does it really matter what donk fans/media think?

he did? we lost a year, and the players got 57% of the money. now we're where we are now, another stoppage bc he got crushed last time and he's probably MAD about it (seeing as how weasel lawyering is like his thing, and he doesn't really like hockey anyway). so not like he cares if we miss another season, he must "win" at any cost. even if it ends up being another lose-lose situation.

and if we have another extended work stoppage, one that possibly loses us another season, then no, they both [censored] suck at their job. if they were actually good they'd find a way to reach agreements without interrupting play over and over.

best case: half a season starting in late December probably

bettman terrible at his job? lol @ that, gmafb

anywho, this tweet is awesome

**** this league, seriously.

alright Gary sycophants, make the case for him.

what great initiatives has he ushered in since 1993? and explain why this out-weighs the bad...

go!

He got the league online, he got the league into the television mainstream (who else remembers SportsChannel America?), he's overseen growing international interest beginning with Nagano '98, he's overseen league revenues continue to rise despite very challenging economic climates...to name a few points.

league revenues have grown a fair amount under him. the owners might like that.

Bettman is basically just a spokesman for the owners. He's done a decent job at making the owners money.

Only real black mark on the Bettman cv is the failure of southern expansion on the whole, and I still think it's the main reason we find ourselves here.

it made sense as a cash grab...a strategy that's about to be used again. i don't think the failure of some sun belt teams has much of an impact on the labo(u)r disputes. the owners are just squeezing the players because they know they can. the players are just resisting because they're emotional and stupid.

and these things couldn't / wouldn't have happened without him?

they are in the sense that the financial struggles of these [censored] markets is one of the biggest problems.

"hey i'm not making money, so let's hammer on these guys until we get a system where i can."

yes. it might take a year or two, but whatever, right?

emotional? maybe. stupid? c'mon. the owners have been equally as stupid, doing things like signing contracts they had no intention of honouring, just assuming they could roll it back to whatever. derp

and yeah i'm guessing that the players feel insulted to some degree, again. that's an obstacle, yes. but again, Gary and the boys could have definitely done better there.

I can't see how revenue sharing and propping up the bleeding teams isn't the biggest reason why we're here. If 2/3rds of the league were making money instead of losing money, we're not here today.

Is that realistic? I'm not sure, but I don't think all 30 franchises are located in ideal markets either, not even close.

And maybe there aren't 30 ideal markets to begin with. I still think the league is too big. Yada yada expansion cash grab etc., but goddammit man, gotta have some long-term scope too. Although, I guess if you were Snider or Jacobs or Tannenbaum, and you're gonna make money regardless, you wouldn't say no to those initiation fees either.

It's just a mess, really.

who knows? not exactly an argument against his performance as evaluated by his bosses.

i'm not sure it is. even if every team turned a profit, i would expect the owners to take a hard line in negotiations. again, because they can.

yes, stupid. they will eventually cave and give the owners 50/50 and some kind of escrow to implement the split. the fact that they are so angry at bettman (which is lol stupid since he is just a mouthpiece for the owners) that they won't make a deal now that they'll make later, meanwhile pissing away a sizable percentage of their lifetime earning capacity, makes them stupid.

Geddy: I don't blame you for not paying attention, but wow does this lockout have nothing at all to do with small-market teams. In 2004-05 they were trotted out as the pet problem, now you don't hear a peep. Why? Because it isn't about them. It is about big market teams getting more money. Who represented the owners today? Leonsis (Capitals), Edwards (Flames), Leopold (Wild), Jacobs (Bruins). Capitals are arguably a high mid-market team, Flames are big market, Wild are about to be big market once they are good, and the Bruins are a top 12 revenue team also. No Carolina, no Islanders, no Stars, no Ducks, etc.

Nootka: I disagree with your assessment - I don't think what the players agree to has been offered yet by either side. There is a compromise between Fehr's offer #3 and what the NHL offered earlier this week, but the NHL is not willing to find that compromise.

Players gave back 24% in current contracts in the 2004 lockout. Now the owners want 13%. The players with their crappy representation set a bad precedent in '04 that the owners are now preying on. They should given on something else. It's fundamental that contracts be honored. Giving in to that is weak.

To add to what 72 wrote the owners know exactly how much this lockout costs/day + the return rate of fans vs how much they need to take out of the players to come out ahead. They want to get the players fishtailing as they def did today.

