It’s pretty clear the NHLPA has been on a mission to defend their position by using Twitter to promote their fight against the NHL owners and have won over the majority of fans as a result of their effort. The evidence of fan support for the NHLPA is prominent in the recent YouTube hit: Together We Can, a fan-made video supporting the players which has received almost 1 million views in just over a 2 week time span.
In response, the NHLPA has released their own video only hours after the lockout came in session to reach out to fans once again. In the video we see interviews from David Backes, Sidney Crosby, Gabriel Landeskog, James Reimer and Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews as they try to justify their position and, once again, point out that the owners are locking out the players and that they are prepared to play.
Their tactics are cute, but are they really as innocent as they claim to be? I don’t think so.
According to Gary Bettman, the NHLPA refused to start negotiations until the Stanley Cup Finals and did not submit their first proposal until nearly one month after negotiations began. Why would they wait so long to start talking? Fehr claimed that he was unprepared to enter negotiations but the fact is, he isn’t on the ice and it’s his job to represent the players. The fact that they delayed negotiations is proof to me that they were prepared to enter a lockout situation and use that to promote bad PR towards the NHL. In short, the NHL lost the PR battle before they could even begin due to Fehr’s tactics. Smart move, sure… but also dirty.
The NHLPA’s demands also seem to be unrealistic, despite the fact that they claim that their proposal is at 52%, because they are asking for a fixed number and calculate the percentage based on their projections.
“It’s not anything close to 52 percent, their proposal is not on percentage” Bettman stated last Friday, “it’s a guaranteed dollar proposal.”
It’s clear both sides are very far apart due to the fact that the NHL owners want to change the definition of HRR as well as reducing the players share to 46% along with an increase in escrow. On the other side of the table, the NHLPA not only wants a larger cut but they want that fixed percentage based on their projections which is never going to happen. Of course, their projected HRR shows that the players share would be 52%, but in reality they are not proposing a percentage so the NHL has no interest in going that route.
In the video above, the NHLPA claims that both sides need to compromise in order to get a deal done, but at this point they are crying wolf as they have proposed too much change in the current CBA and have provided a situation where the NHL must gamble if they took their proposal. Simply put, the NHLPA has complicated matters even further while the owners have clearly tried to keep it simple. Some may call their ideas innovative but I call them greedy, unrealistic, and
purposely provided fans with a finger to point in the NHL’s direction. It’s all smoke and mirrors for the PA.
Gary Bettman has entered his 3rd lockout during his tenure as NHL commissioner. He is booed in every building he steps into and he already knows that he has zero fan support. If there’s anything to take out of that, he is far removed from getting involved in the media circus and he is simply there to do his job and negotiate a new deal. You can’t say the same about Donald Fehr and the NHLPA.
There is still hope out there that the season may be delayed until November or December, but that isn’t an opinion that I share and can see this dragging out for another full season if things continue on this trend. The NHLPA has played dirty. They’ve won fan support and the only reason they have been so active in that area is to put pressure on the NHL to agree to their proposal. At this point it hasn’t worked and until they decide to negotiate without a media distraction they won’t be taken seriously by the NHL owners.
Try not to mistake my apathy towards the NHLPA as enthusiasm for the NHL. Neither deserve your support or attention until a deal can be resolved.
The biggest problem is that Hockey Related Revenue has so many different deductions that the players are only getting a percentage of a percentage to begin with. The 57% number really isn’t all that accurate when you account for all those deductions and from what it sounds like, it’s close to 50/50 already.
The players gave up a lot during the last lockout in hopes that it would avoid another lockout. As Curt mentioned, the NHL has no idea how to create a good financial model and instead of trying to figure out how to fix it, Bettman is content with simply gouging the players because it worked last time. And that’s because it’s a lot more unifying than suggesting that the profitable teams share revenue. It also means Bettman doesn’t have to make any difficult decisions.
