DOH 213 – A Ray of Hope
October 16th, 2012, 9:30 pm
The owners presented a deal that at first glance does not appear to be bat guano, and the Dudes are a little encouraged. They talk about what is currently known about the deal, how it might affect the Sharks were it to be ratified by the union, and the Bulls game the DOH group went to last weekend.
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You say that 50/50 is fair. But think about it for a while.. There arnt really one single player vs one owner, but rather a group of individual players against a group of owners and its not split 50/50, but rather split into like a milion parts..
In toronto for example, its defenetly not 50/50.
Also 50/50 is not inherently fair in any way.
For exampe in a service company (like a cleaning company for example) almost all the income is generated by the employees and also there is basically no other expenses.
On the other hand for a company that have basically only robots doing their work and the robots and material are the main expences, then the employees generate a verry small part of the income and also a verry small part of the expences.
In any normal company the employer (in this case the teams) would fight for the employees by offering them more then any other company. The only reason I see that there should be a cap at all is that the team with the most money would always win. Remember, no team is forced to pay more than the lower cap, so if they do that and lose money, then its not the employees problem, but rather the owners.
The owners are just greedy and want more.. It has nothing to do with whats “fair”. 50/50 is just a number as any other number and has nothing to do with beeing fair or not.
If the players don’t either accept this offer or make a resonable counter offer – public opinion and support will flip faster than Mitt Romney on health care!
GET IT DONE
This offer still blows, but hopefully it’s a starting point.
I do think it was a tactical error on the union’s part to not craft and present their own new offer first. Now the owners get to say “Hey, we offered 50-50 *cough cough* with a buttload of strings attached *cough* whaddya say players??” and public opinion (which is CRITICAL) starts to sway in their direction. Which seems like their primary goal at the moment, anyway, given the Frank Luntz focus group.
First, this notion that 50/50 is fair confuses me. 1 guy gets 50% and 22 guys split the other 50%? Is that fair? I don’t think so… Anyway, I get they’re probably going to end up at a 50/50 revenue split, that’s mostly the fault of the NFLPA and the NBAPA, not because it has anything to do with fairness.
Frankly, if there was some 50/50 split that was fair, it would be splitting the amount of money additionally going to helping struggling teams. The Maple leafs and Rangers do not have any cost problems, they make boat loads of money, lowering player salary only gives them more money. If we want to do what this lockout claims to do, then I think we should split the amount of money going to struggling franchises 50/50 between owners and players. Right now the owners are proposing giving another 50 mil to struggling franchises while the players are giving up 200 million, a majority of which is going to stuffing the pockets of already very well off teams. how’s that fair?
“Fair” is a completely relative term, especialy in negotiations. I’m not gonna defend the owners although I think there are other ways to look at the 50/50 issue from the owners point of view. Honestly, I just don’t give a shit about either group, owners or players. They’re both overpayed and I have little compassion or concern for either of them. For me that a better word: compassion.
Who i do have compassion for is the guy getting his hours jacked working tables at Amici’s or the families that own places like La Victoria and Henry’s Hi-Life, and who may be looking at a devestating winter if there is no NHL in SJ. And of course we the fans… And I would argue that all of us are injured by a lockout at some level.
I have zero compassion for anyone that would try to pad their over inflated bank accounts at the risk of people’s livelihoods or even the detriment of a sport that has given them the lifestyles they all enjoy – that most of us will never have.
I certainly have more compassion for those you mention, those that are getting truly screwed by this lockout. But I do have compassion for those being treated unfairly, because fairness and justice are (sometimes tenuously) linked. Would you have no compassion if the owners demanded all salaries were immediately leveled to $600k? That would put all NHL players’ families in the top 0.5% of the US income distribution, and certainly give them a lifestyle they can enjoy, and one most of us would never have. And they would still be overpayed in terms of societal worth (at least in my view).
While the latest proposal seems more reasonable, I think this graf from Ken Campbell’s column this morning is 100% true:
If the owners get more favorable positions on all the terms at issue while the players get none, that’s not a negotiation, that’s a shakedown.
Yeah I agree to a point. Which is why I say “fair” is a completely relative term. I like the way Jeff Marek says, “There’s no such thing as “fair” in negotiation, there is only what you negotiate for.”
But yes, I would have little to no compassion for someone complaining about getting paid $600k to play hockey. It may not be “fair” from they’re perspective… but My wife gets paid $50k a year to work ridiculous hours teaching kids in East Palo Alto how to read, is that “fair”… well it depends on what you’re comparing it to doesn’t it?
If you compare it other teacher salaries it’s average. If you compare it to Krys Barch bitching about getting $700k a year to play a sport… hell no its not “fair”.
Which is my point. These guys don’t live in a bubble. They live in a real world where some people don’t have health insurance or even enough food. And they live in a real world where their actions on this issue WILL affect other people, so it makes me have ZERO compassion for whatever deal they get.
I think I understand better, but we just differ on this. IMHO, we have to shift points of reference based on context in the world, or else (to take your point one step further) the concept of fairness becomes almost completely meaningless. More than two thirds of the people in India live on less than $2 per day. In that context, we all should shut up and do our jobs, regardless of pay. So what’s the correct frame of reference?
As distasteful as it may be, I think the proper context here is in relation to professional sports/entertainment, the amount of money available to the parties, and each party’s contribution and risk involved in the success of the business. Most importantly to me, the ability of the most powerful to bully and control those with less. Just because those with less in this situation have more (a lot more) than I do doesn’t mean that conduct isn’t contemptible or unfair.
This could end up devolving into a Unabomber-esque political treastise, so I’m just gonna shut up now.
I think you took my point a little too far, or may have not read my second point. I don’t disparage anyone trying to get paid… or reasonably negogiate their compensaion… I really don’t. But there is a big difference between the affect of someone down the street that depends on said business and people across the globe in a different country, with different laws, and different economic systems.
But yes, this could easily devolve into insanity. so ill shut up too and end with this… I would just like to see more NHL fans not be so loyal to a sport we all love regardless of how they behave.
In my defense, I didn’t see your second point until after I posted this.
sorry… one last point.
The reality is too… players arent getting their pay cut to 600K… They’re fighting over a few percentage points of a 3 billion dollar pie. They are all going to get paid at the end of they day. To lockout the league and affect other people is just plain wrong.
Of course they have the right to negotiate the best deal they can get. I’m not opposed to that, which is why I said I was giving them until about Jan 1 to get it done. But beyond that is getting into the territorty where I can’t support a league and players group that fights over percentages at the cost of other people.
My viewpoint is that these guys don’t live in a “real world” – they live in a world where competition rules go out the window & the owners are allowed to operate a cartel enshrined in law that means they make far more money than they would in a “real world” competitive environment.
To counterbalance this, there is a model of a CBA which needs to be agreed by both & the strength of the union is augmented to a place where it wouldn’t normally be.
Both sides are benefitting from this legally created “unreal world”.
If you are carving up what would normally be illegal gains, then there is no way it is fair compared to normal people.
However, in terms of the CBA & negotiations, the conversation is all around %s & I can’t help thinking 57% was too far in the players favour – 47% in the owners favour – 50/50 is a solution advocated by several commentators, that has been set as a precedent in other sports and could be a real long term solution we may never argue about again. In these terms, I think I would fully agree that 50/50 is fair and wish we could hae cut the BS & posturing & arrived at this split months ago!
P.S. I’ could add loads to this echoing ED’s comments on how there seems to have been no mention of increased revenue sharing in this revised contract which is the root of the problem . But why waste my typing – the big owners seem to have made it clear they are going to move on this.