Roots73
TMLTP- ITS IN THE GAME!
- May 10, 2004
- 340
- 49
Found this interesting. Here's a take from NFL SI writer Peter King with his brief thoughts on the NHL lockout...
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...mqb4/index.html
I know that the PA supporters will cry the "apple to oranges" argument but a sports business is a sports business. If the PA can't wake up to this reality that the NHL is not up to par with the NBA or the NFL for revenues and yet ask for the same levels in salary, then their fate is sealed. There might not be hockey for awhile, but when it does come back it won't be with the current PA administration, unless they make drastic changes.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...mqb4/index.html
I will miss the NHL. I know I'm in the vast minority, but I love the hockey playoffs -- went to game 7 of Mighty Ducks-Devils and got emotional at it, and I like to see the pucks three or four times a season. Here's where I find fault in the negotiations: How can you be Bob Goodenow, the head of the players association, and say for months and months you won't accept a salary cap and it's non-negotiable, and then, hours before the league is going to hold a news conference canceling the season, say you'll accept it? How can Goodenow not have seen the solidarity of the owners, the way Gene Upshaw saw the solidarity of the football owners 13 years ago? Say what you want about how Upshaw is too easy on the owners in the NFL. All I know is football teams split $85 million per year (the 2005 cap figure) for 53 players and everybody is happy. And in hockey, with no appreciable TV money to think of, the players association doesn't think it's fair to have almost an exactly equal per-player cost, with a $42.5-million cap number for half the number of players. Odd to me. Think of that: The NHLPA won't take a cap of half what the NFL's cap is -- even though its roster size is half what the NFL roster is. I do think the one demand the league fell down on was the floor; it's unfair to have one team be able to spend significantly less than the cap. The league should have been able to force its teams to have a floor close to the $42.5 million.
I know that the PA supporters will cry the "apple to oranges" argument but a sports business is a sports business. If the PA can't wake up to this reality that the NHL is not up to par with the NBA or the NFL for revenues and yet ask for the same levels in salary, then their fate is sealed. There might not be hockey for awhile, but when it does come back it won't be with the current PA administration, unless they make drastic changes.