In the past 14 months, sports fans have seen lockouts in the NFL, the NBA and now the NHL. Like the other lockouts, the NHL’s is centered on cash. The collective bargaining agreement expired and now owners and players are fighting over who gets what.
The two sides need to come to an agreement quickly because the NHL can’t afford to go down this road again.
In 2004, the NHL became the first professional sports league to lose an entire season because of a lockout, and it regarded the same thing they’re fighting about now. The NHL saw a steady rise of viewership and television time in the early 2000s, but that came to a halt after the nonexistent 2004 season. When hockey returned in 2005 it saw lower ratings and less TV slots.
The NHL has just gotten back to where it should be and it’s being threatened again. With the regular season scheduled to start in less than a month, the owners and players need to get this worked out now. The NHL can’t afford to go through this again, and the fans deserve better.
Despite a rise in league revenue, the owners want to cut the player’s portion of hockey-related revenue from 57 percent to 43 percent. That’s millions of dollars of pay-cuts for the players. The NHL Player’s Association is obviously opposed to the idea and has actually stated it wants to increase revenue sharing. It’s easy to see these groups are on totally different sides here, which means trouble for the upcoming season.
One of the reasons the owners are pushing so hard for more is some NHL teams are struggling financially, and more money would give them more financial stability, although no team is in real danger of going under.
The bottom line here is both sides are being greedy and forgetting about what is important — playing hockey. Players seem to forget that they get to play a game for a living and owners seem to forget that it’s the fans that bring in the money. If this lockout continues the league can expect a backlash like it saw in 2004.
The owners and players know this needs to get resolved, but given the reports that the sides are not close to agreement, it’s not likely the season will start on time. In all likeliness it’ll be a shortened NHL season, which is better than none. For the sake of the league, the fans and the stadium workers, this cannot be allowed to continue. Losing an entire regular season for the second time in a decade would be disastrous for the future of the NHL. Some players have already stated they’ll go play in Europe.
Both sides need to grow up and realize this could affect the future of the league for generations. They need to do what’s best for the league, even if it means losing a few bucks.
Kevin Bingaman can be reached at [email protected]