British Expatriate Network

Because of the ice hockey here in North American, my satellite tv sports channel is showing all of the Champions league games.

Last night it was, Barca/Chelski, Moan U/Milan, Lyon and some German team.

Tonight it is, Madrid/Juve Liverpool and whomever, and another one.

They are even showing the Arsenil game tomorrow.

Brilliant stuff, long may that strike continue. In fact why cant the other American "sports" have the decency to go on strike when its footy season?
son?

My wife and in-laws and friends works for the Buffalo Sabres and weve lost a few grand because of the strike, and as much as I love football it kind of sucks when you cant afford to pay the cable bill to watch it so if you excuse me Moo I see your point of view mate but I respectfully have to disagree with ya on that one (
My missus works for the Buffalo Bills and the Bisons so we'd really be up shiit creek if it all went kaput!!

Incidentally Moo.... Do you still live by Trevor Linden? He's the president of the NHLPA and he hasnt played any professional hockey for Vancouver this season (obviously) but I got a feeling that he might have lost some money this season but I bet that wanker still has a brand new car on his drive. You might want to tell him to tell his greedy union members that there are other union members who have lost thousands of dollars in pay because of their greed. evil

I only rent an apartment near Linden when I am in Vancouver.
Sorry to hear that you have suffered from the strike.

One thing, in a "free market" capitalist economic structure isn't the seller of labour allowed to offer their labour at whatever the market can pay? Haven't they ever heard of the labour supply and demand curve?

The owners don't have to buy the labour at any price.

What the owners are really asking for is a controlled market, but controlled by them. That's not a very free market.

I like the hockey.

Not much of a contribution to this discussion but true all the same.

evil evil

They used to show hockey, but now that's no more there, they don't show anything else. evil

You see, I only have basic cable, so I don't get all those fancy sports channels. evil evil

I'm missing out on the football. evil As if not having hockey wasn't bad enough. evil

cheers mate its not your fault that there's a strike and I dont blame you for being happy that there's more Champion's League games on TV.

This a valid point in any market and in this case there are a few realities for both parties. The NHL is losing a LOT of money as an organisation. The PA disputed this but the NHL had an independant audit and even the auditor confirmed that the NHL has lost hundreds of millions in the last few years. out of all the money which the owners make 75% of it goes to labour i.e. the players. I dont begrudge the players making money but there again I dont begrudge the owners making a little profit instead of losing money every year. Fair enough, this isnt every franchise but it is a significant majority of owners. The whole crux of this is that the owners cannot afford to pay the players what they demand and still try to keep their business solvent. BUT, as much as I do have some sympathy for the owners they have brought it upon themselves, they caved in 10 years ago on ther last CBA and have steadily increased contracts instead of the opposite.

They dont but in this case the blame has to go on big franchises who offered big money contracts for certain players. the trouble is that now there is a significant gulf between high payed 'superstars' and the lower payed 'character players' Its ironical that the big money franchises havent made the Stanley Cup finals over the last couple of years.

The owners want a hard salary cap, and that doesnt dictate what they pay all their players. but it does give them a ceiling as to what they can spend as a franchise.The reality is that for a team like the Sabres and many other NHL teams a $45 million salary cap is still a figure which they would never spend. Not even $42.5. For teams like the NY Rangers, Colorado Avalanche, Detroit Red Wings Philadelphia Flyers and etc it is a whole different scenario, but there again where you have free agents it goes back to your point about the owners not having to buy labour at any cost. The same goes for the players, they dont have to sign for any team if they think theyre not getting a good deal? As a point in fact here, you may ask where are the NHL players? well, a majority of them now are in europe playing for teams at a lower rate of pay what they were before with their respective franchises (10 -15 sabres at least). With the obvious exception of players who didnt go abroad I dont think there are any starving players yet? The NFL has a hard salary cap and it does give a equal footing to every franchise, at least it does make the game fair from a financial point. Over the last week in the NFL its been the free agent week, there's a perfect example of where these franchise players go from team to team looking for the best deal in their "free market". Personally I'd love to see the Premiership work on a salary cap, but I have no doubts that I'll never see it.

The whole thing of this is that the NHL is in trouble. It is losing money and cant compete for TV ratings. Even the WNBA and poker reruns are getting better rating than the NHL. ESPN has shown college basketball games and theyve got bigger rating than the NHL got. The NHL is going to struggle to get a TV contract for as good as it got before, and now if it wasnt worse enough before they have to try to get back apathetic fans who arent interested in their product. The NHL will always have a canadian market, but even the hardiest canadian fans are upset with the NHL/NHLPA. To me and other fans who went to and see a lot of games on TV the players should have looked to see how full the arenas were? There is a definate problem with the game but the NHLPA are trying to look after their members but at what cost? In the airline industry when certain airlines were in financial trouble the pilots union realised that there was a problem and took a paycut. They might not have wanted to but at least they had good sense to know that they did it to keep their members in a job. The NHLPA in this case are just plain deluded.

In a free market, business owners are not allowed to concluded to set prices either for product or for labour, its illegal, but that's what the NHL owners want to do. They also, restrict the free entry into the business so again its a restricted market.

Each owner is allowed to buy labour at whatever price they want, if they are paying too much in labour costs to support their business then too bad.

Each player has the right to sell his labour to the highest bidder, whether individually or through collective bargaining.

I have absolutely no sympathy for the NHL and its business problems, if a business is not profitable, it should go out of business.
The problem is, the NHL wants to run their operations as a business when it beneficial to them and a restricted and protected monopoly when its not.

Take the case of Leeds, they bought and paid players that were beyond its operating costs and then paid the price, they had to sell off their assets and as a result their performance suffered, fair enough, bad business.

The only thing the NHL are proposing is setting a hard salary cap for the team. The prices of individual players havent changed? The reality of it is that players salaries have to come down which I may add the NHLPA offered a 24% rollback of over 5 years. the NFL have a hard salarycap and the MLB have a cap with strings too, this is nothing new in pro sports and is not illegal? I havent seen the government go sfter these organisations yet have you? (apart from steroids :wink: ) There are catergorized free agents which I cant defend but to imply that the NHL is a restricted market with a salary cap in just laughable.

And isnt every free agent doing that? the player has the right to sell his labour at what ever price he likes there's no restriction on that but the owner on the other hand can only buy what he can afford. Do you deny an owner that? It's not just 'too bad' if a an owner is paying too much for his labour costs. There is a need for reform, not in the sense of owners making more profit as to just to break even at the end of a season. I dont begrudge them that. And as a matter of fact these NHL players are selling their labour to the highest bidders in europe.But do you think that theyre getting the same money as what they did in the NHL? The short answer is NO.

To be quite honest I could give a bigger crap if you had any sympathy or not for the NHL. The reality of it that the NHL have made mistakes running up to this dispute but so have the PA too. The league is in trouble and they need to do something about it. You tell me any other creditable professional league in the USA or beyond who isnt running their league as a business?

Thats not completely true is it? They did have a huge wagebill but once they got relegated they had to bail out. Every team which is relegated have to do that. Some of the blame for that goes to your big greedy clubs who want all of the revinue what the league takes. Hence why the premiership is the cash cow for all these big clubs.

I don't like hockey but I do like BOC so in order that he can have his cable TV back, I hope the powers that be get locked away for a few months or until they can come to some agreement.

Cheers mate oops (

Me too, as long as it doesn't interfere with proper football. :wink:

Of course its illegal, its collusion, all businesses are subject to these anti trust laws, American major league sports should also.

Hope they stay on strike and take baseball with them.one door closes another opens

more tv time for football world and american style .