Bettman signs 7 year contract extension

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by thefoss1957

Dion...3 lockouts.

As to Bettman's "vision", or "savior of small market Canadian teams" & etc...The running joke in the desert, rather than allowing a Canadian interest to take over what was originally a Canadian franchise, even as it was a "ward of the league"

Bit more complicated of a situation than that. But it is worth noting that the NHL fought for Phoenix recently as it fought for the Canadian teams in the 90s. That may seem counterintuitive, but Bettman nixed a move of the Jets to the Twin Cities in 1995 while the league tried to find another local owner. Unfortunately, the community ownership idea fell through and there was nobody else willing to step up, thus the move to Phoenix a year later. Also, the Canadian Assistance plan is why Calgary, among others, still has a team.

...forcing franchises into US Southern markets, where any down swing in performance might mean abandonment of the town...(I suspect that Sunrise, FL., will lose it's team sooner than later, and have my doubts for Raleigh or Nashville, down the line)

This is an example of Bettman's most important (and most successful) job for the owners: he acts as their lightning rod. The plan to put teams in the American south predates Bettman by several years. In fact, San Jose, Anaheim, Tampa Bay and Florida were all processed under Ziegler or Stein. It was under Bettman that Columbus, Minnesota, Atlanta (now Winnipeg) and Nashville came to be. But that was part of what the owners hired him to do.

...this fixation on Las Vegas, a Fail market that even the NFL, MLB, and NBA, have recognized shortcomings as a fan base, rather than Seattle or Quebec, or Hamilton, all better "hockey" markets, IMO. All these, I feel, reflect stubbornness and poor judgment on Bettman's part.

Appeal to emotion fallacy. You can't claim Vegas will fail when it hasn't been tried yet. Also, you're just making things up when you say "the NFL, MLB, and NBA, have recognized shortcomings as a fan base". Additionally, I think it is very clear the NHL wants to go into Seattle. Teensy little problem with the lack of an arena plan though. I hope Quebec gets a team eventually, but the odds are they are the landing spot for a team like Florida if it fails.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

The 1995 lockout could not have been avoided. Though you are right that it didn't fix anything. By the mid 1990s, the economic landscape in all of sports was changing. The pendulum, which favoured the owners for so long, had swung and was starting to both favour players and the largest market teams at the expense of everyone else. Borne out of this was the NHL's 1992 strike, and MLB's catastrophic 1994 strike. These events taught the NHL two things: From 1992, the league learned it needed a much stronger leader than the the absentee President John Ziegler if it was going to counter Bob Goodenow. From 1994, the NHL learned that you don't start a season without a CBA, or very bad things happen.

1995 was pointless, but not because of Gary Bettman. 1995 was pointless because the NHL's ownership was developing that strong big market vs. small market discord. The players ultimately destroyed the owners in that negotiation because the owners had no unity.

And what that taught Gary Bettman was that he needed the power to not only negotiate with the union, but to control his own table. Nfotiu says Bettman lacks vision? I disagree. Bettman knew what was going to happen in 2004. And he convinced his owners to give him the veto power that would ensure the seven or eight large teams could not fold the way they did in 1995. Bettman then realized that - painful as it was to do so - the NHL needed to be willing to cancel the season to convince the union of how dire the situation had become. Bettman outmaneuvered Goodenow, and got us the salary cap that Bob had spent 15 years proclaiming would never happen.

2013 was unnecesary in some respects, but necessary in others. The system still required some tuning and balancing, and even an NHLPA led by a moderate would have struggled to agree with going from 57% to 50%. However, all the bitter hardliners in the union had installed a man in Don Fehr who pathologically hates sports owners. Once that happened, another lockout became inevitable. The players refused to even open negotiations until a lockout. And there was no way in hell that the owners would ever begin a season without a CBA when the guy on the other side of the table was the one who cancelled the World Series.

Bettman had all the control he needed in the 94/95 lockout. He just didn't have the balls to use it and so we ended up with 2 more lockouts and the lose of two Canadian teams.

You can't even give him credit for the 04/05 lockout as it took Hochkiss and Linden to do the final deal. Bettman wasn't even in the room.

