Nik? said:
But it's meaningless. By that logic the players could have asked for 100% of revenue and grudgingly come down to 75% and claimed a meaningful concession. The players offer has been to give up something that they have, a percentage of the league's growth, in exchange for something they want which is a guaranteed dollar number.
I don't think so. The CBA agreement ended in mid September. What you claim the players "have" is now past tense to what the players "had" under an expired contract. They certainly don't have that now. Similar to the owners, the players have nothing except a bargaining position - currently down from 57% to 53.36% (roughly).
And we've seen that trend in the previous NHL CBA, the NBA CBA and the NFL CBA. Because profits for teams left a bunch to be desired, the unions starting bargaining positions suffered accordingly. The days are long over when a new CBA automatically meant a raise.
If the reports I've seen are accurate, the NHL just delivered some concessions to the players in the collective bargaining process relative to the previous bargaining positions taken by the two parties. That may not quickly solve the dispute but it is a concession in the right direction that ultimately helps gets them to where they have to go.
Previously and roughly, on the core economic issue
http://news.hockeydraft.ca/2012/09/20/nhlpa-memo-reveals-cba-details/
the NHLPA averaged about 53.36% of hockey revenues. The NHL averaged 47.5%.
For the NHL to offer 50% today is significant movement from their bargaining positions of a month ago. It covers nearly 43% of the divide between the two parties before the offer was made.
And this announcement by Bettman rightfully highlights to the players that if they can't get this wrapped up soon, the players will start to pay for it out of their own bank accounts because there will not be a complete season of revenues.
In 2004-5, most players would tell you it wasn't worth the pay that they gave up and they never recovered the money they lost. They didn't even establish a starting bargaining position that would project them to earn more as a % of revenues in this negotiation. I see no reason why the players can expect that to play out differently this time. In fact, given the owners and players recall how poorly that lockout worked out for the players, the chances of the players being successful seem even slimmer to me this time around.
Here's some math the players are probably thinking about:
The average NHL salary is roughly $2.4 mil (as of Nov 2011).
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ycn-10423863
The average NHL career is roughly 5.62 years.
http://www.quanthockey.com/Distributions/CareerLengthGP.php
And since roughly half the players are half way through their careers, for the players directly involved now, 2% of their outstanding (half of their) average career pay (1% of HRR) is very roughly $134,880.
A player making the average of $2.4 mil/yr makes $29,268 per game.
If the existing players miss five games of pay bickering over 1% of HRR, they cross into a territory where they start to lose money even if they win the extra 1% HRR. Think about that.
3.36% of HHR, the difference between where the players are (53.36%) and what the NHL has proposed today (50%) works out to 15.5 NHL games in salary for the average NHL player -
IF the players were to ultimately win all of 53.36% they asked for. That's the rough break even point. Any games missed beyond that, and the average player is likely to lose money they'll never recover.
18 or so owners were losing money under the last CBA anyway so I think they can afford to have more patience because unlike the existing players, they'll average more than 2.8 years (half of 5.62 average years for a player) under this new CBA agreement.
As the NHL is forbidden to address the players directly, this "concession" is also effectively final notice to the players on when they'll start losing money ... even if they got everything they asked for after sitting out a bunch of games. It's not a big window of games before the individual players lose money they'll never, ever make back.
Maybe it's just me but I don't think that message and concession from Bettman should be construed as "meaningless". The sooner they can get a deal done, odds are, the better off personally these particular players will be within reason. If and when the pendulum swings the other way in the years ahead, that would be a much better time for the players to take a stand and put the boots to the owners - when the owners have much more to lose.
To date, I don't see tons wrong with what Fehr has done. He's trying to get the best deal for his players. But if Fehr makes the same mistake Goodenow did, and gets the players into major games missed, I think he'll be doing them a disservice - losing them money they'll never get back like Goodenow did.
In another six years or whenever, when this deal expires and all either party has is a brand new bargaining position dependent more on league finances than the position their last deal ended with, those players can pick up the baton and push the envelope to maximize their pay.
There's no doubt in my mind that what the NHL offered today is quite meaningful as strikes me as a sign that they'll get a deal done in the relative near future - after a bunch of acrimony.