The Voices of Reason: The NHL Lockout

The Voices of Reason: The NHL Lockout
by Various Authors

Now that the NHL lockout is officially over, this week The Voices of Reason will perform the post mortem on the whole messy ordeal: who won, who lost, and what's going to happen to hockey as a result.

1. Who got screwed more—the players or the owners?

Mark May—The players should be walking funny for months. Yes, they got reamed in the a-- that bad. It is hard to think of a union-management negotiation in the recent past where labor was routed as badly. Lose a year's salary? Thank you sir, may I have another. Chop current wages by 24%? Thank you sir, may I have another. Limit raises, cap salaries and drastically reduce the likelihood of mega-contracts? Thank you sir, may I have another. The only thing the players can claim as a victory is that they were not fired en masse like the air traffic controllers in 1981.

Ruth Torres, Los Angeles Kings fan—I think the players got screwed more, especially the veteran players. Because of the salary cap, they will have to cut their salaries this season by 24%. Teams may have to trade some of their better/veteran players to meet the cap, which will not be good for the league.

But the people who got screwed the most are the people who really needed the money, such as the ones working the concession stands and cleaning crews. Those are the people that were hurt the most.

Vance Macdonald—Over the past decade or so, I have found myself becoming more of an apologist for the owners. While I have very little respect for most franchise owners, the respective Players' Unions frustrate me to the point of swearing off the Big Four team sports altogether. This whole ordeal was a textbook lesson in negotiations. The owners held most of the cards, but the players were definitely at the table. Unfortunately for the players, the Players' Association had no clear strategy, creativity, or long-term vision, and instead clung to ego-driven short-term demands typical of unions. Exactly how not to play the one or two cards they held. Winner by TKO: The owners.

Glen MacLeod, fan of the 2003 New Jersey Devils—Everyone suffered: players, fans, ancillary employees, and owners; but the owners suffered the least and the players the most.

It appears that the players will end up with $300 million LESS in salaries per year than originally offered by the owners at the beginning of the lockout ($10 million less in cap times 30 teams).

Many of the owners on the other hand had their losses cut by the lockout. The total losses of the 19 NHL teams in the red in 2002-2003 season was $342 MILLION (which averages out to $18 million in losses per team). On the other hand, the profitable owners I'm sure don't depend on their team profits to bring home the bacon. (Their total profit in 2002-2003 was $72 million, or $6.5 million per team – not an exciting return even by today’s standards.)

Arthur Levitt, former SEC chairman, released an impartial analysis in early 2004 of the league's financial health. His conclusion was that the league was headed to a fall. He said you can't pay 75% of revenues to the players and expect to be viable. The NFL and NBA don't, and they have hard caps. The Players' Association's reaction to the report was to accuse Levitt of being a puppet of the owners. He replied that the numbers speak for themselves, and suggested to the NHLPA that they not let their egos get in the way. We all know that hockey players don't need an above average IQ to play in the NHL. The result is history, or soon will be.

Myra Sagun, Los Angeles Kings fan—With pay cuts and the uncertainty of how much they would actually be paid this coming season, I would say the players got screwed more. By effecting a cap, teams have less to spend on multiple high-salary players and these players could end up having their contracts bought out, like what happened to John LeClair and Tony Amonte.

But whose fault is this in the first place—when the Board of Governors increased the amount of teams in the league, it meant more teams would compete for the skilled players, driving their salaries up in order to acquire them. When the Board finally realized this basic law of economics, they locked out the players and blamed them for the labor dispute. But in the end I hardly feel sorry for the billionaire owners or millionaire players.

Jeff Lewis—I'm no hockey expert, but the owners' viewpoint that the salaries were not compatible with revenues seems valid (of course it was the owners who got themselves into the mess in the first place). The NHL lags way behind the other major sports in television revenue and merchandise sales, so it relies heavily on attendance. It's reasonable to believe that the new collective bargaining agreement, which contains a salary cap, will curb overspending by the NHL's superteams (Detroit, Colorado, New Jersey and a few others), and help raise fan attendance in the smaller markets.

