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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
The NHL lockout is over. Hey, you. Wait a minute. Come back here! Plus: Fox comes up with yet another way to insult fans.
Jul 14, 2005 | Sports fans' lack of interest in the hockey lockout was transformed Wednesday back into indifference to hockey itself as the league and the players union reached an agreement, though that's sort of like saying USC and Oklahoma reached an agreement in this year's Orange Bowl.
The owners won in a rout. The players, who started this process refusing to negotiate on a salary cap and refusing to have salaries tied to league revenues, agreed to a salary cap tied to 54 percent of league revenues. Plus a 24 percent across-the-board rollback of salaries.
All this after losing a season, which makes up a pretty hefty percentage of the lifetime earnings of even a player who has a long career. If the players union were a team, it would have to improve a hundredfold to be the 1974-75 Washington Capitals.
The details of the new six-year collective bargaining agreement won't be made public until it's ratified by the NHL Board of Governors and the players, which is expected next week. Various publications are reporting that it will include a salary cap of about $39 million and a floor around $21 million. Individual players' salaries will be limited to 20 percent of team payroll, or about $7.8 million.
According to reports, the top 10 teams will share revenue with the bottom 10, owners will be able to choose salary arbitration, not just players -- a huge victory for owners -- and teams will be able to buy out contracts at two-thirds of their value. There will also be new, lower limits on rookie salaries.
On the plus side for players, they'll be able to become unrestricted free agents earlier, though they won't be able to make nearly as much money as in the old system, and a higher minimum salary will help marginal players. These are tiny items.
We'll just have to wait and see about the big changes fans care about, alterations to the game itself. Everyone seems to agree that the NHL, lagging behind lawn darts and candlepin bowling on the sports landscape even before the lockout, had better do something to improve the product.
Even with the pro-offense rules changes that are likely coming down the pike, the owners and commissioner Gary Bettman may have won a hollow victory. They're standing astride the fallen NHL Players Association, arms raised, but of what value is it to gain total economic control over the burning husk of a once regionally popular niche sport that in the last 300 days has lost metric tons of fan goodwill, billions of dollars and a television contract?
We'll find out, I guess. My hunch: not much. As Wayne Gretzky, who owns the Phoenix Coyotes, put it, "At the end of the day, everybody lost."