[PeteMoss]

The NBA has virtually lapped the NHL by about 100 fold since Bettman's come into the league so not sure why anyone would bring up the NBA which manages to get its games on three strong networks (ABC,ESPN,TNT) while the NHL gets a sprinkling of games (and not even the entire Stanley Cup) on NBC and the rest of a channel no one watches.

Bettman has done one good thing - the salary cap - which saved a bunch of small market teams (or at least made them competitive). Any other positives he's brought have been done by every other league and you can argue he's hurt the league by its visibility in the US and the tiny US TV deal he got them locked into on a channel no one watches.

[Bill Bumface]

The currency equalization program Bettman put in place is the only reason the Flames are still in Calgary for us to watch.

The man could add a 3 point line and I'd still love him.

[PeteMoss]

For comparison's sake:
NHL tv deal in the US - 10 years/$2 Billion dollars - $200 million/year.
NBA - 9 years/$24 billion dollars - $2.67 billion/year.

So the NBA makes more in one year than the NHL will make in ten.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

The currency equalization program Bettman put in place is the only reason the Flames are still in Calgary for us to watch.

The man could add a 3 point line and I'd still love him.

That deal only returned some of the money Canadian teams were already sending south in the TV deal so it was no big favour.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Bettman had all the control he needed in the 94/95 lockout. He just didn't have the balls to use it and so we ended up with 2 more lockouts and the lose of two Canadian teams.

You can't even give him credit for the 04/05 lockout as it took Hochkiss and Linden to do the final deal. Bettman wasn't even in the room.

Ahh yes. The bitter Bettman hater comes in to once again try and offer 100% blame and 0% credit.

No, Bettman did not have "All the control he needed" in 1994. The guy was two years into the job at that time. A job where his predecessors for the previous seven decades were ownership puppets. But that loss in 1994-95 is what convinced the owners to give him his veto for 2004-05. So while you are correct that the final resolution itself was primarily Hotchkiss, it was still Bettman who controlled the owners and stared down Goodenow. Hotchkiss and Linden don't even get to that point otherwise.

[Badgers Nose]

I'm glad. The NHL was a joke league before he took over. Now it is pretty stable and every team has a legit chance to win. They have expanded the market for the game and have been super patient with teams like Arizona.

I wish he and some of the policies he helped implement like the cap had been around in the late 80s.

[Resolute 14]

^The NHL was kind of capped in that time frame. But that had a lot to do with Alan Eagleson being a corrupt POS. Bob Goodenow was a lot of things, but but an ownership stooge he was not. He did good work for his constituents.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Ahh yes. The bitter Bettman hater comes in to once again try and offer 100% blame and 0% credit.

No, Bettman did not have "All the control he needed" in 1994. The guy was two years into the job at that time. A job where his predecessors for the previous seven decades were ownership puppets. But that loss in 1994-95 is what convinced the owners to give him his veto for 2004-05. So while you are correct that the final resolution itself was primarily Hotchkiss, it was still Bettman who controlled the owners and stared down Goodenow. Hotchkiss and Linden don't even get to that point otherwise.

Back to throwing personal potshots again, are we. Bettman had veto power in the 94/95 lockout and to say otherwise is more of your revisionist history.

[Tinordi]

Somewhere Ron McLean is having a time out.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Back to throwing personal potshots again, are we. Bettman had veto power in the 94/95 lockout and to say otherwise is more of your revisionist history.

Citation needed.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Citation needed.

You're the one who made the original claim.

[woob]

Regardless of how good/bad he is for the league, I can't be the only one who wishes they would hire someone to be the media guy for Bettman, instead of letting Bettman do interviews. He is such an arrogant and pompous interview and comes across as having no sense of humour once so ever. I cant remember hearing/watching a single interview with him where I haven't wanted to watch him get boarded by Big Ern after.

/rant

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

You can't even give him credit for the 04/05 lockout as it took Hochkiss and Linden to do the final deal. Bettman wasn't even in the room.

A good leader knows when to step away when things get too heated, let others be the face. 04/05 was a true boon for Bettman! A brilliant strategic move by Gary letting others move ahead while he controlled things from the shadows. Your posts only lifts him up further.

He raises us all up, so we can stand on mountains.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

A good leader knows when to step away when things get too heated, let others be the face. 04/05 was a true boon for Bettman! A brilliant strategic move by Gary letting others move ahead while he controlled things from the shadows. Your posts only lifts him up further.

