Around the NHL 2024 - Offseason Moves

[Scoresberg]

Hockey salaries are beginning to get out of control. That’s gonna be the end of hockey as we know it if it continues. Dangerous business.

I’m not sure I’d go that far.

I mean, the cap is going to rise for a few years and the actual share of Matthews’ cap hit within the team remains quite the same as in his previous contract.

 

[herzausstein]

I’m not sure I’d go that far.

I mean, the cap is going to rise for a few years and the actual share of Matthews’ cap hit within the team remains quite the same as in his previous contract.

I feel like i keep hearing about these cap rises. I know it is supposed to rise after this season but it just takes another lockdown to screw this all up.

 

[Flgatorguy87]

Still below the other major sports

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

I feel like i keep hearing about these cap rises. I know it is supposed to rise after this season but it just takes another lockdown to screw this all up.

I don't see another big lockdown (or do you mean lockout?) happening. There's only 3 seasons left on the current CBA, so it's not impossible that this time in 2026 we could be talking about it. Just, I don't see any major "structural" type issues that would likely lead to a lockout or strike? Players and owners seem to have hit a spot where they are both making money, franchise values have soared. The things talked about today are relatively minor issues around the edges of things, nothing significant enough to lead to a labor dispute.

Unless the whole national economy tanks in the next 3 years anyway. Which I guess these days is never a complete impossibility either.

Or if you did mean lockdown due to another pandemic, well, ok, I mean, who can predict such things. But I'm not so sure society will have as much appetite for those measures as last time either? If the next thing is just much more deadly than Covid and there is no choice, well, we will all have a lot more to worry about than where the NHL Salary Cap goes.

If it wasn't for the Covid recovery escrow debt paybacks this year, the Salary Cap based on reports of $5.7-6B HRR could have been $88-92M depending on which escalator restriction clause they used. It sure seems like the numbers support a huge Cap rise coming anyway. They will probably be able to use the Covid escrow excuse to jump it a full 10% next year, and then the HRR growth would seem to support succesive 5% rises for the next couple years after that. So it is not outlandish to think that in the summer of 2026 when the CBA expires the Cap could be $100M... in which case a lot of players will have just signed some very juicy deals and be pretty happy, and meanwhile owners will be eyeing the $1B valuations of recent franchise sales and seeing even more $$$ coming from another Expansion, so nothing seems to be looming that should motivate them to rock the boat either?

 

[Predsanddead24]

Still below the other major sports

Yeah I saw this tweet the other day comparing his contract to other sports. I understand why but still crazy how far behind hockey lags in the salary front.

 

[Kat Predator]

The MLS cap is much, much lower.

The MLS and NHL suffer in terms of lacking big avenue TV contracts. The NFL is king of TV revenue and MLB and the NBA don't do too bad either.

I believe it is a self-fulfilling prophecy from the nature of the sports themselves to a large extent. The NFL (and its farm league, the NCAA) are all over numerous networks and have huge exposure. If you like to watch sports, you'd have to work hard to avoid seeing any football. Football as a game is almost perfectly made for commercials and ad revenue. One play may take a few seconds of actual time, then the play is over, play stops and there is a super convenient "down time" to interrupt the game and force feed TV viewers several minutes of commercials. Baseball and basketball are similar. (Ironically, baseball changed its rules within the game to "speed it up", but did not limit the commercial breaks this year.)

Hockey and soccer tend toward the opposite. Once the game gets started, it is continuous action. That action can happen for long periods of time. Hockey does have some planned stoppages for TV (clearing the ice), but soccer is even more extreme in this regard. The clock and how long a duration for any stoppage is simply up to the ref on the pitch. TV has to cram all the advertising in at the halftime, before, or after.

The amount of time that can be sold to advertisers makes certain sports potentially more profitable for TV companies to carry, which increases the competition between networks, which increases the total revenue, which increases the total going to players, etc. That all feeds directly into sports market saturation and drives the popularity wave with the viewing public in a viciously self-reinforcing cycle.

 

[hido]

Yeah I saw this tweet the other day comparing his contract to other sports. I understand why but still crazy how far behind hockey lags in the salary front.

This was the tweet. He's a hockey agent.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

This was the tweet. He's a hockey agent.

