NHL's 24-team Return to Play proposal

[OldTimeHockey]

What does that have to do with anything?

You don't see the difference between a corner restaurant needing to open so that the owner doesn't lose his business and is able to pay his mortgage and a hockey team playing a handful of games so that the owner's net worth changes by something like .0001%? Within the context of saying that these businesses "need" to make this money?

It is not unreasonable for someone to look at a NHL team and think they might want to put health and safety over making a tiny bit of revenue in a way that does not apply to a struggling small business owner.

I didn't say anything about struggling small business owners.

What I don't see the difference between is places like Walmart, Costco, etc; and what they've done to continue making money and what the NHL is trying to do.

Like I said, I'm not a fan of the suggestion, but I can understand why a business would want to recover some lost revenue.

 

[Zee]

if the Leafs win the Cup they'll have gone through 5 rounds to do it. I'll celebrate that

 

[Kin]

I didn't say anything about struggling small business owners.

What I don't see the difference between is places like Walmart, Costco, etc; and what they've done to continue making money and what the NHL is trying to do.

You asked why anyone would expect these teams to behave differently than other "businesses". And the answer to that is that most businesses need to be open to survive. Most aren't owned privately by outrageously wealthy people.

Or, in some cases, like Walmart's and Cost-cos. They sell things like, you know, food and diapers and stuff. The NHL, love it though I do, is fairly superfluous right now and maybe not worth the health risk.

Like I said, I'm not a fan of the suggestion, but I can understand why a business would want to recover some lost revenue.

Like I said though, I'm not sure what extra revenue you see in a few teams playing a handful of games with no fans in a neutral site.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I would also add that places like Walmart and Costcos are taking pretty large measures to keep not only their customers safe but their employees as well. Those measures aren't going to be perfect I'm sure but it's something. I'm not sure what the NHL is going to do. Granted we haven't heard their full plan but we obviously won't be seeing physical distancing on the ice or probably even in the locker room where things like this have in the past spread very quickly.

 

[Deebo]

Like I said though, I'm not sure what extra revenue you see in a few teams playing a handful of games with no fans in a neutral site.

I'm jumping in here without reading the whole conversation, so I am not sure if you are talking about resuming with this 24 team format vs. a more tradtional 16 team tournament or just resuming vs. not resuming at all.

If it is the latter:

A portion TV rights fees would have to be returned without resuming the season.

The LA Times says there is a "considerable amount of TV revenue at stake"

https://www.latimes.com/sports/hockey/story/2020-05-22/concept-of-nhl-proposal-to-resume-play-approved-by-nhlpa-coronavirus

About 15% of the regular-season schedule remained when Commissioner Gary Bettman paused the season March 12 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With a considerable amount of TV revenue at stake, Bettman has said he?s determined to finish the season and award the Cup even if that means delaying the launch of the 2020-21 season.

ESPN says that resuming play this season could result in the NHL recouping over half of the $1B in revenue it is losing

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/29131024/the-nhl-coronavirus-pause-league-memo-makes-early-june-draft-case-return-play-talk-continues

In the meantime, the league is doing everything it can to salvage the 2019-20 campaign, which could recoup about half of the projected $1 billion in revenue the NHL is losing.

 

[Kin]

I'm jumping in here without reading the whole conversation, so I am not sure if you are talking about resuming with this 24 team format vs. a more tradtional 16 team tournament or just resuming vs. not resuming at all.

If it is the latter:

I actually mainly meant the former. I know having an end to the season/some sort of playoffs would mean revenues. I'm talking about the proposed format which would, at most, add few extra games with largely middling teams.

Expanding the playoffs, involving more players right now than is necessary, seems like a particularly bad move.

 

[herman]

This is stupid. Not just the format, but the notion that they should play out the season at all.

 

[Bender]

This is stupid. Not just the format, but the notion that they should play out the season at all.

Right. It's asterisk'd to hell and contingent on so many unknowables. Figure out the next season.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

This is stupid. Not just the format, but the notion that they should play out the season at all.

Right. It's asterisk'd to hell and contingent on so many unknowables. Figure out the next season.

So can I assume that both of you will make a conscious decision not to watch?

 

[Kin]

This is stupid. Not just the format, but the notion that they should play out the season at all.

Right. It's asterisk'd to hell and contingent on so many unknowables. Figure out the next season.

So can I assume that both of you will make a conscious decision not to watch?

I feel like "Will you watch it" is kind of an unfair standard right now. I'm watching German soccer and Danish political dramas these days. My bar isn't high.

 

[dappleganger]

Here's my recommendation. Same amount of "rounds" as the 24 team proposal. Re-seed after each round.

If the games are neutral site, travel/geography isn't a concern. 

 

[Phileas Fogg]

This is stupid. Not just the format, but the notion that they should play out the season at all.

Right. It's asterisk'd to hell and contingent on so many unknowables. Figure out the next season.

So can I assume that both of you will make a conscious decision not to watch?

I feel like "Will you watch it" is kind of an unfair standard right now. I'm watching German soccer and Danish political dramas these days. My bar isn't high.

Thanks to John Oliver, I watched an hour of marble racing yesterday.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

I didn't say anything about struggling small business owners.

