Commissioner Gary Bettman and other executives of the National Hockey League have proven again to themselves, the players, and most importantly the fans that they still refuse to learn from their mistakes. The NHL has been locked out for the second time in eight years, although unlike the first lockout that consisted on revamping the salary system completely, this lockout comes down to one thing in particular, and that is greed.
There are two issues that failed to get resolved in the recent CBA negotiations. The National Hockey League Players Association or NHLPA led by Donald Fehr, and Gary Bettman haven’t been able to come to a solution to the question of player’s revenue shares. The players last year received about 57% of the NHL’s revenue, and owners alongside Gary Bettman feel that is far too high and initially proposed a 24% pay cut to the player’s salary. These cuts didn’t sound as appealing to the players. The league’s final offer proposed a 10 percent pay cut over the course of six years, and this again was unacceptable to the players, causing the immediate resultof the lockout. The real question here is, can you blame the players? The industry went from making 2.2 billion dollars to 3.3 billion since the last lockout, and the league was doing fantastic. There’s no need to cut the salaries of the people that are generating all of the revenue. Let’s not forget, without the players, there is no NHL, and without an NHL there isn’t millions of dollars flowing into the pockets of the executives.
The other issue that didn’t get resolved in the lockout had nothing to do with the players at all. It had to do with the new proposal of revenue sharing between organizations. The proposal was that big market teams like the Boston Bruins would share a piece of their overwhelming revenue with a fiscally smaller team like the Phoenix Coyotes. It’s trying to be passed because even though there is a salary cap that’s currently maxed out at 70.2 million dollars, teams like the Coyotes are only making 67 million dollars in revenue (not to mention they haven’t profited in years). They are immediately excluded from quality contracts that could get them good players on the ice, and attractions and perks off the ice. The Bruins on the other hand made 110 million dollars in revenue, so they don’t need to focus on the financial balance of the organization; they just need to be sure to stay under salary cap. It’s a big issue that the small market teams aren’t making money, but do you really blame the large markets for disagreeing with the new proposal? It’s their money, they made it, and they should have the advantage.
All in all, Gary Bettman refused to learn from his mistakes as the commissioner during the last lockout, and caused another one. He surely doesn’t want to cut down his eight million dollar contract by 24 percent, nor does he want to share it with smaller market teams. The main concern here is I don’t see any Bettman names on the back of any fan shirts either. The greed of the NHL owners, NHL executives, and commissioner Gary Bettman himself have dropped the ball again, and in a time where recognition, revenue and love for the game are booming, they dropped it when it counted.