OH1FlyersFan

Even with revenue sharing, will places like Phoenix, Dallas, Columbus, Carolina, and Anaheim ever become real hockey markets?

Probably a rhetorical question, but just in case.....my answer is a resounding "no".

IF it benefits the sport

That's the key point right there. That's what we both, what we all, want. Totally agree with you. Perhaps there's just a different perspective on what will benefit the sport. My view is that the sport benefits, that it improves, if the focus is on quality, not quantity. Look for opportunities to shrink the number of teams in the League by separating the wheat from the chaff based on each team's financial strength. Set some standards. Require teams to meet those standards. We have accounting standards for business (GAAP), there should be some sort of standard for professional hockey teams. Maybe there already are. Maybe they need to be stronger. Frankly, some are just flat out mismanaged. Why should a team like the Flyers throw their good money after a brutally mis-managed team's bad money?

It's interesting to read the opinions of fans of a team owned by Comcast. What about the fans of those teams that love hockey every bit as much as we do, or maybe spend more than we do trying to help their struggling franchise?

Revenue sharing is successful in other sports, why not here? Why does a salary cap upset anybody? $14 million a year contract potential isn't enough to play hockey?

I sincerely hope someday you understand what it means to be a fan for a near bankrupt franchise. Maybe then you'll understand that not every city has the size of Philly... And not every franchise has a billion dollar highway robbery scheme (Comcast) backing it up.

I think it would help your franchise if it had more stalwart fans like yourself. It really wasn't until the Crosby era that you had interested fans, more than just a hardcore few. And that's grown.....a little. I can't help that. If it's just a matter of size, then why wouldn't the league consider that before locating a team there. Or a team owner. The same thing is happening in Columbus, so I get it. Columbus is a small city, maybe even smaller than Pittsburgh, I'll have to check the census data. And nothing here can compete with OSU football. These are things that should have been considered before making a decision to locate a professional hockey team in town. Nobody should be surprised when the team struggles financially. That's exactly my point. But Bettman charges forward anyways. Not a smart business decision. So the Flyers are supported by Comcast. Why should we be forced to subsidize everyone else just because of that? Should all those 1%'s we keep hearing about be forced to subsidize all those who choose not to work, or who can't? Oh, wait.......

@RonJeremy and King Knut - I'm glad to read I'm not the only one who thinks this scheme isn't necessarily the best way to run a railroad. I agree - a higher cap would be a good place to start for teams that are profitable.

Interesting article on the revenue sharing proposals made by both the owners and the players - though the focus is primarily on the players' proposal.

I know I'm probably in the minority but this whole concept of revenue sharing, subsidization, spreading the wealth, whatever you want to call it, just galls me.

The Flyers are fortunate to be a revenue positive team. That should be rewarded, not penalized. Why should money the Flyers organization earns (I'm contributing as I do buy tickets and merchandise) bail out a team like the Blue Jackets because it can't generate its own revenue? Let the market work. I want my money to go to the development of my team. If they have no fans, so be it. Move the team or let it fold. Shrink the league.

The interesting thing about the players' proposal is that they would pay for increased revenue sharing (more teams would be eligible) by reducing players salaries. Good for the players. Not a bad move. More teams mean more jobs. Makes sense that they would make that sacrifice. But how is everyone else contributing? The League can't get a lucrative tv deal to help cover the cost. The owners won't reduce ticket prices, no sir, to help cover the cost of expanded revenue sharing.

So where does that leave us? We, the fans, pay more, the players get paid less, the owners stand pat, maybe even make a little more money, and crappy, mismanaged, bankrupt (or at least financially troubled) teams keep limping along digging themselves into an even deeper hole despite being subsidized by wealthier teams. I don't see the sense in any of it. Just not a fan of revenue sharing.

Here endeth the rant!

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/trust-fix-nhl-revenue-sharing-owners-players-155103013--nhl.html;_ylt=Asd2Ro8dXhftfiq0mahn2LR7vLYF;_ylu=X3oDMTN1bG5icnAyBG1pdANGRUFUVVJFRCBNZWdhdHJvbiBOSEwEcGtnAzAxMTIwYzkwLTdiOTAtMzU5NS05MGY0LWI4Yjc2MjE3MDI1OARwb3MDMwRzZWMDbWVnYXRyb24EdmVyA2QxZDAwOTAwLWViYjctMTFlMS05NzJmLWNlYWFkNzQ2N2NlMQ--;_ylg=X3oDMTFoYWo1YzR1BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANuaGwEcHQDc2VjdGlvbnM-;_ylv=3

of course

I think this, and/or a NTC, is just a standard part of every Flyers contract now. That's cool. I'm getting used to it. Ha!!