He's an antagonistic and annoying hockey agent... but... he's also not wrong. It's why I argue that Matthews should have just held out for $16M on his extension. Hockey players aren't pushing the limits. The CBA does constrain them to some extent... but there is also the whole factor of "taking one for the team" that is a little over-emphasized in hockey.

 

[Kat Predator]

This was the tweet. He's a hockey agent.

Back of the envelope using these numbers:

Given about half the revenue of the NBA and 150% roster size, if we take about $50M AAV from the NBA, we get something like $16.667M AAV. So the number $13.25M is a bit low by comparison, but not way out of line. (I doubt that is the point of the Xeet though. )

 

[PredsV82]

This was the tweet. He's a hockey agent.

The NBA makes sense because of the smaller number of players getting paid. 66% more revenue for half as many players.

MLB has almost twice the revenue for roughly the same number of players as the NHL. I have no idea how they can afford their salary structure. They also have no cap and no floor so you routinely get teams going 10 to 15 years without ever remotely being competitive

NFL has 3 times the revenue for 2 times the number of players. But NFL contracts also are not fully guaranteed so a lot of that "salary" doesn't get paid.

 

[nine_inch_fang]

NFL has 3 times the revenue for 2 times the number of players. But NFL contracts also are not fully guaranteed so a lot of that "salary" doesn't get paid.

This is a major difference.

Also the top salaries for the MLB are on the teams that have unlimited money so it's not like that top salary is a league wide norm.

Wonder what average numbers look like.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Back of the envelope using these numbers:

Given about half the revenue of the NBA and 150% roster size, if we take about $50M AAV from the NBA, we get something like $16.667M AAV. So the number $13.25M is a bit low by comparison, but not way out of line. (I doubt that is the point of the Xeet though. )

Basically, Matthews should have hired Walsh to be his agent. And this becomes an ad for other players out there.

Matthews should gotten $16M… and McDavid should get like $20M… but… it’s also kind of sweet that hockey players don’t push these things like other sports… a little naïve maybe, but then at the same time none of us in the population of “normal people” is going to feel particularly sorry for guys making that kind of money.

 

[nine_inch_fang]

Players have to weigh making the most money possible against winning. If they want to win a cup there has to be cap space to fill out the team and the rigid cap of the NHL doesn't allow for the types of cap shenanigans the other leagues have. Well, baseball doesn't have a cap but the point remains the same.

 

[Kat Predator]

Yeah, MLB is the obvious outlier here, and it is because MLB doesn't have a salary cap (they only share 48% of their revenues). The rich teams can basically do their own thing, buy/pay players whatever they want, etc. Competitive balance across MLB apparently isn't something the owners really care about.

PS: MLS has a $5.2M cap per team, but it's not a hard cap with the Beckham rule and designated players.

 

[PredsV82]

Back of the envelope using these numbers:

Given about half the revenue of the NBA and 150% roster size, if we take about $50M AAV from the NBA, we get something like $16.667M AAV. So the number $13.25M is a bit low by comparison, but not way out of line. (I doubt that is the point of the Xeet though. )

Didn't see your post before mine bit that's exactly what I was getting at.

And BTW I think they are called X-crements now

 

[Scoresberg]

Hockey is also 10x the team sport compared to those other sports.

 

[Olderfan]

Hockey is also 10x the team sport compared to those other sports.

Agreed, and I’m standing by my comment that NHL salaries cannot get out of control like the NBA in particular. The other major sports are living off of major TV deals, not attendance. TV is paying for the ridiculous salaries being paid. Hockey, as much as we love it, simply does not have the following to generate enormous TV deals. If salaries get out of control, like Mathews, franchises will fail and Nashville is a prime candidate. Not every owner is a billionaire owning a plaything as a hobby. Fans here cannot pay higher and higher ticket prices to support such salaries. We Nashville fans should really appreciate the salary cap; it has kept us in the league.

 

[Kat Predator]

Agreed, and I’m standing by my comment that NHL salaries cannot get out of control like the NBA in particular. The other major sports are living off of major TV deals, not attendance. TV is paying for the ridiculous salaries being paid. Hockey, as much as we love it, simply does not have the following to generate enormous TV deals. If salaries get out of control, like Mathews, franchises will fail and Nashville is a prime candidate. Not every owner is a billionaire owning a plaything as a hobby. Fans here cannot pay higher and higher ticket prices to support such salaries. We Nashville fans should really appreciate the salary cap; it has kept us in the league.

