Comparing Apples to Oranges ...

[Sypher04]

Look how much Matthews, Marner, and Tavares make in endorsements. For all the talk of the tax advantage teams like Tampa have, we should be able to compete with regards to the absolute monster coverage this franchise gets. I mean ffs Mikheyev mentioned he liked soup once and got a commercial out of it. That the Leafs and Dubas couldn’t leverage anything to keep the costs down and didn’t sign either Mitch or Auston for max term is a travesty.

Players may choose to come here because of endorsement opportunities, no question, but they are not a mechanism that is open to potentially be leveraged/exploited by the signing club to lower a player's AAV. Key distinction

 

[Throw More Waffles]

Those theories are not at all equivalent fwiw. But I do agree, what we are talking about in this thread is theoretical, only so much as to say it cannot really be proven.

It would however be quite naive to think the tax side doesn't factor into the AAV the player finds acceptable.

Lastly, just to make my position abundantly clear, I dont think no tax alone changes much for most players. However, when a team is elite, in a desirable location and has the pockets to offer other perks like big bonuses etc, then it becomes an advantage that can become leveragable by the team.

It would however be quite naive to think that dozens of extra millions (over career) in endorsements doesn't factor into the aav to the player finds acceptable.

I've noticed this is a brand new excuse. Go look at the Clarkson contract threads. Not ONE PERSON said "Well... Nonis had to significantly overpay because of the taxes".

Not ONE person was like "Burke had to significantly overpay Phaneuf because of taxes".

If the contract sucked, the gm was blamed. The end.

This lame excuse is brand new. It resulted from a rookie gm that didn't know what he was doing and literally admitted he was "learning as he goes".

Go to any main forum. Talk about taxes. You'll IMMEDIATELY be brushed off with a "ok leaf fan... your gm just sucks" response. Habs fans don't do this. Jets fans don't do this. NO other fans do this, in any sport spanning all world history.

It's actually a little embarrassing.

 

[All Mod Cons]

It would however be quite naive to think that dozens of extra millions (over career) in endorsements doesn't factor into the aav to the player finds acceptable.

I've noticed this is a brand new excuse. Go look at the Clarkson contract threads. Not ONE PERSON said "Well... Nonis had to significantly overpay because of the taxes".

Not ONE person was like "Burke had to significantly overpay Phaneuf because of taxes".

This lame excuse is brand new. It resulted from a rookie gm that didn't know what he was doing and literally admitted he was "learning as he goes".

Go to any main forum. Talk about taxes. You'll IMMEDIATELY be brushed off with a "ok leaf fan... your gm just sucks" response. Habs fans don't do this. Jets fans don't do this. NO other fans do this, in any sport spanning all world history.

It's actually a little embarrassing.

It's why Lou had to overpay Zaitsev. It wasn't his fault.

 

[Throw More Waffles]

It's why Lou had to overpay Zaitsev. It wasn't his fault.

Lol, right. Exactly. Has any single person EVER blamed Lou’s bad contracts on (lol) “taxes”? Of course not.

This is all a 100% brand new excuse based around a rookie gm who didn’t know what the f*** he was doing.

 

[egd27]

It's why Lou had to overpay Zaitsev. It wasn't his fault.

 

[PromisedLand]

I've got only two things to say;

Fire Dubas!

 

[Toronto makebeleifs]

Realistically, Dubas has handed out some overpays. Granted, if youre going to overpay- overpay your stars. Furthermore, dubas hedged his bet on the cap rising (which, at the time it was, year over year) to the point where the contracts would be fair value after 2-3 yrs. I can see the logic behind it, it just didnt happen.

 

[IPS]

Lol, right. Exactly. Has any single person EVER blamed Lou’s bad contracts on (lol) “taxes”? Of course not.

This is all a 100% brand new excuse based around a rookie gm who didn’t know what the f*** he was doing.

The taxes debate has been around for years.

But it got taken to a whole new level of extreme after the Dubas contracts.

 

[IPS]

Add in the fact that the Leafs can’t even make it out of the first round. They actually have more spare time for endorsement deals then say Tampa that wins the cup. So in reality the Leafs player could see more money in the same time for a whole lot less effort

Never been a better time to be a star on the Leafs.

Get a gargantuan overpayment, put in a half-ass effort in the playoffs (don't worry about hurting yourself or anything), and when you inevitably fail in the playoffs with said half-ass effort you got the same GM who overpaid you going to bat for you in the media and calling any criticism against you "dumb".

 

[Sypher04]

It would however be quite naive to think that dozens of extra millions (over career) in endorsements doesn't factor into the aav to the player finds acceptable.

I've noticed this is a brand new excuse. Go look at the Clarkson contract threads. Not ONE PERSON said "Well... Nonis had to significantly overpay because of the taxes".

Not ONE person was like "Burke had to significantly overpay Phaneuf because of taxes".

If the contract sucked, the gm was blamed. The end.

This lame excuse is brand new. It resulted from a rookie gm that didn't know what he was doing and literally admitted he was "learning as he goes".

Go to any main forum. Talk about taxes. You'll IMMEDIATELY be brushed off with a "ok leaf fan... your gm just sucks" response. Habs fans don't do this. Jets fans don't do this. NO other fans do this, in any sport spanning all world history.

