Archive for the ‘Editorial’ Category

If Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr are unwilling to propose an economic solution, then I will

Posted by Cam Charron under Editorial on Oct 15, 2012

Radical CBA idea: Every month, at least one vintage game on national TV shown in black-and-white.

“The fact is we did what we had to do at the time. Our research showed that [the fans] were supportive of what we were doing because they wanted the problems fixed. They didn’t want a Band-Aid. They wanted better competitive balance and better economics in terms of franchise health and stability.” –Gary Bettman via The Instigator by Jonathan Gatehouse

If the NHL returns to play without a more comprehensive revenue sharing plan, this lockout will have been a complete waste.

Bettman is adamant in quotes and interviews about needing to draw a line in the sand for the 2004-05 lockout. He’s convinced that the NHL caved too quickly in 1994-95 without fixing the league’s structural problems, problems that he fixed, apparently, back in 2005.

The funny thing is that either the owners are lying in this labour dispute, or Bettman was completely wrong about the growth potential for the league. Some of that comes with the strengthening of the Canadian dollar, but the league is still a rich man’s game. In the United States, it’s the Philadelphias, Bostons and New Yorks that are financially healthy. As the rich get richer, the poor teams have to spend more money, and with the limited revenue sharing the NHL offers to its weaker teams, they have a harder time competing.

I refrain from using “small market” because in reality, Phoenix isn’t a small market. St. Louis isn’t a small market either, and neither is Denver or Dallas, but the four teams have exhibited an aversion to spending money on hockey players like small markets in Nashville or Long Island. That hurts the NHLPA more than the NHL—since players collected 54-57% of league revenues, there’s an opportunity cost involved by not having big market teams collect revenue, and spend money like big market teams ought to like they do in baseball or football.

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The NHL lost opening night, and I’m strangely apathetic about it

Posted by Cam Charron under Editorial on Oct 12, 2012

There was a time when hockey, to me, was getting to watch this guy. It means so much more now.

Do you suppose Gary Bettman watches other sports?

I’m just sort of curious, because he might be able to recognize that his sport is being completely out-classed when it comes to post-season play. Even if the NHL was on TV last night, would it have changed our viewing habits?

People in my Twitter timeline who never tweet about baseball were all over the Baltimore Orioles last night. Afterwards, they were with the Oakland A’s, making the same desperate Moneyball jokes I was. The night was sort of anti-climactic, but that’s only because the MLB postseason so far, well, has been absolutely crazy.

If there’s a worldwide bacon shortage, there’s a worldwide HAM surplus, and the baseball players are the beneficiaries of that. The Tigers’ 6-0 win over the Athletics last night was the first game that seemed over before the final pitch in a couple of days worth of games. They’ve been crazy and oddly enough, two consecutive days of 12 hours of baseball wasn’t enough.

Do you suppose Gary Bettman watched all of them?

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For many fans, their lockout hockey options are miles and miles away

Posted by Daniel Wagner under Editorial on Oct 11, 2012

Were you aware of the existence of the Allen Americans? Neither was I. (www.chlphotos.com)

Today was supposed to be the first day of the NHL season. 8 teams were meant to play their first game today: the Bruins, Flyers, Blues, Avalanche, Canadiens, Senators, Canucks, and Flames. Instead, the NHL and NHLPA continue to discuss everything but the core economic issues during the CBA negotiations, leading to fears that the entire NHL season might be lost to the lockout.

Not to worry: there’s still hockey. The AHL regular season kicks off tomorrow, with 7 games on the schedule, as does the ECHL regular season, with 8 games of their own. The major junior leagues in Canada are already in full swing, as is NCAA division 1 hockey and the USHL in the States. For a lot of hockey fans, there is high-level hockey being played nearby, so who needs the NHL?

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy for every fan. For many hockey fans living in NHL cities, their hockey-viewing options are far more limited.

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“Competition”

Posted by Cam Charron under Editorial on Oct 05, 2012

Bobby Holik: 5 years, $45M

Constant lockout talk isn’t something that a lot of people like to read about, but a few good reads about the state of the NHL in 2004-05 and even from 1994-95 show something about the key players in the current labour spat.

Bill Daly came out yesterday and said “this is not about ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ a negotiation. This is about finding a solution that preserves the long-term healthy and stability of the League and the game.”