Just always that chance it won't.

True that.

I can see that scenario playing out, Jammer. But won't the end result be the same, just delayed by a year, if it plays out? The fan base in an uproar because they deal the franchise cornerstone, the best defenseman in hockey? I guess it depends on who they get back in exchange. If they really do get a king's ransom, perhaps the fans are mollified, somewhat. If they don't get that ransom, then they're out $29 million for the year they had to pay him, they have (or had) an unhappy, maybe unproductive player for a year, have extremely unhappy fans, and end up facing the same backlash they would have if they had just not signed the offer sheet and let him go. Does this save the team?

Only down side to it is that sometimes a young player being forced to take too much ice time in the NHl lavel shatters their confidence and ends their careers. History is full of good prospects people think were "ruined" by the Clubs putting too much on them too soon. I think IF it can be done with a reasonable expectation on the player then it can be nothing but good for them to get the experience, but that's a big IF.

I agree. But on the other side of that coin, like Mad Dog and Canoli point out, is a huge upside. Not just for the organization in analyzing where those players are in their development, but for the players personally. Given a chance, they could find out they can really play and compete with the best in the League. They could find out that they're really pretty good. It could boost their confidence and conditioning immensely and be a very positive experience.

It seemed to work out well for our young players on offense. I had the same concerns you articulated - it could have broken them this past season. But Read and Couturier and Schenn to some degree played some decent minutes and played really well, at least in my opinion. They'll take that confidence into the next season and build on it. That's what I'm hoping for with our young defense. Give them the minutes next season.

In the immortal words from the movie "Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" - let them play, let them play!

I can't believe I'm going to do this twice in one thread, but I agree twice....with a Penguins fan no less. Hehe.

I think where I got off track is that I didn't really read the title of the thread, I just read HF101's post which was the article about the NTC/NMC contract issues and assumed that's what we were discussing. You know what they say about those who assume!

So @radoran and I are mistaken on the topic? I thought "What does this mean for the Flyers?" was asking "What does this mean for the Flyers?". .

If the point has shifted to Weber's asking for the NTC then maybe we should re-title it and move it out of the Flyers' forum into the Preds?

Great minds! That's exactly what I just posted too. Haha.

The topic of this thread in the Flyers forum is "What Does This Mean For the Flyers?"

If this is a thread about contract negotiations between the Preds and Weber, we can certainly move it where it belongs.

I agree that the content of this thread hasn't really matched up to the title. Why not just change the title? Ha. The discussion about the contract issues actually has been more interesting to me than what it may or may not mean to the Flyers.

But to try to stay on topic, I'll throw out a little something -- what this means to the Flyers is apparently nothing at this time, though at some point in the future, it could mean a lot in the event of a trade.

Who's said he's going to end up with the Flyers? Nobody has brought that up at all,

Thanks for pointing that out AJ! Totally agree. I thought the topic was why Nashville has not agreed to a NTC/NMC. I don't think anyone has said in any of the posts I've read that he's coming to the Flyers - despite all the statements made by Polaris, in all caps no less, that he's NOT COMING HERE. Yeah, we get that. I think he's totally missing the point. The point of this post is about understanding Weber's contract, it's structure, the process, what can be included, who has what responsibility, etc. Yes, he's a Predator. For a year. He won't be playing for the Flyers this upcoming season. Got it.

The Flyers did not offer him an NMC/NTC because under the offer sheet rules they can't. All that can be put in an offer sheet is term and payments, including bonuses. That's it. The offer sheet is not a contract, which is what the article above explains. It contains the financial terms that a contract must contain, but not any other specific clauses that may be included in a contract. Matching an offer sheet only means you are matching the financial terms therein, not that the player has a contract in front of him, completely finished and signed.

That's helpful. So if the two parties can't agree on a contract with all the other terms and conditions found within that document, then there is no deal? Because all that has essentially happened then is a commitment from Nashville to provide to Weber, within whatever contract gets offered/signed, the same financial terms (money and years) that the Flyers offered?

