NHL PLAN FULL OF MYTH PRINTS

[Rock]

NHL PLAN FULL OF MYTH PRINTS

http://www.nypost.com/sports/37600.htm

January 2, 2005 -- THE CHRISTMAS season may be over but the Mythmas season never ends, not when it comes to the NHL's lockout propaganda. So, just 12 days before the Board of Governors convenes for a rally in Manhattan, let's address a couple of the more egregious bits of phoniness from hockey's would-be lords.

Myth 1: The NHL's revenue-sharing plan will help low-income clubs such as Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Nashville and Anaheim in their quest to compete.

Reality: Under the NHL's sketchy proposals, only the bottom 10 revenue producers would receive aid, meaning that the Oilers, who ranked between 12th and 16th last year, would not receive a nickel from the pool of between $80-95 million. What's more, should the Oilers make the playoffs, they indeed would become a payer, not a receiver, under the NHL plan.

Furthermore, many of the league's proposals stipulate that in order to receive aid, a club must play to 80 percent capacity. That prerequisite would alone have eliminated four of last year's bottom feeders: Nashville, which filled approximately 77 percent of its seats while producing the least amount of revenue in the league; Washington, which played to about 79 percent capacity while bringing in the fifth-least revenue; Carolina, which filled just 65 percent of its arena as the ninth-least money-maker, and Pittsburgh, which played to 70 percent capacity as the 10h-smallest income-producer.

Then of course, as we previously reported on Sept. 16, the league has also eliminated those teams in television Designated Market Areas of more than 2.5M households, which means that Anaheim, which plays in the LA DMA, wouldn't receive a cent, even as the eighth-least revenue producer.

On top that, the league's plan to tax playoff gates would likely have meant that Calgary, which played 12 home games in going to the seventh game of the Finals, would have lost money on the scheme, even as the NHL's sixth-lowest income producer. P.S.: Because Nashville played three home games while losing in the first round of the playoffs, the Predators would have been forced to pay into-while not receiving from-the revenue share fund.

And did we mention that because the league hard cap would mandate minimum payrolls of $32.6M, Nashville and Pittsburgh would have been forced to pay their players more money than they did a year ago, as would bottom 10 revenue-share receivers Florida and Atlanta. Oh; Edmonton, too.

Now who wants to be first to jump head first into the (NHL revenue-share) pool?

Myth II: Cost certainty is necessary to contain the price of NHL tickets.

Reality: Since 1994-95, the first year of the late, lamented CBA, league salaries have increased approximately 315 percent. Yet, in that same span, ticket prices have increased approximately 32-perecent.

With all numbers sourced from Team Marketing Report, the1994-95 the average NHL ticket cost $33.49, more expensive than the NBA average of $30.03. Yet since then, the cost-certain NBA has imposed a 50.8 percent increase in ticket price on its customers, up to a current $45.28, or a $1.06 more costly than a hockey ticket.

Moreover, the ultimate hard cap NFL average ticket price has increased by 77.59 percent since 1994, from $30.83 to $54.75.

How odd that the NHL, the one winter league that has been operating without cap containment the last decade, not only has the cheapest ticket price, but has also imposed the comparatively smallest increase on its customers.

Myth III: A hard cap will promote parity will which in turn will create increased attendance and increased revenues for small market or traditionally unsuccessful clubs.

Reality: In 2002, the Hurricanes went to the Finals, and spent money to keep the team together. Last year, two years after losing to Detroit in a series that supposedly put Raleigh on the NHL map, the Hurricanes had the next-to-worst average attendance in the league, better only than Pittsburgh, and one spot behind first-time playoff-qualifier Nashville.

In 2003, Anaheim went to the Finals, and after losing in seven to the Devils, spent money to retain J-S Giguere and sign Sergei Federov as a free agent after not qualifying Paul Kariya. As defending Western Conference champions, the 2003-04 Mighty Ducks finished 23rd in the league in attendance.

Merry Mythmas everybody.

*

TSN is to the lockout coverage in Canada as CBS was to the election coverage in the U.S.

Hey, that ESPN investigative work on the lockout deserves an Emmy of the network's very own, don't you think?

Given Sideshow Rob Ray's suit against the PA, we're told that there are more than 50 players in the league last year who have not received stipends from the union, given its belief that those athletes had signaled an intention to retire.

Mark Messier, you should not be surprised to learn, is not included in that group.