Upside for players is FEHR FEHR and FEHR. He's as good as it gets at this business and looked ultra cool today. Bettman's ego vs Fehr's legacy is what concerns me. Bettman is up against it vs Fehr in all sorts of ways and the little man doesn't like challenge. I'm not too worried as the owners will hopefully have the tight $$ shot clock right up close to Bettman's ear.

As in, retaining more of the cash they already earn, a topic which revenue sharing equalization payment falls under? Besides, when 18 teams are running operating income losses, you don't need to trot out a select few to act as the starving child in the WorldVision commercial; what I'm saying is the failures of poor markets have put us in this position.

Also, I no longer think big market/small market is as relevant as good market/bad market. Notice I never used "small market" in that post, I'm speaking about ideal markets. Edmonton (2nd smallest Canadian metro area in the NHL) would support the position that small doesn't necessarily mean bad, while Phoenix (6th largest city in the US) supports the notion that big doesn't necessarily mean good. Calgary was a "small market" in 2004. The landscape has changed drastically, and the terminology needs to change along with it.

btw, regardless of who or what this lockout is about, if I'm on the owners' side, I'm pretty sure I'd still rather have the N. Murray Edwards of the group represnt us than Charles Wang. That's an optics issue that I don't think has much to do with what we're talking about.

Why not just extend the new CBA another few years instead of limiting it to 6? The owners will get some of that money back down the road, and the players let the future generation deal with the reprocussions of what they negotiated for. Seems like a win win for both sides.

And you're just incredibly incorrect. You're not paying attention. The big markets don't care about the poor markets. They want more. The smaller markets are along for the ride - they don't really have a choice, and hey, they get more too, for the time being. Why not sign on?

How does what the owners are offering fix that issue? There's talk of increased revenue sharing, yes. But mostly they just cut the players' share. Where is the game going to grow in the markets that are struggling? It didn't really grow under the last CBA. So we're back in here in 6 years with the same issues. No, this is about the big markets getting more for themselves because they can and because they control Bettman and the league.

I am talking about big markets, not big population centers. Big revenue generators. I refuse to talk in terms of good markets and bad markets. Phoenix is a small market, Edmonton is a big market.

I remember Peter Karamnos was one of the most involved owners last time around, now he's nowhere to be found. I can't imagine why.

well, yeah. but they also don't want to lose a significant number of games, bc they're the ones who actually lose money there.

and while they might not actually care about the poor teams (pretty sure they don't at all), the players will compel them to now that they're partners, and bc a lot of this is being driven under the pretense of "so many teams can't turn a profit as is". so the players are obv pushing this revenue sharing thing, bc there are a bunch of teams making a killing.

heard it described as a 10/10/10 league recently (referring to revenue/profit groupings among the franchises), kinda liked that. so the system should probably end up reflecting this reality to some extent.

Well, looks like I've been comprehensively put in my place.

"Phoenix is a small market, Edmonton is a big market."

This is some kind of sign.

Ladieees and Gentlemaaan, your 2022-2023

Better get the season started, things are starting to get ugly

Jonathan QuickVerified ‏@JonathanQuick32
@Willie_Mitch33 welcome to the twitterverse, If you love wildsalmon, fishing, Helicopters, prius', organic food, and tight pants, follow him

Willie Mitchell ‏@Willie_Mitch33
@JonathanQuick32 Quicky Babe. Thxs for the shout out!#thisishowyoudo! pic.twitter.com/27GLn4Wq


Jonathan QuickVerified ‏@JonathanQuick32
@Willie_Mitch33 no no mitchy babe, #thisishowyoudo pic.twitter.com/nzTBekPI

quick needs a new haircut

i disagree - the fan bases in the smaller markets are much more tenuous. they might find that they don't miss hockey and won't come back. not the case in canada and the big markets in the US - there's plenty of fans willing to pay in those cities. so the bigger teams are willing to crush a season if it means more long-term revenues - remember, the narrative here is that everything the owners get from the players in this negotiation only increases what they can get during the next one.

basically every % of revenue clawed back from players is equal to 1.1 million per year per team, and that could go up significantly if league revenues keep growing as they have.

geddy: i'm sorry, i didn't mean to come off like such a dick, but man, it upsets me when the small markets are blamed for this one - they are going to get steamrolled if the league loses a season. and it's going to be basically for naught for them.