Players In The League example essay topic

921 words
NHL Players Moving East It was deemed official this past weekend that the NHL will be on lockout due to the new salary cap the league wants to enforce. The players in the league have a different outlook this year as well and it involves moving east. Hockey players in the NHL get 75% of the revenue the league makes and it is very obvious that this current situation is not going to last. There is no way to fund the league if the players are making all of the money. So what happens now? Ratings are very low, the league is not m September 21, 2004 Current Events Paperarketable right now, and expansion has hurt rather than cured many of the problems in the NHL.

That is why the NHL is trying to come to an agreement to place a cap in the league in order to make some much-needed revenue. The players are not having this new idea, and they are now welcoming a different home. More than 150 players have signed to play in the European leagues. Jaromir Jagr has agreed to play in the Czech Republic for a team named Kla dmo. Marcus Nas lund has agreed to play in Sweden for Modo. Lly a Kovalchuk has signed with AK Bars Kazan in Russia.

These are just a few names, but other players are already signed as well and are playing games as we speak. The Russian league has signed 33 NHL players, the Swedish league has signed 30 NHL players, the Czech league has signed 47 NHL players, and the Finnish and Slovakia leagues both signed nine NHL players apiece. So how can this current situation be resolved? There are few options right now, which makes it seem like this is really going to hurt the league economically. Most of the players in the league have a lockout clause in their contracts making this problem easy for them to deal with. All they have to do is wait out this lockout while being involved with a different league and when the lockout is over they can automatically resume their previous positions in the NHL.

This situation however, is not going to be resolved that easily. If the players do not agree to have a salary cap in the NHL then there is not quite an alternative. Where can the league make up this money? If there were a bigger demand for the sport than there would not be a problem. The players are making 75% of the leagues revenue but what would happen if the 25% the league got was a substantial amount of money because people were actually interested in the sport. That is the only way that the league would be able to continue on the way it was last season.

This is what I believe in my opinion the league will have to adopt in order to not have a luxury tax and a salary cap: "The NHL won't accept a luxury-tax based system. The NHLPA won't accept a salary cap. So the NHL and NHLPA agree to adopt a 'payroll parameter's ystem. It includes annually negotiated and adjusted threshold figures, with both a floor and ceiling. Teams can go above the ceiling, but they pay an additional $2 for every $1 they go above that threshold. One dollar goes to a general league fund, to be dispersed to all teams above the 'floor' minimum, and $1 goes to either Hockey Canada or USA Hockey, the governing organizations for North American grass-roots hockey".

(Espn. com). This is your basic economical solution to the problem. Both sides get a bit of what they want. It cannot be 100% for one side. The only problem now even if this solution were to go through is that some players have agreed to play in other leagues such as the World Hockey Association for the remainder of the season. So there is an automatic loss in revenue for the league.

No players, no money. It's that simple. Like the league wasn't having enough trouble already trying to market the league. Merchandise sales would go down, ticket sales would definitely go down, and we already know that television ratings are at an extreme low. So in the end it does not look too good for the NHL. You can come to an agreement with the NHLPA but you might not have necessarily gotten yourself out of the long-term problems the NHL will encounter.

What fan base will still be watching? Will you lose a big portion of the fans you had to European leagues? How will you manage to attract new players and fans? This could be a devastating situation for the NHL.

They are coming off a bad year and now it seems as though it will only get worse. Now the league if it continues on will be depending on HDTV to boost their ratings. This might not help out their economical situation if no one wants to watch because they do not like the sport. With your superstars gone, how will you earn revenue? Hopefully the league can figure this one out, but right now they seem likely to go bankrupt, even if they negotiate.