Lockout all about leverage NHL believes fans will return – again
The first mistake you can make when thinking about the coming NHL lockout is thinking about it at all, but let’s blow right past that to the second mistake, which is thinking that it might be about what’s fair. Labour negotiations are not about what’s fair. Labour negotiations are about leverage.
...
But the most important leverage may be the leverage hockey has over its fans, especially in Canada. When asked Thursday if the way the game recovered from the 2004-05 lockout gave him confidence it would recover again, Bettman said: "One, we’re focused on trying to make a deal. We don’t want a work stoppage. But obviously, if we don’t have a deal, we feel we have no choice.
And two, we recovered well last time because we have the world’s greatest fans."
There it is. People will come. That is where the NHL is negotiating from, and that is why these kabuki negotiations aren’t even foreplay; they’re text messages, setting the basic parameters for interaction. For the owners the pressure points are not now, and they are not later.
And that is why the battle for public opinion in this lockout won’t matter unless fan anger is actually carried over when they actually start playing games again – and last time that didn’t happen.
One of the chief problems the NHL had with the last CBA is that it linked player salaries and revenues, and revenues skyrocketed from $1.8 billion US to $3.3 billion US in seven years. Part of that was the Canadian dollar, but not all of it.
The owners believe the dollars will come back again, even if another Stanley Cup is wasted, because it has happened before.
Full story:
http://o.canada.com/2012/08/24/lockout-all-about-leverage-nhl-believes-fans-will-return-again/