NHL is Ignoring Its Fans
By Jonathan Tomczak
The NHL lockout trudges on, and with it, a demonstration of the worst aspects of professional sports: greed, arrogance and a disregard for loyal fans. The result is that we, the fans, are left out in the cold. Somehow, while the players and owners need each other, they forget that they are nothing without the fans.
Just last week, the league announced that it was canceling all games through November. It makes me wonder whether there will be any NHL hockey at all this year, and how it got to this point when it all could've been avoided.
The dispute between the 30 owners of the National Hockey League and the players, now in its 47th day, centers around a collective bargaining agreement that was negotiated in 2005 and expired this past September. The CBA gave the players 57 percent of hockey-related revenue, which last season totaled $3.3 billion. In trying to negotiate a new CBA, the owners, led by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, wanted a more equal share.
The problem is how both sides have bickered and behaved childishly while heading toward an agreement that was always going to be 50-50. The result isn't that either side is going to get a better deal. It's that what could have been a full 82 game season is now at risk of having a zero game season.
Consider the most recent proposal, announced by the NHL two weeks ago. The 50-50 split was there, of course, but with a caveat: getting there quickly by reneging on contracts with players. The owners, who had approved these contracts over the last eight years, suddenly decided that they didn't want to pay them anymore.
Contracts are binding legal documents. If some are allowed to be nullified on a whim, than what meaning do they really have?
The players' union responded with three counterproposals detailing different, slightly longer ways to get to an even split. Bettman rejected all of them inside of 15 minutes. He denied them flat out, arrogantly deciding to stick firm not on the ends, but on the trivial means.
To argue what amounts to a fair split is impossible. Comparing the players, without whom there is no game, to the owners, who manage the money and arenas, is an apples-oranges proposition.
However, whether people deserve more money is a moot point when they think they can get it anyway. The 2005 CBA was only completed after the loss of an entire season, and it looks as if the same thing will happen now.
Jonathan Tomczak is a junior political science and history double major.