The team isn't committed to Weber

Then why would they have signed the offer sheet? That's a heck of a financial obligation they just incurred for someone to whom they aren't committed. In my mind, and maybe that's where the breakdown is here (haha), if you sign a contract like that you better be committed. They're in for one year at least, and even that one year is going to cost them a significant amount of money. And if you really are committed, then for me, the next step as the franchise would be to prove it again, maybe even redundantly so, by agreeing to his requested NTC/NMC.

"That's why franchises don't - and shouldn't - hand them out unnecessarily." ----- I totally agree with you on this. But at this point, Nashville is in for a penny, might as well go in for the pound.

EDIT -- Or maybe it's vice versa. Given the money and number of years, the franchise is already in for a pound, they might as well go in for a penny with the NTC/NMC.

Sorry for beating my side of this dead horse again.

6-Is this CBA issue being driven by the Coyotes/Nashvilles/Columbus's of the league because they cant pay their own way? For instance, If I'm a millionair I can go buy the luxury car when the guy on food stamps can't. Sorry that it happens that way but tough luck! So, in our hockey universe teams like the Flyers/Rangers ect are being forced into the same economic ladder as a Columbus (sorry to pick on you Columbus, I have been there, nice city). So I can't buy the luxury car and have to get the piece of crap used car with a quarter million miles on it ... just because not everyone can afford the new car...

This is the point that frustrates me the most. Is the league really in better shape financially because of its expansion policy driven by the revenue sharing agreement that Rad points out? That's not necessarily a rhetorical question. Maybe it is. Maybe it really has resulted in more fans as a result of the game being pushed into new/more markets, being seen by more people or people who otherwise would neve have gone to or watched a game or purchased merchandise. Overall, last year seemed to be a good year in terms of revenue earned for the league and for most teams.

But on the other hand, we have teams close to bankruptcy being bailed out by local governments or gambling proceeds because they aren't generating their own revenue - I've seen it here in Columbus. How much better could financially sound teams be? How much stronger could the league be if it consolidated, shrunk in size to include only those teams that actually made money? Is quantity better than quality? In business, if a product isn't making any money, don't you cut it out? Downsize? Maybe you try to retool or rebrand first. The league seems to be taking a page out of the governments playbook by subsidizing the financially weak teams through revenue sharing.

But then you have to ask - is revenue sharing really working? It seems to work in the NFL. But what, something like 2/3rds of that league's revenue comes from the lucrative tv deal that hockey doesn't have? How do you get a lucrative tv deal? Is it based on the sport's popularity? I'd say yes, that's a big part of it. People want to watch it, advertisers representing companies that make things want to advertise those things to those people.

How do you make a sport popular? Expand into as many markets as possible. That seems to be Bettman's strategy. But It's almost a chicken and egg thing. A catch-22. Can you expand a game into new markets subsidizing it with revenue from other, more profitable teams, and expect to be successful? Or do you end up over-extending and weakening the product? I think he's had some success, but there have been failures. Would a smaller, stronger leauge be better for the fans, players, and owners? I tend to think so, but could be convinced otherwise. How much does greed factor into that answer? There are definitely risks.

He can certainly "Nash" his way out of town - or "Heatley" or "Thornton" - and if he does so, again, why does the team want to give him ANY say on where he goes or what they get for him?

The TEAM has a NTC/NMC - they don't have to trade or move him. They gain nothing by giving him the clause.

And, as I've shown a couple of times now, they are no where near "bankrupting the franchise" and any such talk is just silly.

As far as the bankruptcy goes - you're right. That was hyperbole on my part to make a point they're paying him a bunch of money. I just don't understand why they're quibbling...despite your posts which present your perspective very well.

The franchise obviously wants the guy. Per the terms of his contract, the team has him. They don't have to do anything for 14 years -- IF they don't want to. But they may want to. By not giving him this NTC/NMC, the team is hedging its bet. They want him for his career, for 14 years, until he retires, but not really because they aren't willing to go "all in" and give him the NTC/NMC.

Does that mean they may want to move him at some point in the future? Why? He's their franchise player after all. Other than that Mr. Nash, how was your stay in Columbus? And he had a NMC which he waived. So maybe the whole point is moot if a player can waive the clause when it suits.

