LOCKOUT: Day Twenty-five – Bring the fans misery, for only Ten Million a day.
Well, the league is still in full blown lockout mode. We’ve got about fifteen percent of the league(and growing) pulling up stakes to play out the work stoppage in Europe, and we got a couple of hundred players who were given advance warning that the lockout was coming. Most of those players took precautions, and steeled themselves for this. (At this point, I’m willing to believe that Tim Thomas nailed the impending economic doom diatribe he posted on Facebook. For all we know, he saw it coming and decided to warn people in a slightly cryptic way.) Now we’ve got the league telling us that the lockout is really starting to bite into the franchises. Not surprising, seeing that the league’s owners went for some rather wild and high priced contracts just before they decided to tell the player’s union how they wanted contracts to go from now on.
So, what kind of bite is the league feeling? How much cash has been lost by the league due to the lockout that they themselves imposed? That estimate was put forth by NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly to the Orange County Register. His estimation tells what they’re own little scheme has cost them.
“What I can say is obviously we lost about ninety million with losing the preseason,” Daly said in an interview with the Register. “I would say with the cancellation of the first two weeks of the regular season, we’re probably in jeopardy of losing about another one hundred forty million. So you’re talking about two-thirty, two-forty to this point that’s in jeopardy. That’s two-forty that we both lose. (But it’s us fans who have really been taking it at this point, Bill.)It’s not just the league that’s losing that money. The players are sharing on some basis in that.(To be fair Bill, you and Gary decided to listen to the governors and started this whole disaster.) Some substantial basis. Whether that’s fifty-seven percent, or whether that’s fifty percent or whether that’s forty-seven percent. It’s some basis and it’s a significant basis.”
“The current situation hasn’t benefited either side, that’s for sure.”
So, the league is bleeding about ten million dollars a day. Which if we use rough numbers again, each club is losing about three hundred thirty thousand dollars a day. At this point, its rather substantial, and it doesn’t matter if its US or Canadian currency. OK owners, how many of you can survive taking these kind of hits? Columbus? Minnesota? Phoenix? Seriously, can you keep this up and not lose a few teams in the process? Doubtful, your own number two man for the league is outright telling the press they’re losing cash hand over fist.
On the bright side, maybe the league will now finally take the no arbitration clause off the table. Or maybe they’ll look at their own recent plays and reduce and remove the UFA and rookie contract clauses as well. This sort of compromise could easily get the players to shave a few points off the top and finally lead to REAL progress in the negotiation of a new CBA. Maybe then we can talk about checks, goals and assists… because CBA and HRR are becoming vulgar words to me.