I think for people who know Gary Bettman, they might disagree. As little as the country wants to read about the lockout, I think the off-ice game is somewhat fascinating. I’ve promoted it on a couple of posts before, but I do highly recommend picking up Jonathan Gatehouse’s The Instigator, his new book about Gary Bettman. It’s full of good nuggets about not only Bettman as a person, but also the way the league operates.

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“The Sidney Crosby Exception”

Posted by Cam Charron under Editorial, Pittsburgh Penguins, Sidney Crosby on Sep 28, 2012

In reading about Gary Bettman, it’s clear that many of the things the NHL has demanded from its Players’ Association are lifted from work previously done with the National Basketball Association.

Forgotten is in how much trouble the NBA was when Bettman was hired by that league in 1981. The league had expanded to 23 teams, but arenas were half-full and the games were only televised late at night on tape-delay.

It’s almost a parallel to the NHL in the mid-2000s. The league switched over to a soft salary cap tied to league revenue, the first of its kind, and a modest new TV deal along with the arrival of a star player helped grow the game to fantastic heights.

Michael Jordan and Sidney Crosby are different people who appeal to different audiences and had different modicums of success upon entreating the league. Crosby was a phenom since his early teenage years, Jordan wasn’t even the No. 1 overall pick. His rookie success got him a Sports Illustrated cover and a major draw in opposing rinks.

Crosby only visit 19 road rinks in his rookie season; The second biggest failing of the NHL coming out of the last lockout was the emphasis on divisional regular season games that prevented star players from playing in every arena. He couldn’t be marketed the same way as Jordan, even though hockey is a lot like basketball in the way its season is structured. What remains though, is that him and a select few other NHLers generate a buzz when they’re in town. As such, they ought to be scheduled to play in every single rink.

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LOLKatz

Posted by Daniel Wagner under Daryl Katz, Editorial, Edmonton Oilers on Sep 25, 2012

On Monday, Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz was in Seattle for one reason, and one reason only: to attend the Seattle Seahawks game against the Green Bay Packers. He got a chance to see one of the most exciting finishes to a game this season, as well as one of the most blatantly botched calls by the NFL replacement referees. I’m sure the story of him being there for that game will be a highlight of all his interviews in the near future.

Okay, he may have had an ulterior motive for visiting Seattle.

A couple weeks ago, Katz approached Edmonton city council and asked for more public funds to help pay for the construction and operating costs of a new arena. City council said no. Cue the veiled threats to relocate the franchise, the articles from the Edmonton media that freak out about the possibility of relocation, and the official Oilers twitter account retweeting one of those articles as a tacit endorsement of the threat.

It’s a bit of a gong show.

Katz’s visit conveniently comes right on the heels of Seattle city council voting to approve the building of a new NHL-suitable arena in the Sodo district. The implication is clear: heed my demands or I’ll move the Oilers to Seattle.

The problem for Katz is that it’s a completely empty threat.  Read the rest of this entry »

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The NHL: Great for consumers, not so great for fans

Posted by Cam Charron under Editorial, Lockout News on Sep 24, 2012

First noted by Travis Hughes of SBN, who spent a portion of his Saturday night reading the available parts of the NHL Constitution online, there’s an interesting measure in that document:

2.2. The League shall be operated not for profit

This is under the big title text on Page 1 of the Constitution, titled as the “CONSTITUTION OF THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE” (An Unincorporated Association Not For Profit). The NHL’s now-expired CBA available on Capgeek in its preamble calls the league “a joint venture organized as a not-for-profit unincorporated association”.

When league V.P. Bill Daly has discussed economics in depth, he’s been partially reserved, not talking about the guaranteed profitability of franchises, but he wants to ensure 30 healthy franchises “having an opportunity to make money”.

It’s about that time when you realize why the NHL owners are preferring to become majority owners of arenas and outside ventures relating to hockey, as to not make money directly through the league. “Everyone knows a good accountant can turn an $8-million profit into an $8-million loss, especially when owners have more than one business”, then NHLPA executive Bob Boughner suggested to the media at the time of the Levitt Report in 2004 that suggested the NHL as a whole lost $273M in 2002-03.[1]

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