Billionaires, as a general rule, are the very last people that are going to lose money on something. If profit margins were to tilt into the red without a clear lane to turn that around, franchises would be sold and/or fold, like you said. How many billionaire owners are all too happy to have taxpayers pick up the tab on stadiums, etc.? They buy sporting teams because they are profitable and status symbol brands.

 

[weeze]

Still below the other major sports

Yeah but NHL doesn't make the $$$ that the NBA/MBL/NFL does. Ticket prices and TV revenue for those are way more than NHL (currently).

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Agreed, and I’m standing by my comment that NHL salaries cannot get out of control like the NBA in particular. The other major sports are living off of major TV deals, not attendance. TV is paying for the ridiculous salaries being paid. Hockey, as much as we love it, simply does not have the following to generate enormous TV deals. If salaries get out of control, like Mathews, franchises will fail and Nashville is a prime candidate. Not every owner is a billionaire owning a plaything as a hobby. Fans here cannot pay higher and higher ticket prices to support such salaries. We Nashville fans should really appreciate the salary cap; it has kept us in the league.

Well, in theory, the Salary Cap is always going to make it impossible for salaries to get out of control overall. It's just a matter of how teams and players distribute the money within the Cap that maybe could stand to change. An Auston Matthews or Nathan MacKinnon who are big superstars or the league's best player like Connor McDavid could perhaps command more of a premium within that same Cap than they have so far tried to do. Up to the CBA 20% max for McDavid. But like Matthews recently, you don't see them leveraging their UFA status. Hardly ever do they go UFA. Instead, they settle for less than they could get on an open market, just because they are comfortable where they are or want to help their current team win, etc. It's a nice attitude. But I also wouldn't fault the superstar who one day comes along and pushes the envelope. If players ever start doing that, it's not going to destroy the league, teams will just have to decide they don't want to pay those #4/5/6D or 3rd line players as much as they have been doing. It will always be inherently self-correcting, thanks to the Cap.

 

[Olderfan]

Billionaires, as a general rule, are the very last people that are going to lose money on something. If profit margins were to tilt into the red without a clear lane to turn that around, franchises would be sold and/or fold, like you said. How many billionaire owners are all too happy to have taxpayers pick up the tab on stadiums, etc.? They buy sporting teams because they are profitable and status symbol bran

Status symbols=Yes
Profitable=Maybe, but they normally don’t care
Eg=Canadiens and the Molsons. They want to win but profits?, who cares as long as the beer money keeps rolling in.

 

[originalpredfan]

First of all I have no facts to back up my theory, but I wonder if the fact that I believe most Hockey players are more well grounded than their counterparts in the other sports may have something to with the salary situation. I believe that the majority of Hockey players are less concerned with purchasing expensive bling, homes, and cars than their counterparts in other sports. I would imagine the percentage of Hockey players not going bankrupt after their career is over is much lower than the other sports. In other words I believe that Hockey players for the most part have their priority's in life more in line with their values. Of course their are plenty of exceptions, but this is just a theory of mine.

 

[Predsanddead24]

Well I would wager that the vast majority of NHL players grew up in homes where money wasn't an issue compared to the large amount of players in other sports that grew up in poverty. That probably changes how they view the salary situation a bit too. But really the main thing controlling salaries is the cap which is the result of revenue.

 

[triggrman]

Status symbols=Yes
Profitable=Maybe, but they normally don’t care
Eg=Canadiens and the Molsons. They want to win but profits?, who cares as long as the beer money keeps rolling in.

Coors own Molsons now, I believe, I could google it in a minute.

Looks like Molson actually bought all Miller brands. But it's based in Chicago now?

 

[Armourboy]

Yeah, MLB is the obvious outlier here, and it is because MLB doesn't have a salary cap (they only share 48% of their revenues). The rich teams can basically do their own thing, buy/pay players whatever they want, etc. Competitive balance across MLB apparently isn't something the owners really care about.

PS: MLS has a $5.2M cap per team, but it's not a hard cap with the Beckham rule and designated players.

I don't know that NHL owners care about balance either, it just happens to be a bi-product of the cost certainty they were after.