Bettman on escrow: Players can Pay us now or pay us later
Gary Bettman says he's taking a common-sense approach in trying to get the NHL season underway.
And, while the members of the NHL Players' Association aren't happy the league is asking them to come back to the table to work out finances so the puck can drop on the 2020-21 campaign, the NHL commissioner maintains he's not trying to renegotiate the collective bargaining agreement they signed in July.
Speaking at a virtual “Dealmakers in Sports” conference held by the Sports Business Journal Daily on Wednesday, Bettman said he doesn't want to change the CBA, but things have to make financial sense if the league is going to return to play.
He insisted that, if the players don't do their part now, they'll have to pay the escrow back at some point because the collective bargaining agreement system calls for a 50/50 split on hockey-related revenues.
“We're not having negotiations and we're not seeking to renegotiate,” Bettman said. “We made a lot of assumptions over the summer, most of which aren't applicable anymore.”
Bettman has indicated the players can kick the can down the road on escrow, but if they don't pay now, they'll likely have to surrender some cash in the later years of the deal.
“If we overpay them and they don't pay us back in the short term, they have to pay us back over time,” he said. “There will be stresses on the system. We've had discussions about what those stresses are and how they might be dealt with, but we're not saying, `You must do X, Y and Z.' We're trying to look for ways to continue to work together.
“I know it's being portrayed as something else. It's unfortunate and it's inaccurate, because at the end of the day, if the system gets stressed it's going to be stressed for both of us.”
While talks between Bettman, deputy commissioner Bill Daly and union executive director Donald Fehr continue, they haven't found a solution or set a date for the start of camps. It's a certainty the league will have to move its Jan. 1 target date for starting the season.
Bettman didn't think that would be the case when he negotiated the CBA. But with the possibility of starting the season with empty arenas, the league is now looking for another US$300 million in savings.
Bettman noted it's impossible to set a start date right now, and a lot will depend on the spread of the virus.
“That's a work in progress, influenced largely by what we're hearing from the medical experts. COVID-19 is going through a second wave which could be worse than the first wave,” he said.
Sounds like there's no shortage of work to do.