Appreciated! Thanks.
To the second bolded: Agreed. Which is why I envy Carolina from afar, lol. Conference finalist, had a war chest around $23M prior to the draft if memory serves. A glut of picks for the next three drafts. Perfectly structured valuation across positions without needlessly exaggerated ceilings. Prospects at every position. And no sign that constant contention couldn't be the norm for the foreseeable future.
Which lends to my perspective about competition and spending and your remark in the opening para: I don't want a league that's disproportionately weighted by clubs that can simply outspend the other. I want a league that supplements strengths according to jurisdictions, like the examples mentioned in my previous reply and there's a difference. So to say allowing that elasticity is to go down the way of the MLB, NBA, is duly noted from a slippery slope consideration, but its not what I mean or want.
The Pity Party: Ha! Well...Agreed...to a point. I don't understand how we miss the gems in our backyard given our outlier resources in other facets of what should be a very industrious scouting department. Don't get it at all. I'm sure most Leafs fans would agree.
And to pause, I didn't say contraction to six teams. I imply that contraction versus rampant expansion where the business model of hockey supersedes its essential character and integrity, is preferred. Of course, it is, profits will increase as expansion increases, but like anything convenient, eventually the quality suffers.
And we're not here to watch a lesser product, right?
And as for markets, no... they're not created the same and they're not at identical points in maturation and the difference between fledgling markets and for want of a better term, foundational markets have to be acknowledged.
You brought up F1. Is there a discrepancy in budgets across F1 teams that you could also illustrate your point with?
I'm all eyes. Explain.
Any contraction at all will result in a lower cap ceiling and less money for everyone to spend, and fans of all of the teams that haven't been winning cups would likely support contraction, it gives them more of an opportunity to win.
If you don't want a league that's weighted to club spending, why do you want to personalize the salary cap? Every player has their own vehicles to reduce taxes or adjust the timing of taxes. There's no functional way to adjust the cap so that each market gets a unique cap ceiling that offsets all of their 'perceived' market advantages.
How are you going to calculate what the tax savings in FLA are, let alone what they are worth compared to other tax free states, or compared to other states with state tax, or provinces with even higher federal taxes and provincial taxes. Even if calculated, how are you going to get anyone to agree what those are all worth? It's different contract to contract, some guys have almost zero game cheques to avoid jock tax, some have almost no signing bonuses to avoid high provincial/state taxes. The US jock tax also has a portion paid to cities, does that happen in Toronto?
Furthermore, how can we calculate the ancillary benefits in Toronto, a guy like Matthews is going to pull in a lot more in advertising and marketing fees in Toronto than he will Arizona. What is that benefit worth? After tax of course, considering he is probably a resident of somewhere in the US, not actually Toronto.
Not only is none of this practical, majority of it is just straight up not feasible. To your last point, yes we are here to watch a certain product, that is our main concern as fans. That is not the NHL's main concern as a service provider. Their main concern is making profits, what Toronto gives up in on-ice competitiveness, it makes up in profits and investment gains to it's owners. The latter of which is much more important to them than the former. When I worked for the Leafs they had a 11K waitlist for fans to get season tickets, and I'm sure it's only gotten bigger. The NHL is monopoly that exists to drive franchise value, expand, and then cash in on the value in the form of franchise fees. Cost certainty is far more valuable to them than theatrics to determine what team deserves and extra 5M in cap space.