What I don't see the difference between is places like Walmart, Costco, etc; and what they've done to continue making money and what the NHL is trying to do.

You asked why anyone would expect these teams to behave differently than other "businesses". And the answer to that is that most businesses need to be open to survive. Most aren't owned privately by outrageously wealthy people.

Or, in some cases, like Walmart's and Cost-cos. They sell things like, you know, food and diapers and stuff. The NHL, love it though I do, is fairly superfluous right now and maybe not worth the health risk.

Like I said, I'm not a fan of the suggestion, but I can understand why a business would want to recover some lost revenue.

Like I said though, I'm not sure what extra revenue you see in a few teams playing a handful of games with no fans in a neutral site.

Again, I'm not saying that I agree with them doing it. All I said is I'm not shocked they are trying to do it. Whether a business sells, diapers, food, entertainment, socks, or flowers, their goal, as a business, is to make money. Whether they need the money or not to survive, is irrelevant. These "outrageously wealthy people" didn't become that way by allowing opportunities to make money pass them by.

We can question the ethics of the decision all we want, but we can't be surprised that 'outrageously wealthy people" are making decisions based on dollars and cents and not on the overall wellbeing of the population or for that matter, their employees.

 

[herman]

This is stupid. Not just the format, but the notion that they should play out the season at all.

Right. It's asterisk'd to hell and contingent on so many unknowables. Figure out the next season.

So can I assume that both of you will make a conscious decision not to watch?

I feel like "Will you watch it" is kind of an unfair standard right now. I'm watching German soccer and Danish political dramas these days. My bar isn't high.

Thanks to John Oliver, I watched an hour of marble racing yesterday.

I thought I posted marble racing here a couple of months month ago.

 

[disco]

So it seems they're scrapping the last 10+ games of the regular season and going for a 5-round playoffs (for teams 9-24). I think teams 9-16, the NHL's middle-class, get the short end here. 1-8 have to play the usual 4 rounds to win the Stanley Cup, 17-24 are just blessed with a shot, but 9-16 have to win a best-of-5 against a traditionally non-playoff team immediately or they're sent home right away. To win a cup for them they would essentially to win FIVE must-win rounds.

And in terms of legitimacy I'll say this: once the 2-month, 5-round playoff grind gets underway, ending with a team hoisting Lord Stanley, I'm sure the teams will definitely feel it irregardless of whether others do. As much of an asterisk as the 48-game season in 2014. They've already put 85% of the regular season work in. Much more than that season.

 

[Kin]

We can question the ethics of the decision all we want, but we can't be surprised that 'outrageously wealthy people" are making decisions based on dollars and cents and not on the overall wellbeing of the population or for that matter, their employees.

Well, I think that's just demonstrably not the case. There pretty clearly are some people who are surprised by the capitalist classes and their complete disregard for human safety vs. the accumulation of unnecessary wealth.

Now, if you want to say people shouldn't be surprised by that given the inherently exploitative nature of capitalism and particularly the greed on display in our late stage capitalism then I am 100% with you comrade and I think that's why you're seeing growing popular support for actual measures to address the balance of power in our society and redistribute wealth away from the bosses.

 

[Bender]

Whether the regular season is 48 or 82 games (actually I'm in favour for less games anyway) means less to me than at least some semblance of a normal 16 team playoff format where the final reg season standings are what they are.

And this isn't even asterisking a cup win in the event that hypothetically two of the losing team's players test positively for COVID and lose because of that or players subsequently die because of it after the Cup is awarded.

Forgive me for taking the Murphy's Law stance here, but I've seen enough of 2020 for this to be my default stance until proven otherwise. 

 

[herman]

NHL: our season and business was shortened by a global pandemic of a highly communicable disease that spreads through droplet transmission that builds up viral load in repeated close proximity even from asymptomatic carriers.

It is our duty to protect the players safety first and foremost. Therefore we are going to force them to congregate into hub cities that have sort of handled the virus (but not really). In addition we are adding 8 more teams? worth of people into the mix to make it more fun and fair.

We, the NHL, are well equipped to handle our player and personnel safety. Our track record dealing with mumps and stomach viruses and flus and mono and retirement-inducing equipment rashes speak for itself.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

We can question the ethics of the decision all we want, but we can't be surprised that 'outrageously wealthy people" are making decisions based on dollars and cents and not on the overall wellbeing of the population or for that matter, their employees.

Now, if you want to say people shouldn't be surprised by that given the inherently exploitative nature of capitalism and particularly the greed on display in our late stage capitalism then I am 100% with you comrade and I think that's why you're seeing growing popular support for actual measures to address the balance of power in our society and redistribute wealth away from the bosses.

That's 100% what I've been trying to say though I guess I haven't articulated it well.

 

[Kin]

That's 100% what I've been trying to say though I guess I haven't articulated it well.

I guess what I'm saying is that considering we live in a society where a vast amount of wealth is in the hands of people who don't care if we live or die so long as their stock portfolio keeps increasing in value but despite that people haven't risen up and Robespierred the lot of them you also shouldn't be surprised that people might be surprised by the depths to which the capitalist class can sink.