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Anyway, the problem with the NHL is a disparity between its richest and poorest teams the likes of which would be unimaginable to the other three leagues, combined with a particularly dumbfuck form of socialism in which the floor and ceiling of the salary cap are determined by an arithmetic mean that fails to remove its outliers, namely Montreal, which just dwarfs the rest of the league in revenue, except for Toronto, which, in turn, dwarfs Montreal. It was said that 33% of the revenue came from 20% of the league (the 6/30 Canadian teams), and that was before we added Winnipeg, which just fuckin' prints money, it's insane.
Now that's all well and good, but when the NHL wrote up the linkage system and revenue-sharing plan in 2005, the general idea was that big-swingin'-dick America, with Toronto and Montreal, would do the heavy lifting for the four small Canadian towns, and then we'd preserve Bettman's glorious U.S. footprint while maintaining lip service to Western Canada and Ottawa. Well, the global economy didn't really work out that way. The Canadian dollar started beating up ours, Vancouver has come into more money than it knows what the hell to do with and has seemingly spent it all on highrise condos and Canucks games, the oil industry in Alberta keeps booming, and even sleepy Ottawa has chugged along respectably.
Meanwhile, our economy has been shit, which hurts disposable income, especially for teams that are fourth or lower on the local totem pole. The NHL, without giant TV deals, depends on gate revenue more than the other leagues, and it's not reasonable to expect people in most of these cities to pay what Canadians are willing to pay for their teams, which are nearest and dearest to their hearts, and, in the cases of Toronto and Montreal, play in cities of major global commerce and have corporate revenue streams that you won't get in Nashville or Columbus. On top of that, the Stars went bankrupt, the Coyotes went bankrupt, and the Blue Jackets were about to get into some serious trouble until the government bought their arena for them to play rent-free. Blue Jackets, whatever, but having Phoenix and Dallas operating as bare-bones operations under constant relocation threats makes it hard to make money, which sure scuttles the whole idea of big American markets raising all ships. Winnipeg is subsidizing Phoenix. That's upside-down.
So anyway, back to spending. The salary cap from 2005-2012 was calculated roughly by taking annual league revenue, multiplying by .57, and dividing by 30. That was your midpoint, from which you could spend $8 million above or below. By the end of the CBA, the midpoint was $56.3 million, which meant the floor was $48.3 million -- again, a figure reached by just taking everyone's money and dividing, even if Toronto and Montreal were stratospheres above everyone else. The Leafs had an estimated $99 million in ticket revenue that year. The Stars earned $17 million, yet were compelled to spend at least $48 million on players. That's trouble math.
Unfortunately, it's not an easy fix. You can open up the salary range to be nearly as wide as the revenue range, which would allow struggling teams to spend within their means. Do that, though, and then they can't compete on the ice, which kills the market. The league is trying some new revenue-sharing provisions which basically include hitting up Canada, Chicago, Philly, and the Rangers for even more money to give to the South, but it remains to be seen how well that will work once the cap starts going back up again. It's estimated to reach $80 million soon.
_________________ Molly Lambert wrote: The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.
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