Drop Dead Date Set

[DeltaOne81]

[Q]KeithK Wrote:

 After giving it some thought I do agree that this latest proposal is mostly smoke and mirrors, though it could serve as a starting point for a future deal if the triggers are actually negotiated.   The players say that they're proposed system will control salaries.  The owners think it won't.  So the idea of using the one system until the facts demonstrate that it won't work to control salaries sounds reasonable.  You need triggers that aren't virtually automatic and you probably need some independant mechanism to verify that the owners weren't overspending on purpose to have the cap kick in.[/q]
Exactly. I agree. This could be a good starting point if the NHL would consider triggers that, as you said, aren't "virtually automatic" and completely manipulatable.

However, I don't have a lot of hope. In 6 months, the owners have changed their offer from 53.2% to 54%. So what makes me think that they'll be willing to negotiate the triggers? They haven't negotiated anything else yet. If we follow the same logic they're say, "alright, we'll make the great sarcrifice, and the top 3 teams have to exceed the bottom 3 teams by thirty-FOUR percent. Man, we're really being generous with you guys" (and heck, that would be 25% of a bigger compromise than they've made before ( 0.8% before, that would be a full, scary, 1%).

Think of the MLB negotations a few years back. Selig 'n' company wanted a strong luxury tax at $90-something million. The players wanted a weak luxury tax at $150, $160 millino or some such. What was the agreements? A rising scale of taxes from 10% to 40%, with a rising scale of limits from $115 to $135 million ish. That's called negotiating, that's how you compromise and reach a deal. Not this less than 1% bullshit. At the best its disingenuous, at worst its designed to cause an impasse.

Before the lockout, the NHL's official document on the CBA negotiations called for players and owners to work together to make stronger NHL. But what's Bettman's definition of "working together"? Apparently its "we write the CBA and you sign it - there, we worked together." Cause that's about all they've offered.

Btw, I find it very interesting that when I respond to Ari's pro-owner stuff, he doesn't seem to ever argue back... I like you Ari, I'm not trying to cause a fight, but I don't mind a spirited debate. Unless of course you've realized that Bettman tricked you too, and this whole thing is really just the owners proposal delayed one year, and not a compromise at all.

[Trotsky]

[Q]atb9 Wrote:
a worse misnomer than "Death Tax" and "Marriage Penalty".[/q]

Isn't "Marriage Penalty" less a misnomer than a tautology? ;-)

[Jacob 03]

grant- i'm so disappointed in you, i don't know where to start:)   i'll ignore the shoddy statistical analysis, poor analogy, and parenthetical invocation of nascar though, because your points are still pretty obvious.  one line struck me as particularly funny, though.

[Q]Tub(a) Wrote:

 It clearly doesn't eliminate the potential for someone to dominate either, as we can see with the Patriots.
[/q]

you cite this as if it's a good thing.  and that's fine (it's certainly a good thing for pats fans, at least).  but on the most superficial level, it would be evidence of suffering parity in the nfl.  this also isn't the end of the world, but parity is basically the only argument for the nfl's business model that the average nfl fan can actually understand.  and yet, despite the fact that one team has won three superbowls in four years, there are no cries for systematic changes to increase the nfl's parity.  why does this bother me?

this bothers me because after a decade that saw the most parity in MLB baseball in almost a century, MLB (along with the sportsmedia) managed to convince the fans that the players were ruining baseball not through arguments about payroll disparity, (possibly false) statements about teams losing money, or rising ticket prices...but through the mere fact that the yankees won three championships in the last four years.  maybe someday people will get sick of the pats winning, and the NFL will use that to push through some changes it's been dying to make.  

[EDIT: corrected a homophone]

[atb9]

[Q]Trotsky Wrote:

 [Q2]atb9 Wrote:
a worse misnomer than "Death Tax" and "Marriage Penalty".[/Q]
Isn't "Marriage Penalty" less a misnomer than a tautology?  [/q]

You're 12 hours late, Greg!  Where have you been?  ;-)

[KeithK]

The unprecedented parity that MLB saw in the 80's (9 franchises won the WS, 4 others lost in the WS out of 26 total) was largely fueled by collusion.  Or at least that's the common wisdom.  Free agency allowed players to move around but collusion kept salaries reasonable.