It's a shame that this didn't happen ten years ago, so that the Canadian teams that had to leave town could have been viable. It's hard to believe that there are more teams in the South than there are in Canada.

Oliver Butterick—First off, there were no clear winners here. This
was a bad situation, and everyone lost—one way or another. That being said, from a negotiations standpoint, the players got screwed more. They ended up making concessions that they were dead set against just a few months earlier. However, this should not be a surprise—the owners had the luxury of being able to wait. They were not the ones who felt pressure
to make as much money as possible before they were too old to play anymore.

Dileep Rao—The players got screwed. Are you kidding? This isn't even close: the players killed the season in their staunch refusal to accept a salary cap or even engage in serious salary reductions only to...accept a salary cap and drastic salary reductions.

The NHL's biggest problems stemmed from the fact that the league deluded itself that it was a mainstream, big time, prime time American sport. It isn't, it never was. It was a specialty sport, one that was deeply popular with a limited but passionate segment of the populous. I love hockey. But hockey, and it's attendant international and very peculiar culture and sport, was not a product for the American south or for the national television audiences. The sport's revenue never justified the deals it was so foolishily signing with its players. The players should have seen the writing on the wall, cut their salaries drastically and had a sliding cap, of the type the NBA has. Now they have something worse than the NFL cap and the league is in worse shape, which brings me to...

2. What short- and long-term effects do you think the lockout will have on the league?

Dileep Rao—The league is in pretty bad shape, which may actually be a good thing. Hockey was gone for a year and most of America...shrugged. Or maybe yawned. Hockey is a passion in Canada and parts of Europe
and even in parts of the United States. But it was never a passion
in the country nor does it grab hold of the masses, the way football, baseball, and to a lesser degree the NBA do.

This may actually humble the league into treating its product and fans with some respect and dignity. Hockey is not nor ever will be some slick sport to market to everyone and sell to the rafters as a product of mass entertainment. Hopefully, freshly shorn of this delusion, the owners and league can cater to their very strong base, keep the league healthy, and, if growth is their cause in ten years, expand after the fans have their faith restored. They would be best advised to research good cities for new teams and reach out very slowly. As it stands, fans are angry but that will subside with the return of play.

It may also be advisable to contract the league over the near term, or perhaps quite suddenly. The talent pool is diluted from the 90's over expansion detailed above. There are several teams with terrible attendance and bad business models. Buy them out and close them, redistributing their players. As time goes on, yes, there might be a chance to expand. But rather than going where hockey must be imported (Flordia?!), go where hockey is a natural: abroad. The NHL should raise teams in Finland, Sweden and Russia. The rules need not be tinkered with to 'broaden' the sport. The sport should be marketed to those that love hockey.

Myra Sagun—Even with the amount of loyal fans hockey has, in the short-term I think there will still be a lot of angry fans who will boycott games because of how the lockout was handled. Teams probably foresee this happening as well since there are teams that will be offering discounts on tickets and other special promotions to lure these fans back. Eventually, though, attendance should return to near normal levels.

In the long-term, it should be better for the league since there is finally revenue sharing, and teams in small markets would be more financially viable and would not be in danger of having to move to larger—and often, hockey-ignorant—markets. Teams like the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers need to stay there, and without revenue sharing it didn’t seem likely it was going to happen. Canada already lost the Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques and it would be a shame for them to lose more teams.

Jeff Lewis—Hockey fans are pretty avid, so I don't think the lockout will cripple the sport, provided the owners drop ticket prices, or at least curb their increase.

The CBA contains some interesting rule changes that may make the game more exciting to watch. In particular, the 11% reduction in the size of goalie pads merits attention.

I've read that this rule is intended to increase scoring, but it should also benefit the top goalies. I reckon the gap between the best, most athletic
goalies, and the goalies that move about like lumps of padding should widen. If the mantra about the importance of goalies during the postseason is true, the smaller pads should benefit the teams with the
best goalies, even while average scores increase.

