A year from now, it’s going to be the NHL and NHLPA just as this summer it was the NFL and NFLPA and just as it is now the NBA and the NBPA. I can tell you how this movie is going to end, because I’ve seen it over and over again.
Regardless of the inequity of it all, it’s going to be the league that wins, because pro sports labor negotiations are fixed inexorably in favor of the richest guys, the guys who wear the suits, and not the athletes in uniform who provide the talent.
And for the NHL players, the guys (or their forbearers) who sacrificed a full year of their careers, a full year of their earning power then even another 24 percent off the top after that . . . well, it is patently unfair to ask, encourage or expect them to ever do anything like that again when the game is rigged against them, and I for one would not even think of it.
Understand: The percentage-of-the-gross hard cap concept for which Gary Bettman and the Board of Governors were willing to cancel the 2004-05 season in order to obtain not only is based on the fraudulent proposition there actually is “gross revenue” that is somehow part of a pool shared by NHL clubs, but in practice is more damaging to the bottom lines of mid- and low-revenue franchises than a dozen Bobby Holik contracts could ever have been.
In the NHL, a rising tide sinks small ships. The more revenue generated by major-market, money-printing machines such as Toronto, the Rangers, Montreal, Philadelphia and Vancouver — thus inflating the “gross” — the more money small-market clubs such as St. Louis, the Islanders, Carolina and Florida are mandated by league law to spend on payroll because of the patently preposterous cap floor.
Eliminating the floor should be Priority 1 for NHLPA chief Donald Fehr next time around. This notion that Carolina’s payroll should somehow be directly related to Toronto’s revenue is not only absurd, it means the Hurricanes necessarily will lose more money, thus both increases escrow while fueling the self-fulfilling prophecy of increased losses by small-market clubs that sends Bettman into the labor battle with the hammer to demand give-backs because of rising losses by small-market teams.
The man is actually quite ingenious, come to think of it.
The floor is supposed to guarantee the holy grail of competitive balance, but it doesn’t. Buyouts go toward the floor. Entry Level bonuses that may never be and quite often never are attained, go toward the floor.
Forcing franchises that can’t afford it to commit a certain portion of their assets to payroll means they have less to invest in scouting and player development, areas fundamental to long-term success.
Fehr conducted a series of player meetings this summer that, we’re told, was a model of communication in which he gained a sense of the athletes’ priorities a year away from the expiration of the CBA.
That’s no surprise. Yankees player rep Curtis Granderson, who previously served in the same capacity with the Tigers, told me Fehr’s capacity to engage in constructive dialogue with players and his innate ability to listen then break down conversations and issues to their most basic components so that all can understand likely were his greatest assets when he led the MLBPA.
If Priority 1 is eliminating the floor, Priority 1A is holding the line on the cap applying to NHL rosters only. The union cannot accept a system under which any portion of one-way contracts held by players waived to the AHL counts against the cap. The PA should, though, propose giving players the option of accepting a 33-percent buyout rather than going to the minors as long as that “waiver-buyout” does not count against the cap.
I would also recommend the union propose extending the Entry Level system from three to five years and to eliminating bonuses in Entry Level contracts until Year 4. There is a finite amount of money for all NHL players to share, a finite amount of cap space to divide. Why should so much of it go to players between the ages of 18 and 23?
There are other issues, as well, on which the union can offer savings. This could include buyouts becoming 33 percent for players with more than two years remaining on their contracts, for after all, a buyout means unrestricted free agency that rewards failure. The less buyout money applied against the cap, the more space is open for players on the roster.
The notion that the players are going to have to give back sickens me. I invested hundreds of thousands of words on the topic last time around. I’m not so sure there is a point to doing it again.
The point, though, is this: It is up to Fehr to devise a plan under which the percentage that goes to the players is allocated as equitably as possible.