*

Finally, "Nobody misses the game more than I do," The Times this week quoted Gary Bettman, who apparently is trying out material for his next job as a stand-up comedian.

[DevilMinder]

Hmm, wonder how much it would cost to have an ignore Brooks modification added to this forum heh.

[CRASHER]

does he actually write columns still or does he just re-arrainge the words in the same drivel week after week ??

[Rock]

Hmm, wonder how much it would cost to have an ignore Brooks modification added to this forum heh.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

DM if you don't want me to put them up, I won't.

I've tried to put up all articles from both sides. I've seen other pro players writers express the same points as Brooks, without the "Brooks vitriol". They actually make a case for their points. Those writers are not as prolific as Brooks for whatever reason. (For example, a good editorial staff.)

Edited January 2, 2005 by Rock

[NJDevs4978]

Myth 1: The NHL's revenue-sharing plan will help low-income clubs such as Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Nashville and Anaheim in their quest to compete.

Well presuming his numbers are correct he's right that the revenue sharing doesn't exactly do much for the small markets, but honestly it's the cap itself and not revenue sharing that's meant to help small markets keep pace. I'm not nearly as big a fan of revenue sharing as I am a cap.

Myth III: A hard cap will promote parity will which in turn will create increased attendance and increased revenues for small market or traditionally unsuccessful clubs.

Now IF he had pointed out that the NHL already HAS parity and x number of teams have gone to the Finals and five teams have won Cups in ten years, he'd have 'disproved the myth' just by that, but he uses two pre-cap examples of teams that had severe dropoffs after Cinderella runs.

This one actually wasn't terrible compared to Brooks' other propoganda pieces though.

Edited January 2, 2005 by Hasan4978

[SueNJ97]

Has, there has been a reasonable amount of parity in who has GONE to the finals. It's who has won it (with the exception of Tampa Bay) and whether the teams who went to the finals can even get back to the playoffs that is a concern. In many cases, these teams are one-year wonders. They have a magical ride and completely fall apart. So what were they??? Certainly not competitive long-term. Meanwhile, as much as I love seeing NJ win the Cup, look at the last 10 years:

NJ: 3 Cups

Detroit: 3 Cups

Avs: 2 Cups

Dallas: 1 Cup

Tampa: 1 Cup

OK, maybe you can say how different was it than another 10 year period, 1980-1989:

Islanders: 4 Cups

Oilers: 4 Cups

Habs: 1 Cup

Flames: 1 Cup

Or 1985-1994

Oilers: 4 Cups

Penguins: 2 Cups

Habs: 2 Cups

Flames: 1 Cup

Rangers: 1 Cup

So actually, it really hasn't been any WORSE in terms of how Cups have been split up except for the fact that no team from Canada has won one in the last 10 years. Plus, the Avs, Dallas and Detroit all spend LOTS of $$$ and for all of their Cups NJ was always in the top 1/3 and for the last 2, the top 10 in spending.

However, Has was correct that this was a somewhat better than usual Brooks article. If you ignore the usual vitriol, he is getting to something on the revenue sharing rules. They are not exactly brilliant. They are, in fact, set up to PREVENT Chicago from getting any revenue sharing. At least, that's what the DMA rule is there for and I'll bet that's what the 80% rule is there for as well. As for the salary cap, well, it doesn't do much for those teams, like the Pens, who have total revenues that come in under the Cap (and they do) and who require revenue sharing but wouldn't get it because they don't meet the requirements. Bankruptcy, here they come. Thanks, Bill Wirtz. Because they don't want to share revenues with YOU, everyone else loses.

[RowdyFan42]

Normally Brooks is so full of sh*t he's about to explode, but this time he's right on the money. The NHL's revenue sharing plan is a sick joke, and the arguments about ticket prices and parity are nothing more than PR distractions, much like the union's rollback offer.

[NJD Jester]

Know why Larry Brooks is the scum of the Earth? Because only Larry Brooks would point to the lone unmitigated disaster of team relocation (Carolina) and act as if that's the norm.

Oh, and Larry: The Ducks' average attendance in 2003-04 was 14,987. In 2002-03, it was 13,988. As defending Western Conference champions, their gate increased by nearly 1,000 fans per game; in 00-01 it was 13,499, and in 01-02 it was 12,002. So I guess parity works, huh?

Not that Brooks is a misleading fraud of a journalist or anything...

