After months of contentious negotiation I am pleased to announce
a new CBA has been reached with the owners of this blog (J-God’s Happyland
Travel Company and Bakery Inc.) and production of poorly edited blogposts will
resume. While I’m not allowed to announce the financial terms of the deal
Darren Rovell reports that there will be a 53/47 split of all blogging-related revenue
(estimated to be $0.00) generated by this site and a cap of no more than 4
postings a week with a posting floor of one per week.
I apologize to the fans of this blog (hi mom!) and promise
to do all that is necessary to win back your affection because you are truly the
BEST BLOG FANS IN THE WORLD!
Speaking of collective bargaining agreements, it’s looking
more like I’ll be having to find a way to spend my nights this fall without the
National Hockey League. With less than 3 weeks before the current agreement is
set to expire, the owners and the players are at the “cut off meetings early”
portion of negotiation. Soon we’ll see
the “take time to explore our options” part, then the “alternative solutions
presented” meeting, which leads to the “rumors of a threatened lawsuit by one
of the parties”. That should lead to a lot of angry columns and rants on the
internet.
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| Nobody needs to see Vinny in an Ak Bars jersey ever again. |
It’ll also set the stage for the “meeting late in the night
to resolve the dispute before the self-imposed September 15th
deadline” that brings a little hope only to be dashed by the “reports that an
agreement couldn't be reached” news. A
couple months of “taking our pucks and going to play in Scandinavia” leads to “talks
quietly resume” which finally brings us to “an agreement in place that closely
resembles the old deal has been reached in time for the NHL to kick off the
season with the Winter Classic (Live on NBC and presented by Bud Light!)”.
So at least there is a process.
I should probably be a little more bent out of shape about
the whole thing after all, according to the columnists and shrieking heads on
TV, I’m the one who is going to get screwed.
The players will still get paid and the owners will still be part of the
1%. Yet, you know something, I’ll be
ok. Yeah it sucks that I won’t be able
to watch the Lightning play for a few months, but in the grand scheme of things
that ain’t too bad. At least I’m not on
the hook for season ticket payments for a season that is going to be shortened
(sorry ‘bout that, Link).
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| Pretty sure second row seats 9 and 10 are Link's. |
The last time the players and owners couldn’t play in the
same sandbox I held my own personal strike. I forwent hockey for an entire
season post-lockout. No watching, no
going to games, no buying of cards. Cut them out of my life. Guess what, it didn’t change anything. The only thing that happened is that I lost
two seasons of enjoying hockey instead of one.
So this time I’ll wait for them to come to an agreement and then I’ll go
back to watching the best game in the world.
Does that make me a mindless sheep? I guess so. I can live with that. Also, is there a
singular from of “sheep”? It just sounds weird.
For the record I’m not on either team’s side. The owner’s offer was insane, not only are
they proposing that the players take a smaller slice of pie (46% compared to
the current 57% of revenues) they also want the pie to be smaller by redefining
hockey-related revenue. They also want to get rid of those annoying “lifetime”
contracts that they’re always so happy to announce when they sign a player to
them. Let’s not even talk about the 10
years of player control before they can enter unrestricted free agency. I’m pretty
sure they got together (in a room with wood paneling and many leather bound
books) and said, “Let’s throw out so many bad ideas at once that hopefully the
players will let a few slip by,” then
went back to drinking brandy and watching polo or whatever rich, white guys do.
By those demands, the player’s counter-offer seems almost
reasonable (according to the media), but it’s not. Reducing their share of
revenues for three years only to go back to the current split in year four
doesn’t solve the problem. It only delays the problem for three years. If the
owners don’t like the revenue split now, they’re not going to like it in 2015.
Increased revenue sharing is a good idea (and may be REALLY
interesting in a few years if the US dollar rises in value) but allowing the
trading of cap space is a horrendous idea that will further the split of the
have’s and the have not’s in the league.
Teams that don’t spend to the cap as it is will use it as a way to keep
their payroll down while teams who’ve already spent to the cap will be free to
take on more bad contracts that will have them crying poor the following
season.
The owner’s plan has a “save us from ourselves” feel to it
while the players offer gives off a Pollyannaish “if we give you $500 million
in revenue now you’ll agree to doing things the old way, right” naiveté to it.
I will give Bettman credit, though. He managed to put an offer out there so incredulous
that the players assume the salary cap is a given and aren’t even arguing it.
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| If we give you $500 million now, you'll give us more money later, right Uncle Gary? |
Economics are like kryptonite for me (see my bank account
for proof) so I can’t even come up with a plan that makes sense and offer a
reasoned argument for it. However, having been through the wringer a few times
as a sports fan I can predict that eventually they will come to an
understanding that doesn’t drastically change the landscape of the sport.
Gazing into my cracked crystal ball (damn cats) I’m thinking
the agreement will look something along the lines of a 52/48 split in revenues
in favor of the owners. There will be an
expanded revenue sharing system among the clubs while contracts will be capped
at 7 years with the amount of the contract spread evenly over the length of the
deal. Unrestricted free agency will start after six years.
At some point (probably in 2013) the NHL will return. As a cheap sum’a bitch I hope they try and
entice the fans back with a reduced price on NHL Center Ice so I can watch the
Lightning games on a decent stream, after all it’s all about me, baby! The
players and the owners will pat themselves on the back for coming to an
agreement and talk about working hard to show the fans how sorry they were, but
it needed to be done “For The Good of the Game”.
I’m sure the league will issue a statement about the fans
being THE BEST SPORTS FANS IN THE WORLD and try to sweep all the acrimony under
the rug by going out on an all-out media blitz on how exciting the young
players in the game are and giving away some cheap plastic trinkets on Fan
Appreciation Nights.
I’ll be sure to tune in (no trinkets needed!), because it
beats watching basketball and if I’m too lazy to use the time productively
(learn a new language? Yeah right). Will others? Probably. For all of our bluster and feigned
outrage the bottom line is that the NHL is the best version of hockey there is and
that’s what we want to watch. The league knows it, the players know it. If they really thought the future of the
sport was in jeopardy they would ironed a deal out weeks ago. In the meantime, hey at least you have this
blog to read!
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| Please sign a deal soon. You do not want this man on the streets with free time. #downieforever |
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