Quote:
Originally Posted by Daradon
But if teams are having trouble reaching the salary floor, it's because something is wrong. Be it with the ownership group, the management of the team, or yes, even the location.
We have a cap now. With linkage. The excuses for not being able to reach the floor or be competitive are not there the way they were before 05. If the teams can't do it, why should the league or the other teams help them out?
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Something is wrong, yes. But you are looking the wrong direction. The issue, in truth, is with the top teams, not the bottom.
Using Forbes' 2010-11 estimates of revenue:
http://www.forbes.com/nhl-valuations/#p_3_s_a5_
Consider that the median teams for revenue made $96 million, but the mean average was $103 million. Two thirds of the league's teams are below the mean.
Using a simple calculation of estimated revenue ($3090 million), the player's share (57%) would have created a salary midpoint of $58.7 million, and thus a cap of $66.7 million, and a floor of $50.7 million.
If you simply eliminate the bottom five revenue teams, the midpoint moves up to $62.2 million. More importantly, the floor rises to $54.2 million, or an increase of 6.9%. If you eliminate the
top five teams, however, the midpoint falls to $52.2 million, and the floor to $44.2 million - or a decrease of 12.8%.
Most teams are in the $78-105 million range for revenue. Three teams came in below that, and nobody would argue they are problem markets: Atlanta (relocated), Phoenix (likely to relocate) and the Islanders (likely to relocate). These markets are a disaster, and nobody will dispute that. But the salary cap problem is actually caused by the biggest revenue teams. The majority of teams in the middle would be doing alright if not for teams like Toronto ($197m), Rangers ($169m), Montreal ($165m) and Vancouver ($146m) that are so far above everyone else that they are skewing the cap up.
And the problem is getting worse. The top grossing teams are growing at a rate higher than the middle, and far higher than the bottom. Lowering the players' share to 50% from 57% (per the other sports agreements) only alleviates the problem in the short term. The union needs to force the owners into a more significant revenue sharing program. Probably something like what the teams did in the early years of the league - the visiting team gets a cut of the gate.