<JESTER>

[thegame346]

The problem with Parity is the players. A team like Anaheim goes to 1 cup finals, gets to a game 7, and loses. Then Giguere wants a ton more money because he "carried" their team through the playoffs and while they are at it they go ahead and sign a big name like Federov to keep butts in the seats. They wind up losing again and the fans say "well I guess it really was a cinderella run and we aren't that great of a team" so they don't show up to the games anymore.

In this situation its the owners fault because he jumped in head first thinking this was Anaheims big chance to get on the map so he makes all these big moves instead of big little moves gradually like the Devils did after the 93-94 season.

So now he's stuck with a big fat bill and no fans to help pay it. Sorry bubba but thats not the NHL's fault.

However I am not totally defending the NHL. I could go on for a long time about how childish and irresponsible both sides are being but I do not have the time.

On another note this is my first post on this forum in a long time. Its good to be back. I usually post on devilsrule.com but I will try to come here as well.

[BleedsRangerBlue]

Parity should actually be measured in terms of variance amongst all the winning percentages in the league in the regular season. So yeah, Brooks' examples are terrible. But I do agree with him that winning teams in smaller markets don't necessarily increase revenue much. The Devils have won 3 Cups in 10 years and the Rangers have missed the playoffs 7 years in a row, and yet the Rangers still exceed the Devils in revenue.

And does the salary cap necessarily increase parity? Most people are misled by this term, which actually means that teams have more or less the same amount of talent. So does the NFL have parity, or just unpredictability because of a 16 game schedule and a 1 game playoff series? Do the Cleveland Browns have the same amount of talent as the New England Patriots?

Also, the cap at $38 million won't do anything for Nashville when they can't even spend that amount, so revenue sharing is necessary. And taxing playoff revenue and using it for revenue sharing is ludicrous, because that would actually make it so that teams, especially the small market teams, NOT want to make the playoffs. It's amazing that under this plan the Rangers wouldn't have had to share any revenue the past 7 years, while under the PA's proposal, they would have given up $5-$10 mil per year.

[Triumph]

The salary cap offers the potential for parity. That's all it's supposed to do. Do you think the Indianapolis Colts could sign Marvin Harrison and Peyton Manning without that cap? Salaries would've long since spiraled out of control in the NFL if not for the cap.

The NHL's offer involving playoff revenue sharing is ridiculous. They had me completely on their side until they tried this move. Not every team is going to make money every year. With good scouting and good management personnel, every team can have a shot at the playoffs. Ideally, all teams should be run to at least the break-even point in the regular season, so that the playoffs can be all profit.

[SueNJ97]

The salary cap offers the potential for parity.  That's all it's supposed to do.  Do you think the Indianapolis Colts could sign Marvin Harrison and Peyton Manning without that cap?  Salaries would've long since spiraled out of control in the NFL if not for the cap.

The NHL's offer involving playoff revenue sharing is ridiculous.  They had me completely on their side until they tried this move.  Not every team is going to make money every year.  With good scouting and good management personnel, every team can have a shot at the playoffs.  Ideally, all teams should be run to at least the break-even point in the regular season, so that the playoffs can be all profit.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But Tri, the Tim Panaccio article from the Philadelphia Inquirer got to the heart of the matter, I think.

1. Teams with high regular-season revenues (like the Flyers, Leafs, Wings, Rangers, Avs, et al) would actually prefer a luxury tax so that they could continue to spend higher amounts for players if they so choose. However, that would require a more SIGNIFICANT revenue sharing plan, in other words, that would require sharing of REGULAR season revenue in order to allow the smaller-market teams to remain competitive.

2. These teams REFUSE to share regular season revenues. That includes the Bruins, who have the high revenues, but also want a cap to begin with because they don't want to spend and don't want anyone else to spend either.

3. In order to make lower-revenue teams have a chance with the small amount that would be available from post-season revenue sharing, Bettman has to go for a cap. The high revenue teams prefer that to a luxury tax with regular season revenue sharing because they can keep their entire revenue stream as profit, sinking some of it back into the organization to hire the best scouting and coaching available.

As I pointed out, the revenue sharing rules as they are set up are dumb. But they are to prevent certain owners from getting a piece of the pie. The DMA rule might as well be called the "Wirtz rule" because that's what it is. And if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the attendance rule was Mike Illich's way of getting back at Peter Karmanos. Just a guess. But it would make sense. Of course, it is all so stupid as to be bordering on the INSANE, but who says it has to be intelligent???