Capitals to purchase CapFriendly website (UPD: Capitals hiring all capfriendly owners, beat out other teams that wanted to buy capfriendly)

[Arthur Morgan]

Theyve certainly pushed me away. If I wasnt 10 years deep in a dynasty league I would probably be barely following this league right now.

yeah my dynasty league is all I care about. lets put it this way. if the Leafs lose but my team wins. then Im cheering for the Leafs to lose.

 

[Redpath]

From CapFriendly:

CapFriendly is an independent compiler of contract information for the National Hockey League. We are constantly on the look out for contract news from credible news outlets, reporters, and insiders. We do our best to cite and credit the sources which supply the information.

Can anyone explain how an independent site is able to source every single contract in the league? How many new outlets have yearly salary breakdowns when a contract is signed?

Maybe there is an understanding between teams to comply with CapFriendly for the betterment of a universal contract hub?

 

[Bruins4Lifer]

Gary Bettman, 2015: "Fans aren't interested in this kind of thing"

Bettman: NHL won’t publish player salaries, not sure fans care

“I don’t think it’s a resource we need to provide because I’m not sure fans are as focused on what players make as they are about their performance on the ice,” he said.

sports.yahoo.com

Extreme fan interest contributes to lucrative private enterprise filling the gap

Gary Bettman 2024: "We don't publish these things, it's none of the fans' business. This is a principled stance, not a justification to excuse my error."

Yeah, we're not interested in that. We're interested in much more important things like how many 22+mph bursts McDavid has in a season or how many miles Makar skates each game.

 

[dugg133]

Your answer is in the 2 tweets you quoted.

I know, I just genuinely do not understand that viewpoint from the leagues perspective. Why is having this data available for fans to look at a bad thing from their perspective?

 

[Svechhammer]

Yeah I have no idea why the league would want to bury contract information... None at all...

https://x.com/i/web/status/1800669912253526252

 

[Based Anime Fan]

This is going to lead to more trades happening that aren't supposed to be allowed, ala Dadonov.

Never stopped it before, so...

From CapFriendly:

CapFriendly is an independent compiler of contract information for the National Hockey League. We are constantly on the look out for contract news from credible news outlets, reporters, and insiders. We do our best to cite and credit the sources which supply the information.

Can anyone explain how an independent site is able to source every single contract in the league? How many new outlets have yearly salary breakdowns when a contract is signed?

Maybe there is an understanding between teams to comply with CapFriendly for the betterment of a universal contract hub?

RSS feeds
Network of twitter followers
Insiders (agents, FO personelle)

 

[King'sPawn]

Yeah I have no idea why the league would want to bury contract information... None at all...

https://x.com/i/web/status/1800669912253526252

This actually is a good point. I know there are other sites, but I feel there should be an agreement where there is a site, even internally. Otherwise, how can agents and players reliably get their comps?

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

Not sure if this was posted yet but some more interesting quotes in here. This quote in particular is crazy to me:

Here are the teams I know of that have something [internally] where they can say, ‘Okay, we’ve got a backup plan here for when this goes offline.’ Seattle, New Jersey, Carolina, Chicago, Islanders, Toronto, Columbus, Vegas, and Pittsburgh. The other teams will have various degrees of concern and worry about where they’re going to go here.”

NHL’s relationship with CapFriendly was ‘icy’ before Capitals’ purchase, sale has left teams without internal infrastructure ‘scrambling’

The Washington Capitals sent shockwaves through the hockey world when it was revealed on Sunday that they purchased the popular salary-cap site…

russianmachineneverbreaks.com

 

[canuckslover10]

how much did they buy it for?

 

[Svechhammer]

This actually is a good point. I know there are other sites, but I feel there should be an agreement where there is a site, even internally. Otherwise, how can agents and players reliably get their comps?

And that's why the NHL wants to suppress this. Make it harder for agents to do their jobs, which will suppress player salaries and make the owners more money.

Yes the information can be had our there, but it would take a lot of time and effort to build it up because CapFriendly had that market cornered to the point where everyone else just used it, including the league. With that gone, there's no comparable out there. Some try, but they all come up dramatically short for the services CF provides.

 

[Byron Bitz]

f*** off

So now fans will have nothing

Puck Pedia is just as good

 

[Suntouchable13]

Yeah, we're not interested in that. We're interested in much more important things like how many 22+mph bursts McDavid has in a season or how many miles Makar skates each game.