Mark May—Sports fans have shown time and again that they have short memories. Who remembers that the NHL only played 48 games in 1994-5? The fans stormed back to watch the Avs, Red Wings and Stars win Stanley Cups. Like a kidney stone, this debacle soon shall pass.

Actually, the bigger threat to hockey is not a lost season, but the product on the ice. Give us less of the numbing regular season games. Let's get to the playoffs where players usually give up the obstructing, fighting, clutching, grabbing, puck dumping and neutral zone trap and play what can be the most exciting spectator sport to watch live. And that may be the only way to watch pro hockey, since the NHL's TV contract is virtually nonexistent.

Ruth Torres—The short-term effect will be that attendance will probably be down this season. I may actually not go to as many games as before. Players and owners make more money in one year than most of us will make in a lifetime. I don't think either of them will get much sympathy.

Glen MacLeod—Short term there will be some chaos. New players, new coaches, new owners, boycotting fans, and who knows what the TV coverage will be. In my opinion, the most tragic result of the lockout will be the loss of those veterans who otherwise would have played but who will not return when the league restarts. We don’t know who they are yet, but it will be a tragedy for us as well as for them.

Long term, the league will be financially healthier, AND more fun to watch. The emphasis will shift more onto the game than the players. Younger, more energetic and more skilled players will replace the veterans at a faster pace. As a result, the game will be faster and more exciting with less importance on big hits and enforcers. I think that's good.

Oliver Butterick—The short-term and long-term effects of the lockout
are two sides of the same coin. In short, most old-school, die-hard hockey fans will be beating down the door to get their fix of hockey. A
year in rehab is certainly not enough to cure these junkies. Conversely, the influx of fans that the League experienced to accompany its rapid expansion of the 90's, will, for the most part disappear.

In the short-term, this means that while season-ticket renewals will be similar to their pre-lockout levels, sales of mini-packs and individual game tickets will be down, especially for teams that are new to their markets and have not enjoyed a lot of post-season success. In the long-term, this means that more teams will be packing their bags and moving to new cities in the next ten years, and some will be closing up shop entirely.

Vance Macdonald—Growing up in the oh-so-chic 70's, following professional sports consisted primarily of baseball and football. Hockey was highly regional, and barely registered as a curiousity in most of the country. Pre-Bird/Magic NBA played to crowds of under 10,000 (and all the fun was in a new league that was lucky if it drew half that many). Beyond that, you probably didn't even know other sports existed except for the beacon of ABC's Wide World of Sports.

All this to say that, today, this is not your father's sports page. Almost everyone under 25 has far more interest in the X-Games, NASCAR, and (ahem) poker than anything resembling the Big Four. Making matters worse, even stuffy sports like golf are making comebacks. I'd rather chew glass than watch golf, but I'm more interested in Michelle Wie than anything Jeremy Roenick will ever do or say.

Indeed, the NHL has shot itself in the foot. I know the owners are quite tickled with themselves right now, but I believe they have eaten the golden goose. Hockey, played fast and clean, is infinitely more exciting to watch than the amateurish spectacle that has become the NBA. My prognonsis for the NHL is quite grim; however, there are two remedies that can save this patient on life support.

First, the long-rumored rules changes must be sweeping and radical. Once and for all drop this WWE mentality that fighting brings in the fans. The only thing that will bring in long-term fans of the sport is fast, skills-based hockey. Second, HDTV is a godsend for two reasons: movies and sports. And no sport stands to benefit more from the glory of high def than hockey. Hockey in regular def is almost unwatchable, but in high def it is like having rinkside seats.

Short-term, the rules changes are the only hope for bringing casual fans back, and new fans into the fold. Long-term, I have to believe that the folks at ESPN-HD are salivating at the prospect of renewing a NHL deal on the cheap, and then promoting the hell out of it.

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