Me, I'm all for collusion.  But then I see very little wrong with the owners declaring an impasse and implementing whatever rules they want.

[Jacob 03]

the decade of unprecedented parity to which i was referring was the 1990s (the anti-Yankees arguments coming at the end of 1999 after their third world series of the decade).  this was a decade that had the most competitive balance in ninety years, despite the fact that one team won three world series in four years.  the measure of "who won the world series that year" as a gauge of competitive balance is sickeningly arbitrary, unrepresentative, and pretty much inaccurate.  

though i guess there's an argument to be made that parity and competitive balance are two completely different things, i wouldn't want either measured simply by the last team standing of a particular year.  

[Robb]

Heck, isn't every salary cap or luxury tax "collusion?"  If LM and Boeing sat down and agreed not to spend more than X percentage of revenue on salaries, the feds would  be jumping down there throats faster than, well, I don't know what...  I know it's different, because the teams are really part of the same company (the NHL), but still.

[CowbellGuy]

[Q]Tub(a) Wrote:
The NFL is the most successful sports league in the world (except for possibly NASCAR)[/q]
Whoa there. NASCAR's just starting to peck at Canada and Mexico, whereas almost a billion people a year watch Formula 1 globally. I'd also venture that somthing like the English Premiere League has a larger global following than the NFL.

[KeithK]

[q] Heck, isn't every salary cap or luxury tax "collusion?"[/q]Sure, but the law treats it differently when the collusion is negotiated in a bargaining agreement.  There is a fundamental difference between sports leagues and other industries, because a sports team's financial success strongly depends on the success (or at least viability) of your competitor.  An absolute monopoly on government aerospace contracts would we great for Lockheed's bottom line (and my 401k) but that kind of dominance wouldn't be good for the yankees, Onion articles aside.

[jeh25]

[Q]Jacob 03 Wrote:
[Q2]Tub(a) Wrote:
It clearly doesn't eliminate the potential for someone to dominate either, as we can see with the Patriots.
[/Q]
but on the most superficial level, it would be evidence of suffering parity in the nfl.  this also isn't the end of the world, but parity is basically the only argument for the nfl's business model that the average nfl fan can actually understand.  and yet, despite the fact that one team has one three superbowls in four years, there are no cries for systematic changes to increase the nfl's parity.



maybe someday people will get sick of the pats winning, and the NFL will use that to push through some changes it's been dying to make.  [/q]

Sorry, don't mean to turn this into yet another football thread, but I couldn't leave this comment alone.

First, let me say that the Pats have put together truly special in Foxboro. To do this in the era of free agency speaks highly of the organization put together by Belichick and Bob Kraft.

That having been said, you're forgetting one little thing:

2004 Super Bowl: won 24 - 21 vs Philadelphia Eagles
2003 Super Bowl: won 32 - 29 vs. Carolina Panthers
2001 Super Bowl: won 20 - 17 vs. St. Louis Rams

Then consider:
2003 Divisional Playoff: won 17-14 vs. the Titans
2001 Divisional Playoff: won 16-13 vs. the Raiders

All 3 super bowl wins, and 5 of the last 9 postseason wins have been by 3 little points. Adam Vinatieri is a great kicker and I'd love to have him on my team if we didn't already have Akers,  but how many times can you go to the well?

Given the small margin of victory, I just don't see the Pats winning 3 of the next 4. They're a great team, but let's not pretend all roads to the next 10 Superbowls lead through Foxboro.*


*(unless you're the Dolphins, in which case, yes, you hafta go through Foxboro.)

