn't the case), but this is an offer designed to elicit a counter-offer from the NHLPA that the NHL can then throw another tantrum over, then Bettman can go cry that everything is off the table (again), Daly can go back to talking about the hills they'll die on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

 

[Danny99]

Even if the season is lost, the owners will still have other investments to fall back on, star players will go to Europe, star rookies will go to the AHL or Junior.

The brand will be destroyed and the two sides continued lack of contempt for the fan will leave a lot of the casual variety turned off. The NHL is the third major sport at best in the majority of American markets. The longer they are gone, the more those markets with focus on their NBA/MLB/NFL teams and there goes market share. Canadian fans will come back in droves because it's "our sport."

One benefit out of watching last night's Sportsnet coverage was seeing PK Subban in studio, dressed in a suit, elegantly skating around the dinosaur Nick Kypreos in a debate. As much as I hate Kypreos on my own, this just showed how electric Subban could be and how much Kypreos needs to go.