Attitude adjustment critical to any agreement
Both owners and players have to do their part if there is to be any hope of a hockey season this year
Find the number. That’s the key to settling the current impasse between the National Hockey League and its players.
The key players in this dispute have been around long enough to know there is a number that will satisfy both parties. The nature of compromise is that neither side will be happy with the number, but they will be satisfied.
The question hanging over the negotiations — or lack thereof — is when will the factions start working to find that number? Both sides are hung up over what have been described as philosophical issues that seem to the outsider to be nothing more than the hardcore stubbornness we associate with petulant children.
The NHL wants drastic cuts in the players’ share of revenue. After seven years of boasting about annual increases in revenue, the league is crying poor. But the economic state of the NHL resembles a Third World country, with rich teams at the top and a collection of struggling have- nots at the bottom. While the league’s initial proposal to the players asked for a five- year limit on contracts and equal payments in each season, the rich teams continue to sign players to front- loaded, long- term deals.
If the NHL wants the players to be a partner in solving the disparity among its member teams, it has to recognize that the teams must do their part. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has offered the NBA and NFL as the economic model for a new collective agreement.
That’s because the players in both those leagues accepted a cut in the percentage of revenue they shared, but Bettman ignores the fact both leagues have extensive revenue sharing among teams. As for the NHL players, they don’t want to take a pay cut, which is understandable. But it’s not realistic.
Donald Fehr, the executive director of the NHL Players Association, should realize the best- case scenario would be one in which the current dollar figure for salaries remains stable and the players surrender a share of future revenue increases. Is it fair? Probably not, but this is business and fairness doesn’t factor into this equation.
The players have to weigh any settlement against the damaging economic effects of a work stoppage. If, as some suggest, the league doesn’t begin play until American Thanksgiving, the players will have lost a fifth of their salary. If the work stoppage drags into the Winter Classic in January, they will be down 40 per cent. And anyone who was around in 2004 can remember the effects of the only lost season in professional sport.
But the NHL would also suffer with a lockout and, again, there’s a disparity between the haves and have- nots. Some owners will tell you they will lose less money by shutting down, but those owners aren’t in Montreal, Toronto, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or Boston.
When Bettman was asked about the possible negative effects of a lockout, he displayed a touch of arrogance when he replied: “We recovered well last time because we have the world’s greatest fans.”
The world’s greatest fans — the ones who were told by Bettman that the 2005 CBA might produce lower ticket prices — are being totally ignored in the current dispute. And while they may come back in the traditional markets, a lockout would wipe out the gains made last season in Los Angeles and Florida.
And how is Greg Jamison, the man who is supposed to take the Phoenix Coyotes off the league’s hands, going to line up additional investors to buy a team that has no hope of making money?
For the two sides to have a hope of resolving the issue, they have to get together and they need a change in attitude. If the NHL wants the players to help resolve whatever financial woes it faces, they must be prepared to share the cost. The free spending by the haves indicates the cap isn’t a problem and it makes it difficult for the league to cry poor.