On the Lockout

Admittedly, I have been willfully ignorant of the daily "news" regarding CBA negotiations.  I have little doubt there will be a lockout, and I refuse to take sides or get caught up in the little issues.

When the parties get serious, they'll find common ground.  There are no absolutes or untouchable principles in these negotiations, and in the end it's just who gets how much money.  That said, I've seen a lot of commentary regarding the lockout that I find curious.

One comment I've heard a few times is that the big contracts being thrown around are evidence that the "owners" are making money and are being hypocritical.  That seems to me to be a completely unwarranted conclusion from a small slice of evidence.  On the one hand, you can say that obviously means the owners have money to spend, but one could look at the same evidence and conclude that it proves the financials of the current CBA are broken, and requires the owners to make backbreaking deals to compete on the ice.

I think there are some realities that need to be considered here.  One, GMs and owners aren't really one in the same.  An owner wants the prestige and fun of owning a pro hockey team, and would prefer to make money for his trouble.  He certainly doesn't want to lose his personal fortune propping the team up, however.  A GM's job is purely to win under the set of rules he is given.  Once the CBA is laid down, a GM's job is to manipulate and exploit the system as much as possible to give his team a leg up.  His boss (the owner) can veto any deal he makes, but the GM has to try and make the deal.  This means exploiting contract loopholes before they are closed in the new CBA.

I suppose an owner could take a principled stand and say "these long term deals are killing the league, so out of good faith don't sign any this offseason," but why would the owner competitively disadvantage his team going forward?  Such loopholes can be dealt with far more effectively in the longterm through the new CBA.  This calculation is cynical, and there will always be an element of saving the "owners" from themselves, but it's not really hypocritical.

The second thing you have to consider is that the "owners" are really a disparate group of franchises with very different financial realities.  With the salary cap, it seems clear that the the rich franchises are sitting on piles of cash they are unable to spend.  On the other end of the spectrum poor franchises are being forced to spend beyond their revenues to reach the salary cap floor.  Unless teams are contracted (which won't happen), the "owners" collective has to act on behalf of their struggling brethren.  It seems to me that the mistake here is that the salary cap range was too small, but then you get into issues of competitive balance and the like.

There are lots of way to address this practical issue, like salary range limits, revenue sharing, trading cap space, non-guaranteed years...etc, all of which would make for interesting hockey discussion.  I don't know what the best answer to all of this would ultimately be, but unfortunately that's not the contentious issue out there right now.  The real sticking point thus far is how much "hockey related revenue" the players are entitled to.  The answer to that question is independent of any other consideration or issue and will only be settled through hard negotiation, which takes time.

A professional sporting league is by nature a contrived situation where organizations collude for mutual benefit, while still competing against one another.  It is inherently contradictory.  Let the boys fight over who gets the bigger piece of pie.  Until then, be wary of platitudes about the millionaires or billionaires being "greedy," or a hockey fan favorite---blame it all on Bettman.