Barring a save at bargaining table, future of NHL in doubt
The upcoming battle between the National Hockey League and its players association isn’t just another fight over money between rich athletes and rich owners.
It’s a battle for control–a faceoff to end all faceoffs–and the outcome may determine whether the NHL can continue to exist in its current form.
“Our case is very simple,” Commissioner Gary Bett-man says. “The economics of our league don’t work. There are fundamental issues that are going to be addressed for this game to have a future.”
Rhetoric? Yeah, there’s a little there, but the issues are real.
Revenuewise, the NHL has sustained solid growth, moving toward the $2 billion mark during Bett-man’s 10-plus years at the helm. But over most of that time, the economics of the league have been dictated by an agreement that owners believe no longer works. They don’t claim it no longer works in their favor–they argue it doesn’t work, period.
Players don’t entirely dispute that. They’re aware of the empty seats at many arenas, the high ticket prices, the lack of a lucrative television contract.
Yet, they argue that they entered into a deal (after a 103-day owner lockout some nine and a half years ago) that both sides agreed to. They allow that the game has its problems, but they contend those problems aren’t their fault and that a salary cap isn’t a solution. The league has not asked for a salary cap per se, but Bettman has demanded some form of “cost certainty.” To the players, “cost certainty” translates into “salary cap,” a concept they have vowed to fight, seemingly to the death.
In that regard, the NHL has charged its member teams with coming up with $10 million each to handle expenses incurred by a prolonged lockout, one that could last a full season or longer. The NHLPA has responded by advising players to create their own cash reserves.
Talk, even tough talk, is cheap, but when it’s backed up by real money–and both sides have been accumulating their funds for the better part of two years now–it starts to get serious.
The current collective-bargaining agreement expires Sept. 15, just before the traditional opening of training camps. There’s talk that the players might opt to strike before then (say during the playoffs this spring), but that’s not likely. The players don’t object to the contract they work under and it has not yet expired, so there is no valid reason to strike.
The owners, however, object heavily.
In their view, ticket prices–some of which have climbed 50 percent or more–have reached the point where they simply can’t be increased. They argue that virtually 100 percent of that increase has gone to player salaries. The league claims that up to 76 percent of its revenues is going to the players and without some form of “cost certainty” it can no longer continue to do business.
The players, whose salaries have risen almost 100 percent over the course of the current agreement, argue that no one has held a gun to the heads of the owners. The money was freely given, the players contend, and it wouldn’t have been given had it not been there.
The players further argue that if the owners truly do want a partnership with the players, then demanding a cap or some version of a cap isn’t the best way to go about it.
Players argue that revenue sharing is a better way and that limiting the free-market avenues of the contract puts too much of a burden on them and not enough on the owners.
That all seems status quo for a sports negotiation. But what complicates this one is the resolve, or at least the apparent resolve, on both sides.
The owners for years have ruled the NHL with an iron fist. Despite the inroads made by NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow, there are still a number of old-guard owners who, in the eyes of the players at least, would like to see the union broken and the league returned to the days when players were treated like cattle.
The players are aware that some change is needed, but they have a deep distrust of ownership because of well-documented abuses of the past. They also see the owners, fairly or unfairly, as a group that has never wanted to work with them, but to rule over them.
So where does it all go from here?
Not surprisingly, the owners want the players back at the bargaining table. There have been two preliminary negotiations, but no others are currently scheduled.
The players want to delay talks until a sense of urgency develops, partly because it’s a tactic that’s worked in the past and partly because they are still working to get a sense as to whether or not the owners are serious about shutting down the game.
And the more the owners talk shutdown, the more the players state their resolve to outlast it.
With the war chests built up and the two sides having little trust or even respect for the other, the stage appears set for a showdown, one that could change the face of the game for years to come.