Yea, we should be more interested in the minutia of when some player’s NTC kicks in and how many teams are on it instead. Or what his buyout looks like. Good point.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Puck Pedia is just as good

I mean alot of the info is there but its pretty shit compared. there's a reason why the entire hockey world that follows the NHL go to capfriendly. Puckpedia needs a MAJOR overhaul

 

[Drake1588]

As mentioned, the league is looking after its own interests by encouraging as opaque a system as possible, when it comes to publicly disseminating salary information. They'd never want to own a service like this and make it available to one and all.

The NHLPA, on the other hand, should absolutely be publicly tracking and disseminating player contract information. It's in their interest that this be as transparent as possible. They should also take pains to educate their player members as to why they benefit from this transparency.

Fans should be more critical of the union on this issue. They're the ones dropping the ball. They're the ones that should be operating a site like this and considering it to be just part of their annual operating costs. If done well, it should break even or make a small profit through advertising anyway.

 

[Brookbank]

It’s only a matter of time before somebody does what Washington did and purchases PuckPedia. Would be funny if it was Washington.

And just like the dark markets , no matter how many times the big dog is taken down , another one will replace it

 

[Voight]

From CapFriendly:

CapFriendly is an independent compiler of contract information for the National Hockey League. We are constantly on the look out for contract news from credible news outlets, reporters, and insiders. We do our best to cite and credit the sources which supply the information.

Can anyone explain how an independent site is able to source every single contract in the league? How many new outlets have yearly salary breakdowns when a contract is signed?

Maybe there is an understanding between teams to comply with CapFriendly for the betterment of a universal contract hub?

They might have connections to guys in the front office for all 32 teams.

 

[hockeykicker]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1800893470950744383

 

[HellebuyckOurSaviour]

So does that mean they are going to take away players salaries in say NHL 25 and beyond, or are we going to have to resort to looking at the players salaries on there haha

 

[AfroThunder396]

Puck Pedia sucks, the new overlay looks nice on mobile but but is terrible on desktop. I miss the old NHLnumbers.

 

[TGWL]

how much did they buy it for?

You have to wait until CapFriendly updates the page for Washington Capitals.

 

[hockeykicker]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1800895896575725760

 

[TLEH]

Anyone who has a problem with CapFriendly selling is dumb. They get a job, and a cash out, they just got paid to go private and they still get to keep their site. That is sick.

We should all be mad at the league (most people are) for not providing this information. Even the archaic MLB provides this info to teams.

 

[McDNicks17]

So does that mean they are going to take away players salaries in say NHL 25 and beyond, or are we going to have to resort to looking at the players salaries on there haha

It won't take long for another site to take Capfriendly's place.

When Capgeek went down, there were like a dozen sites that popped up. It's not like Capfriendly was doing something no one else could. It's just that the most popular site is the only one that will survive.

 

[TLEH]

It won't take long for another site to take Capfriendly's place.

When Capgeek went down, there were like a dozen sites that popped up. It's not like Capfriendly was doing something no one else could. It's just that the most popular site is the only one that will survive.

Presenting the data in a way that is easy to consume is hard. Capfriendly did it really well. We'll see if others can repeat that.

 

[JianYang]

Gary Bettman, 2015: "Fans aren't interested in this kind of thing"

Bettman: NHL won’t publish player salaries, not sure fans care

“I don’t think it’s a resource we need to provide because I’m not sure fans are as focused on what players make as they are about their performance on the ice,” he said.

sports.yahoo.com

Extreme fan interest contributes to lucrative private enterprise filling the gap

Gary Bettman 2024: "We don't publish these things, it's none of the fans' business. This is a principled stance, not a justification to excuse my error."

He's partially right. I doubt casual fans give a hoot about CapFriendly. Heck, I barely used the site as well and consider myself a hardcore fan.

However, his principal is bizarre. If you are going to live in a salary cap world, why on earth would you believe that a segment of fans wouldn't be very interested in this stuff? It's a look into an organization's ability to make moves, and there's a reason why trade deadlines and free agency/drafts are popular amongst the hockey fans.

There are literally video games out there too which satisfy the appetite for GM wannabes.

This horse has been out of the barn for decades and it's bizarre that the nhl wants to bring it back, and also impractical.