[Jordan 04]

[Q]jeh25 Wrote:

 [Q2]Jacob 03 Wrote:
[Q2]Tub(a) Wrote:
It clearly doesn't eliminate the potential for someone to dominate either, as we can see with the Patriots.
[/Q]
but on the most superficial level, it would be evidence of suffering parity in the nfl.  this also isn't the end of the world, but parity is basically the only argument for the nfl's business model that the average nfl fan can actually understand.  and yet, despite the fact that one team has one three superbowls in four years, there are no cries for systematic changes to increase the nfl's parity.



maybe someday people will get sick of the pats winning, and the NFL will use that to push through some changes it's been dying to make.  [/Q]
Sorry, don't mean to turn this into yet another football thread, but I couldn't leave this comment alone.

First, let me say that the Pats have put together truly special in Foxboro. To do this in the era of free agency speaks highly of the organization put together by Belichick and Bob Kraft.

That having been said, you're forgetting one little thing:

2004 Super Bowl: won 24 - 21 vs Philadelphia Eagles
2003 Super Bowl: won 32 - 29 vs. Carolina Panthers
2001 Super Bowl: won 20 - 17 vs. St. Louis Rams

Then consider:
2003 Divisional Playoff: won 17-14 vs. the Titans
2001 Divisional Playoff: won 16-13 vs. the Raiders

All 3 super bowl wins, and 5 of the last 9 postseason wins have been by 3 little points. Adam Vinatieri is a great kicker and I'd love to have him on my team if we didn't already have Akers,  but how many times can you go to the well?

Given the small margin of victory, I just don't see the Pats winning 3 of the next 4. They're a great team, but let's not pretend all roads to the next 10 Superbowls lead through Foxboro.*


*(unless you're the Dolphins, in which case, yes, you hafta go through Foxboro.)[/q]

Margin of victory is the argument against the Patriots dynasty continuing?  ::rolleyes::  That seems pretty weak to me.

This isn't basketball, where the different in a 99-98 game at the end might be a layup attempt in the 2nd quarter that rimmed out.

I don't think it's mere luck or coincidence that the Patriots were on the winning end of all of these close games.  Whether it's by 1 point, 4 points, or 10 points, their players have made playes, and more importantly, their coaches have devised brilliant game plans and in-game adjustments to put the team in a position to win games.  

Additionally, I wish I had some stats handy to back this up, but I'd imagine the average margin of victory for the entire NFL is only in the range of 3-5 points, and maybe even less in the playoffs, over the long-term.

[CowbellGuy]

[Q]Jordan 04 Wrote:Additionally, I wish I had some stats handy to back this up, but I'd imagine the average margin of victory for the entire NFL is only in the range of 3-5 points, and maybe even less in the playoffs, over the long-term.[/q]
5.7 over the last 10 years.

[jeh25]

[Q]Jordan 04 Wrote:

Additionally, I wish I had some stats handy to back this up, but I'd imagine the average margin of victory for the entire NFL is only in the range of 3-5 points, and maybe even less in the playoffs, over the long-term.[/q]


3 points is the mode, but it certainly isn't the mean or median. 52% of NFL games are won by a TD or more.

http://12.110.37.23/GJUpdate/nflmarginofvictory.aspx

[Jordan 04]

[Q]jeh25 Wrote:

 [Q2]Jordan 04 Wrote:

Additionally, I wish I had some stats handy to back this up, but I'd imagine the average margin of victory for the entire NFL is only in the range of 3-5 points, and maybe even less in the playoffs, over the long-term.[/Q]
3 points is the mode, but it certainly isn't the mean or median. 52% of NFL games are won by a TD or more.

[12.110.37.23][/q]

Or, 48% of NFL games are won by a less than a TD

:-)

Age, is that all game, regular season, or playoff?  I'd be interested what just the playoff numbers had to say.

[DeltaOne81]

Back on topic, anyone? ;-) I mean, I know this is eLF, but we actually have a lot of room to explore on the NHL CBA if you wanted to. I haven't really seen anyone defend the owners, other than Ari - especially their complete lack of negotiation. The only significant difference between their offer 8 months ago and their offer yesterday was 0.8% and some smoke and mirrors. Sure, there's a lot of debate to be had about where exactly the correct answer lies, but the owners won't talk about any of it.