The biggest issue is the wide difference in revenue between the teams. Unlike other sports, there is no large TV contract. One approach would be more revenue sharing, but there is already something like 150 million in revenue that is shared and there are only about 6-8 teams that are making big bucks. More revenue sharing would not solve the problem, because there are only a few teams it could come from. So the only other option involves player salaries, and at 57% of league revenue its unreasonable anyway. The NHLPA has been hostile all season, they voted down league realignment for no good reason. The Winnipeg Jets have to play in a U.S. southeast division because the NHLPA considers realignment to be “unfair.” They didn’t consider Winnipeg’s situation to be unfair, apparently. For the league’s part, they have initiated yet another lockout after a killer win in the last one which suggests to me that the league has no idea how to create a good financial model. That’s my 2 cents lol.
You completely forget that allowing Phoenix to fail and moving them out of the desert would save the league money and increase revenues.
Hi Richard. I don’t doubt that, but I don’t see how that impacts the NHL lockout. The entire Phoenix scenario is a fiasco, to be sure. It doesn’t solve the league financial picture though. The league’s attempts to place franchises in the sunbelt states was initially an attempt to increase exposure to secure a big TV contract. Instead it has been largely a disaster. A few teams in the south are in ok shape, but it seems that the southern teams only draw well when they are winning. At any rate, the city of Glendale AZ apparently has a new owner lined up to purchase and lose more money on the Coyotes. The NHL can’t simply prevent the purchase and move the team because they don’t like the location. That ship has sailed.
Hi Richard. I don’t doubt that, but I don’t see how that impacts the NHL lockout. The entire Phoenix scenario is a fiasco, to be sure. It doesn’t solve the league financial picture though. The league’s attempts to place franchises in the sunbelt states was initially an attempt to increase exposure to secure a big TV contract. Instead it has been largely a disaster. A few teams in the south are in ok shape, but it seems that the southern teams only draw well when they are winning. At any rate, the city of Glendale AZ apparently has a new owner lined up to purchase and lose more money on the Coyotes. The NHL can’t simply prevent the purchase and move the team because they don’t like the location. That ship has sailed.
Sorry, bud, but this is all on the NHL. Read the history of the negotiations, CBA, salary cap, etc. Bettman and only Bettman is to blame. If he wasn’t imbedded in the success of the bottom feeder teams he brought into the NHL in the first place, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. He negotiates for them and only them, as to continue what he does only requires the support of a handful of teams, not all the teams. I bet if any team like the NYR went off the record to talk about how they felt about this situation, they wouldn’t be too happy. Bettman is a fucking disaster as a commissioner. Articles like this that remotely give credence to this dirtbag do all hockey fans an injustice. @OccupyTheNHL
I’ve done pretty extensive research on the subject, so the history lesson is unnecessary and offensive to my credibility. Takes two sides to negotiate, if you want to focus all the blame on the NHL and Bettman, go for it. I simply laid out the fact that the NHLPA hasn’t exactly compromised as much as they are leading fans to believe and shouldn’t be placed on a pedestal for their lack of compromise. You state he negotiates only for the “bottom feeder teams” and neglects his big markets (who are now mad at him for some reason?), but realistically you couldn’t be further from the truth if you had checked your facts.
Ok. Where are your facts to say he has the support of 30 owners? Was it Devallano’s interview? I don’t believe it for a second. The owners of successful teams need this strike like I need another credit card bill. You say the PA “hasn’t exactly compromised as much as they are leading” people to believe couldn’t be more amorphous. That’s a fact?? The history is they took it up the butt last strike, did well over the interim, and are willing to go back a bit but not as much as bettman and his loser expansion franchises wants them to. Did I miss some fact that you can cite to me there?
No doubt. Both sides are guilty in what has become a PR battle more-so than a negotiation for a solution. Quit the antics and get back in the room. No one should care about either side until this is resolved, this is why I encourage everyone to unfollow both on Twitter, unlike them on Facebook, and effectively cut off the attention that they crave.
It’s a shame that this all has to happen. The last time it was to fix the game, this time it is all based on egos and greed.