NHL - The No Hockey League
It is February 2005 and the NHL has yet to play a regularly scheduled hockey game. The players union has no contract with the league/owners and are unable to come to an agreement for a new contract. The team owners have called a lockout until such time as a player's contract has been agreed to and signed by the owners and players.
The owners want a new player's contract that will tie total player salaries to the total revenues the league takes. This would in effect provide for a 'salary cap' on how much each team could spend for player salaries each year and the cap would be based on estimated total team revenues. The players have offered to cut all player salaries by 24% for the first year of the contract but from then on, salaries would continue to escalate as before. The owners insist that the would only provide short term relief but that the league would be back to where it is now in a few years. One might argue that the owners should restrain themselves when it comes to salaries offered to players, but that really won't work. The owners in major league baseball tried that in the mid 1980s and the free-agent players sued the owners for restraint-of-trade and won a 100 million dollar judgement against the owners in the end.
Both the owners and players seem to have overlooked one important fact. Few NHL fans are either marching in the streets protesting over the lockout or indeed paying much attention to the fact that no NHL hockey games are being played. Owners and players continue to disagree on a new contract for a professional sport that mainstream sports fans have little or no interest in. The NHL has no over-the-air television contract (like Major League Baseball and the NFL). Televised games on cable in local markets is an after thought in the grand scheme of televised sports. Both sides should wake up to the fact that the NHL is a marginal professional sport at best and annoying the few fans they have, is not in their best interest if they wish to continue playing and making money off this sport. The players had better realize - soon - that they need to be on the ice playing and will have to eventually accept a salary cap tied to league annual revenues if the sport is to hold on to few fans they still have and earning a living playing this sport.
2/15/05 ( 253 )
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