Capitals to purchase CapFriendly website (upd: deal finalized, site has been shut down)

[My3Sons]

Blood and Souls for Arioch!

How old are you? That’s some deep dive into that genre.

 

[Arthur Morgan]

almost time to hate the caps again

 

[vorky]

They don't. It's up to the teams to keep track of this stuff. If it wasn't for the NHLPA, none of the contract details would be out there for the public either.

And obviously all teams have staff to keep track of this stuff. The issue here is, that apparently a lot of the teams were just using CapFriendly to do this stuff, instead of engineering their own software. So those teams are SOL pretty soon and need to figure out something.

Weird. Why can not the NHL as a league offer (for free) their clubs such an important thing via centralised system/app? If the KHL can do this, I do not believe the NHL does not have resources for it.

But .... the NHL is not able to put the lenghts and type of players contract on league´s website to be available to fans.

source

 

[Mr Positive]

Weird. Why can not the NHL as a league offer (for free) their clubs such an important thing via centralised system/app? If the KHL can do this, I do not believe the NHL does not have resources for it.

But .... the NHL is not able to put the lenghts and type of players contract on league´s website to be available to fans.

View attachment 893040

source

My guess is that the NHL doesn't want this kind of info to be mainstream. If I'd put on my tinfoil hat for a sec, I'd bet they convinced a team to buy them just for appearances sake, rather than the league itself buying it and disbanding it

 

[Kahvi]

It's funny that teams actually use this website and don't already keep tabs on this stuff internally, now they're scrambling to find an alternative.

Funny stuff from a mickey mouse league.

I'd guess they are keeping track of their own cap situation, but Capfriendly helps when you are negotiating with other teams. Like how tight they are with cap and how valuable retention is because of that etc.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Salary CAP, CAPfriendly, CAPitalism. No cap, as the kids say, Washington can eat my shorts.

 

[vorky]

My guess is that the NHL doesn't want this kind of info to be mainstream. If I'd put on my tinfoil hat for a sec, I'd bet they convinced a team to buy them just for appearances sake, rather than the league itself buying it and disbanding it

Fine, if the NHL does not want this kind of info to be available to public. Just make this app/system closed, just for teams like KHL did.

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

They don't. It's up to the teams to keep track of this stuff. If it wasn't for the NHLPA, none of the contract details would be out there for the public either.

And obviously all teams have staff to keep track of this stuff. The issue here is, that apparently a lot of the teams were just using CapFriendly to do this stuff, instead of engineering their own software. So those teams are SOL pretty soon and need to figure out something.

Huh, it's pretty clear the NHL has their own program that tracks every team's cap situation. Every trade and transaction like a call-up or waiver claim has to be approved by central registry and the team has to be cap compliant before the move can officially happen.

Also, Friedman on the 32 thoughts podcast or Marek's show (maybe both) backtracked after his original comments on how many teams were screwed without CapFriendly (which is still up as of this morning). He clarified by saying that many teams had something internally to keep track of teams cap situations and they were mad that Friedman's original comments made it seem like they were completely dependent on CF.

 

[LOFIN]

Huh, it's pretty clear the NHL has their own program that tracks every team's cap situation. Every trade and transaction like a call-up or waiver claim has to be approved by central registry and the team has to be cap compliant before the move can officially happen.

Of course the NHL head office has something, but they don't make it available for the teams (or the public), that was the point. And even the central registry doesn't have all the details, like M-NTC -lists (see case Dadonov).

Also, Friedman on the 32 thoughts podcast or Marek's show (maybe both) backtracked after his original comments on how many teams were screwed without CapFriendly (which is still up as of this morning). He clarified by saying that many teams had something internally to keep track of teams cap situations and they were mad that Friedman's original comments made it seem like they were completely dependent on CF.

Like I said, most teams probably have something, but not all of them have a system as elaborate as CF. Cap Friendly afaik also has some tools that are not available to the public?

BTW, Friedman never said that these are the only teams that have something, just those that he knew definitely did. I mean Capitals bought this site for a reason, what did they have before?

 

[CoopersFalls]

Isn’t it supposed to be gone by now? Never saw an official release they were shutting it down upon sale, so maybe it’s staying

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

Since they haven't shut down CF we can only assume the Caps bought it to mine the Armchair-GM feature for ideas

 

[Vilica]

From my readings of articles and such, the NHL central cap registry exists for all teams, but apparently it's quite clunky and requires a login every time, as well as being available intranet/VPN only. The same is probably true for most teams' internal cap databases. In terms of the entire league, their own team is perfectly represented in the database, but tracking the league manually probably would require at least a part-time data entry/analyst. I believe that was one of CapFriendly's sources of revenue, teams paid for an API that inputted those transactions into their databases automatically, for them to organize.