He raises us all up, so we can stand on mountains.

There comes a time in your life that you need to look at the facts and put your hero worshipping behind you. Bettman just isn't very good at what he does.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Back to throwing personal potshots again, are we. Bettman had veto power in the 94/95 lockout and to say otherwise is more of your revisionist history.

I don't believe that is true:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

As in 1994, the owners' position was predicated around the need for a salary cap. In an effort to ensure solidarity amongst the owners, the league's governors voted to give Bettman the right to unilaterally veto any union offer as long as he had the backing of just eight owners.

Sports Business Journal reported that Bettman's veto powers were bestowed as a result of a unanimous vote of the BoG in 2000:

Originally Posted by Sports Business Journal (30 Aug, 2004)

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has extraordinary authority over approving any new labor agreement for the league.

Four years ago, NHL owners voted unanimously to allow Bettman to nix any deal if he has the support of just eight of the 30 NHL owners, said NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly.

In addition, a collective-bargaining agreement recommended by Bettman would need only a simple majority vote by ownership to pass, but if Bettman was against a deal, it would take three-quarters of the owners to override him.

Even if you were correct about the extent of his power in 94/95—and I don't believe that you are, the fact that he had only been on the job for two years, in a position that had only just been created, and working within a new corporate culture understandably limited his influence among long-time members of the BoG.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

A good leader knows when to step away when things get too heated, let others be the face. 04/05 was a true boon for Bettman! A brilliant strategic move by Gary letting others move ahead while he controlled things from the shadows. Your posts only lifts him up further.

He raises us all up, so we can stand on mountains.

Kind of how I see it... people probably hate the lockout and cancelled season, but I was actually kind of impressed by the chess match, and Bettman won.

Add on top he kept the Flames in Calgary when we were barely being kept alive, I'm very grateful for his work.

[Vulcan]

He had the power in 94/95 and although he was fairly new to his position, getting a salary cap was part of his mandate when he was hired.

Bettman's "NHL mandate was: aggressive expansion, a new American TV deal, a focus on growth (especially in the southern U.S.), and lasting labor peace … under the owners’ terms, of course.".[5] It was widely assumed that to reach this peace a salary cap would have to be in place.

[CaptainCrunch]

I don't believe that Bettman had veto power in 94/95. I remember reading in Dohbiggen's book Money players that the big market owners like Snyder in Philly basically said F the small market teams we need to get back on the ice, and went around Bettman and brokered a deal with the union and forced the NHL to accept it.

hhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994%..._lockoutttp://

After the lockout had dragged on talk on for certain time the talk of salary cap faded and new items entered the debate. Talk of rookie salary cap, changes to the arbitration system, and loosened free agency. However, large market teams such as Toronto, Detroit, the New York Rangers, Dallas, and Philadelphia eventually broke with the league, as they feared that an extended lockout would outweigh the benefits from getting a salary cap and didn't want to be the first league in North America to forfeit an entire season just to help out their small-market colleagues.[6]

http://icehockey.wikia.com/wiki/Gary_Bettman

2004–05 lockoutEdit

By the end of the deal in 2004, the owners were claiming that player salaries had grown far faster than revenues, and that the league as a whole lost over US$300 million in 2002–03.
As a result, on September 15, 2004, Bettman announced that the owners again locked the players out prior to the start of the 2004–05 season. Three months later, Bettman announced the cancellation of the entire season with the words "It is my sad duty to announce that because a solution has not yet been attained, it is no longer practical to conduct even an abbreviated season. Accordingly, I have no choice but to announce the formal cancellation of play." The NHL became the first North American league to cancel an entire season because of a labor stoppage.
As in 1994, the owners' position was predicated around the need for a salary cap. In an effort to ensure solidarity amongst the owners, the league's governors voted to give Bettman the right to unilaterally veto any union offer as long as he had the backing of just eight owners. The players initially favored luxury tax system, and a 5% rollback on player salaries — later increased to 24%. As the threat of a canceled season loomed, the players agreed to accept a salary cap, but the two sides could not come to terms on numbers before the deadline expired

The biggest thing outside of the Veto was that Bettman forced all of the teams to stock pile cash leading up to the next lock out, so they could sit the league on the side lines for over a year and starve the players into a deal.