With the deadline to avoiding the third lockout of his tenure slightly more than 48 hours away, commisioner Gary Bettman and the Board of Governors wasted no time in making it known that their current offer to the NHLPA during this latest standoff will only get worse once a lockout goes into effect Saturday at midnight.  Personally, I have little interest in getting into the minutae of who’s offering what or in picking a ‘side’.  Professional sports labor disputes are just like politics, everyone has their own side of the story tinted through their viewpoint.

That said, TSN is reporting that owners are offering the players a deal where they would receive 49% of hockey related revenue now (estimated at $3.3 billion per season now, way up from the $2.1 billion after the end of the NHL’s last destructive work stoppage) and 47% by the end of the CBA, while the players want 54.3% of HRR now and are willing to scale back to 52.7% towards the end of the deal, presumably when overall revenue will be higher.  Currently the players are receiving 57% of HRR, a figure that even they acknowledge needs to be scaled back somewhat.

Of course it seems like neither side has ever heard of a 50-50 compromise.  Overall revenue should be pretty evenly split considering that the owners take the monetary risk while the players’ talents are what the fans come to arenas all over North America to spend their money on.  Not to mention the other sports leagues have a fairly even split, from what I can understand.  It’s hard to say if HRR and what it entails is the only thing holding up a deal because quite honestly, that’s all you ever hear about, ergo it seems to be what matters the most.  It’s obviously not as simple as this with all the revenue sharing, money in escrow, etc that also factors into the deal.

Among other issues, I did hear about owners wanting to push free agency back to ten years in the league (from the current seven), which is insane.  Clearly having free agency at seven years isn’t ideal since you could make the league as an 18-year old and become a UFA at 25 now, but not every player makes the league at 18.  If you make the league at 20, 21 years old you wouldn’t be able to become a free agent until your early thirties if FA was ten years as a pro.  As union czar Don Fehr pointed out, most players’ average careers aren’t nearly that long. 

I don’t understand why FA can’t have a years and age requirement, say you play nine years under a pro contract – AHL and NHL – or reach 28 years of age, whichever comes first.  That gives the true prodigy who is 18 when they start their pro career with an organization a chance at FA when they’re 27, but the player who goes to college or is a late developer still has a chance to test FA at 28.  Clearly owners want FA to go back to pre-lockout rules, while players want to keep FA as is since it benefits them to hit FA sooner.  That’s just one example of the divide between both sides.

It’s cliche to say both sides need to be locked in a room until a deal gets done.  However, Bettman and Fehr cannot engage in their usual standoff behavior.  Bettman’s prior two lockouts were destructive enough, losing half a season after the NHL was at the height of its popularity in 1994, then losing a whole season in 2005.  And many sports fans still haven’t forgiven Fehr for his role in baseball’s myriad of labor disputes, primarily the loss of the 1994 World Series.  Both sides are taking the fans for granted, and not without reason since the fans did return after a whole season got wiped out.  However, they can’t count on that happening indefinitely, especially with a niche sport like the NHL.

Obviously, everyone involved needs a perspective check.  This recent tweet from the Coyotes’ Paul Bisonette (one of the most popular Tweeters out there because of his humor) shows that:

Paul Bissonnette ‏@BizNasty2point0