The Forbes numbers also don’t include luxury suites, so those dollars have no effect on average ticket prices OR on what Forbes counts as part of their gate receipts; the net effect on the analysis is zero and there’s still an unexplained difference.

If you’re looking for something believable to show you how skewed the Forbes numbers are, I’d point you to comments made by the NHL during the last lockout which said those numbers are extremely flawed, or by Ted Leonsis when he called the numbers incredibly flawed and said it was precisely because the NHL hides information.

Believe what you want because it’s easier, but you’re a sucker.

So that’s a difference of $1.2 billion in revenue increase from ’03-’04 to ’11-’12. Teams are paying out $367M more in contracts over the same period of time. So that’s $833M to the plus side, divided by the 30 teams that’s roughly $27.76M more per team… so if owners are so broke… where is all that money going??? It’s not going to the players, so who??

“Beyond the dissonance between the owners’ desire to pay less and their continued demonstrated ability to pay more, there are hard numbers. In 2003-04, the last season before the only labor-erased season in the history of major North American pro sports, NHL teams paid $1.332 billion in player salaries, according to USA Today’s salary database. In 2011-12, NHL teams paid $1.699 billion in player salaries. Adjusting for inflation, salaries rose just over $84 million over the last eight years, an average of $2.8 million per team.”

“While salaries are slightly higher than they were eight years ago, NHL revenues are not. In 2003-04, league revenues were $2.1 billion. In 2011-12, that figure reached $3.3 billion.”

source: http://aol.sportingnews.com/nhl/story/2012-08-23/nhl-labor-talks-gary-bettman-lockout-sept-15-cba-player-salaries-zach-parise

So that’s a difference of $1.2 billion in revenue increase from ’03-’04 to ’11-’12. Teams are paying out $367M more in contracts over the same period of time. So that’s $833M to the plus side, divided by the 32 teams that’s roughly $26M more per team… so if owners are so broke… where is all that money going??? It’s not going to the players, so who??
IDK apparently a lot of teams are WAY richer than we all thought and maybe if the elites think we should have 30 teams in the locals we do, well maybe they should figure out another way to share the revenue. Because, getting back 7% or even 15% more ISN’T going to save 15-18 teams. Yet, they are unwilling to adjust the way they are doing things; it’s ALL the player salaries that are the problem here. I don’t THINK SO!

This problem is a shared problem with BOTH the owners and the players at fault. And the biggest loser is us fans!

So you all can go hating the owners but I am ok for the owners keeping them locked out for the season if it means a better deal for them in the long term, just based solely on the benefit for the team I cheer for.

Now feel free to rip me to shreds…

There is no way the next CBA will expire in 5 years as proposed by the PA. The NHL was founded in 1917, so don’t expect the NHL to agree on that. Smart move by Fehr though. The NHL will be looking to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its existence, avoid a lockout and certainly hoping to recover damages from this lockout.