Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle
Teams have always had budgets though, hard cap or not. I understand the point you are making, but even in the 80's, if a player negotiated hard and got more money, most owners were still operating on a budget and would have to give less to someone else. Not that many teams of the 30 had what seemed like unlimited funds.
It's also no different than a regular persons job. You walk into your bosses office and ask for a raise, and you get it.........someone else isn't getting that money or a portion of it because most businesses have planned budgets for salary and or salary increases. The more you get, the less someone else gets. It's not really a unique thing to these hockey players, it's kind of just how a free market economy works.
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It
is different though.
Imagine if your co-worker got a raise, and as a result, the company started withholding 5% of your salary. Your view on their raise would be a little different, no?
And with respect to the operating budgets, before the cap... that wasn't the same either. Despite the best intentions of the owner/manager, salaries got pushed up, and budgets got pushed up. It wasn't a firm, unchangeable number. And again, it didn't cause other players' salaries to be carved back.