I'm just saying Nashivlle should put its NTC/NMC clause where its mouth (and money) is. Nashville doesn't want to be tied up with a 14 year NTC/NMC? Maybe Nashville wants a way out which suggests to me they may have a need or a desire to move him or trade him at some point -- which is the point Polaris made. That's fine. But Weber seems to be committed to staying since he's the one asking for it. I think his franchise should support him. I think we're just not used to that sort of thing since it's usually our FRANCHISE handing out NMC/NTCs like candy to every dandy who comes along. Ha!

well, what i mean by 'go there' is to accuse Weber of being a prima donna. it seems that you and others are 'going there'. he wanted a NTC/NMC and he appears to have had a handshake deal with the flyers. from his perspective, it doesn't make much sense that the Preds wouldn't want to double down on their PR investment in keeping him with a NMC.

frankly, i don't know why this is such a huge deal. it seems that it would make sense for both parties. unless, of course, Nashville's match move really was a PR move and they plan on trading him in a year's time. if that's the case, Nashville's ownership is dumber than anyone fathomed.

Theoretically they have him for 14 years -- that's what the offer sheet requires -- to me, that's almost like a NTC/NMC. In effect, it's pretty much the same thing. If they want him that bad, are willing to pay him that much for those many years to keep him, just give the guy the NTC/NMC and shut all the doors, bar all the windows to prevent any chance of a trade or funny business later on down the road. They want the guy bad enough to possibly bankrupt the franchise, so get rid of any chance that he leaves or finds a way to get out of town on a technicality.

I agree, Jack, he is certainly not afraid to take chances. And just to split hairs, to me, "keen" and "uncanny" do not necessarily mean the same thing.

Uncanny can be defined as "Eery; weird; mysterious; apparently not of this world; hence, noting one supposed to possess preternatural powers."

I think that sums up some of Holmgren's decisions/picks/trades/moves to a "t". Haha!

Either way, the gist of the article is we have a good, strong, young foundation. No need to panic and blow it all up. Let's let it ride and see what we really need later in the season.

I think the article below is a good analysis. I'd put myself in this camp.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/uncanny-eye-talent-push-flyers-172500998--nhl.html

Here are a couple of observations from the article:

"This is a team built to last. Sure, the goaltending of Ilya Bryzgalov was more roller-coaster than any fan would have liked, but the Flyers still boast an impressive array of weapons up front, from the trio of kids mentioned prior to Danny Briere, Claude Giroux and Scott Hartnell."

"The bizarre thing is the Flyers have still managed to churn out great young players lately. Brayden Schenn was on the cover of Future Watch, while still property of the L.A. Kings, before the Mike Richards trade. Couturier never made the issue because he went straight from the draft to the NHL – thanks to the high selection Holmgren garnered in the Jeff Carter deal with Columbus. And Read was signed as a college free agent out of Bemidji State, playing 11 games with Adirondack after his year in Minnesota was finished, then jumping right up to the Flyers for his stellar 47-point freshman campaign. So the Flyers can find talent – and they should hold on to it."

Coliacovo, Roszival, Spacek, Barker, Campoli & Jones

Sounds like some kind of really shady lawfirm......

Habsguy reminds me of Kuato.........the conversation (not to mention his logic) is just as circular.

but it's almost inconcievable that we won't sustain atleast 1 more injury during the season,

Agree. Just a matter of who it is. And even if not injured, I doubt Timmonen makes it the entire season without some drop-off in play just due to sheer fatigue. So you almost have to put him on the list, injury or not. Who's our workhorse, the guy who goes all season staying healthy and playing well? Coburn? MAB? It'll be interesting to see who steps up.

I know Bert! I feel the same way but... I'm not coming down on this one way or the other right now but the question is... Do we do the right thing for the team or let our personal feeling for the guy get in the way? Now, the right thing may very well be NOT to offer sheet him, especially if he's gonna be a punk in the locker room. There's gotta be a reason Montreal hasn't signed him yet and there are really only two possibilities... 1- he's asking to much or 2- Montreal is really not wanting him because of locker room cancer/on ice-locker room antics/bad egg or something like that...

I feel comfortable that on this issue, my personal feeling for the guy and what's best for the team actually line up for once. I agree with Bert - no thanks to PK.