So because both of those sources were internally-accessible only, a lot of teams just used CapFriendly because a tab on a web browser is much easier to handle. To give a concrete example, you're a GM who is travelling in-season with your team, and you want to look at a few players you're interested in acquiring. To access your internal resources, you have to login to your VPN, then open up your internal cap database, and probably login to that as well, then finally go to the teams/players you're looking at. In contrast, you open your browser to CapFriendly, click on the team/player of interest, and have 95-99% of the information you need right there. Convenience always wins.

So basically the Caps were looking at upgrading their internal cap database, and were probably quoted somewhere between 200-500k, plus associated ongoing personnel costs for maintenance and such. The cost to acquire CapFriendly was probably 2x-3x that, with roughly the same ongoing personnel costs, and they get a database/GUI they know works with no development time.

 

[GQS]

Has anyone tried contacting the CapFriendly people and seeing if the site will stay up or not? I'm happy that its still here for the moment, but I'm dreading that it could disappear at anytime.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

Honestly, it'd be brilliant if the Caps kept it up as counter-intelligence. Simple IP tracker could show them what other teams were browsing.

 

[AnomX]

I think I know what they're doing...... This number is going to get fudged for sure...

 

[BondraEra]

From my readings of articles and such, the NHL central cap registry exists for all teams, but apparently it's quite clunky and requires a login every time, as well as being available intranet/VPN only. The same is probably true for most teams' internal cap databases. In terms of the entire league, their own team is perfectly represented in the database, but tracking the league manually probably would require at least a part-time data entry/analyst. I believe that was one of CapFriendly's sources of revenue, teams paid for an API that inputted those transactions into their databases automatically, for them to organize.

So because both of those sources were internally-accessible only, a lot of teams just used CapFriendly because a tab on a web browser is much easier to handle. To give a concrete example, you're a GM who is travelling in-season with your team, and you want to look at a few players you're interested in acquiring. To access your internal resources, you have to login to your VPN, then open up your internal cap database, and probably login to that as well, then finally go to the teams/players you're looking at. In contrast, you open your browser to CapFriendly, click on the team/player of interest, and have 95-99% of the information you need right there. Convenience always wins.

So basically the Caps were looking at upgrading their internal cap database, and were probably quoted somewhere between 200-500k, plus associated ongoing personnel costs for maintenance and such. The cost to acquire CapFriendly was probably 2x-3x that, with roughly the same ongoing personnel costs, and they get a database/GUI they know works with no development time.

Thank you for actually reading about and breaking this down with reasonable analysis for those who didn’t (me included) instead of just saying “Caps bad”.

 

[Nogatco Rd]

My guess is that the NHL doesn't want this kind of info to be mainstream. If I'd put on my tinfoil hat for a sec, I'd bet they convinced a team to buy them just for appearances sake, rather than the league itself buying it and disbanding it

So if a new site pops up to replace cap friendly, do you think the NHL will convince a team to buy that out as well?

 

[DamonDRW]

So if a new site pops up to replace cap friendly, do you think the NHL will convince a team to buy that out as well?

And a new site like that will appear in a blink of an eye.

 

[hockeykicker]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1810673157826617462

 

[Oilslick941611]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1810673157826617462

But dont let this get in the way of wild conspiracy’s right?

 

[GQS]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1810673157826617462

Damn I'm legit sad now. The end is near. Bye bye CF you were awesome!

 

[The Red Line]

I'm sure there will be something new to replace it before long, but I really like the armchair GM feature for playing around with. CapGeek was great too back in the day, and Cap Friendly did a good job of replacing and improving on those features. Hopefully whatever comes next is also well built.

 

[Mike Jones]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1810673157826617462

Thanks for nothing Washington. Again, a disgusting move. But also consistent with how the league treats its fans.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I'm sure there will be something new to replace it before long, but I really like the armchair GM feature for playing around with. CapGeek was great too back in the day, and Cap Friendly did a good job of replacing and improving on those features. Hopefully whatever comes next is also well built.

Other sites have been around for years as well, not as good imo, but exist.

 

[red devil]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1810893010315448730