It's actually a little embarrassing.

Meh, I'm not answering for how other people position the tax discussion. I have my opinions, but I mostly find it an interesting discussion point. I'm of the mindset that it'll never change, but if I had the power it's one of a number of imbalances throughout the cap system that I'd look to change. some of which we are exploiting, and some we aren't.

 

[nuck]

Meh, I'm not answering for how other people position the tax discussion. I have my opinions, but I mostly find it an interesting discussion point. I'm of the mindset that it'll never change, but if I had the power it's one of a number of imbalances throughout the cap system that I'd look to change. some of which we are exploiting, and some we aren't.

With most of the big market teams not having a benefit from the taxes I would be very interested to know why this has been ignored. There is no doubt this would have been looked at years ago, and perhaps examined again more recently with the obvious exploitation of the tax benefit by Tampa. For this reason I don't expect it to change either. At some time at the board of governors meetings the Leafs or Rags or whoever put their hands up to say this isn't fair, and the low tax teams said "well yes, but you guys get X so it all evens out." Maybe we just haven't been told what X is.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

I'm loving these Kate Upton popup ads.

You realize we all get different ads from one another based on our search history right?

(leaves to go search Kate Upton)

 

[al secord]

You realize we all get different ads from one another based on our search history right?

(leaves to go search Kate Upton)

Source?

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

Source?

Are you serial? Those ads are Google Adsense. HFBoards just provides the spaces, Google decides what goes in there and it's tailored to your online history. The source is: now that you know this, everyone knows this.

 

[Dekes For Days]

3 of the 5 highest AAV

We do not have 3 of the 5 highest cap hits, for the record.

 

[Golden_Jet]

We do not have 3 of the 5 highest cap hits, for the record.

No 3 of the top 7, and $97,000 short of 3 of top 5.

 

[nsleaf]

The NHL’s Highest-Paid Players 2021: Matthews, McDavid And Marner Score Despite Leaguewide Pay Cuts

The highest ranked Florida based athlete is Vasilevskiy, arguably the best goalie of his generation and he's earning a fraction of what someone like Marner makes in this market.

Zoom out a little bit and look at the newest contracts signed by Zach Hyman and Blake Coleman. Similar age, similar recent offensive production and one guy is coming off 2x Stanley Cup wins, and yet Hyman is making half a million more annually. If that isn't a good example of Leaf based fame that is being factored in, I don't know what is.

Thats not an example of an endorsement.

 

[nuck]

Are you serial? Those ads are Google Adsense. HFBoards just provides the spaces, Google decides what goes in there and it's tailored to your online history. The source is: now that you know this, everyone knows this.

Its true. I clicked on one Chicme ad and was getting lingerie background for a week.

 

[Racer88]

You realize we all get different ads from one another based on our search history right?

(leaves to go search Kate Upton)

Hahahahahahaha

 

[leafhky88]

Ok - so I'm not trying to give a blanket defense to every move that Dubas has ever made, but I'm honestly baffled about some of the criticism around the contracts as though they are completely done in a vacuum.

If I'm an agent, I'm looking at the 'take home' pay of a player when calculating how much they should make. I see these people ripping Dubas for the Contracts of the big 4, comparing them to Tampa and Carolina contracts (Kucherov or the new Svechnikov deal for example) and I can't help but think how it's night and day. Carolina - for example, has a flat Income Tax rate of 5.25%. If you live in Ontario - then you know that even with the creative accounting, our players are not coming even close to that.

I'm sure if we had a Tampa level tax rate you could convince Marner to take a $7.5 / $8 mil avg - but lets not pretend that how much a player takes home a the end of the day doesn't matter. Is it fair? No. But is it reality? Yes. Should it factor in to our judgment? I think so. Show me a talent equal to our big 4 on a Canadian Team who is signed to a significantly lower deal - and THEN you'd have your case....

Thoughts?

Here is an article (this may have been posted before) from RBC Wealth on their potential use RCA's in Canada for NHL players.

https://ca.rbcwealthmanagement.com/documents/111482/111502/RCA's+for+athletes.pdf/02e9dda9-fe45-4241-8033-e2c516409745

An interesting read - their calculations used for the below paragraph in particular are interesting. There are a number of requirements, assumptions etc., but an interesting resource nonetheless.

Although the tax liability without the RCA may be very high, the tax liability with the RCA is lower than if the player were resident in most states playing for a US team. The annual combined US federal, California, Social Security and Medicare tax liability for a player resident in California with compensation of US$6 million would be approximately US$2,947,000. This liability is significantly higher than if the player was a resident in any of the Canadian provinces as illustrated in example 2. Even if the player is a resident of Florida or Texas, the tax liability would be approximately US$2,620,000. This liability is greater than that of all of the provinces with an NHL team.

 

[Dreakmur]

It's why Lou had to overpay Zaitsev. It wasn't his fault.

Did he overpay though? Zaitsev was our #2 defenseman when he signed.

Even with the benefit of hindsight, he's a good #4 defenseman. 4.5 million isn't that far out of whack. Even after the flat cap was announced, most comparable players have been signing for 3.5+, and some even approaching 4.5.