When will the season start?

[Deleted]

November. They can't afford to let it go longer than that.

[livewpg]

I actually think the season will start on time!

The league has a lot of momentum in the USA right now, and the owners know that even a late start to the season will kill all of that.

There is a lot of rhetoric right now, but it is a good sign that they are still talking. Remember, these things ALWAYS go to the last minute. If anything, the pre-season games might be lost.

The answer is revenue sharing, and the league knows it, but they can't seem too eager to buy in as they want to push the revenue percentage paid to the players down.

Anyways, just my two cents.

[sparkywpg]

Everyone even Cherry says November, ok what is gonna settle it to start in Nov. Why not just settle it now then..no hockey at all this year is my prediction, and Phoenix will report a profit

[bcmike]

Over the course of the last 72 hrs the rhetoric from both sides has lead me to believe that we will be forfeiting yet another season.

I think this is unacceptable.

I have therefore started an on-line petition basically asking both sides to cut the crap.

You can find it here:

www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/open-letter-to-nhl-nhlpa

My biggest problem with this whole thing is that it seems like both sides are just having a dong measuring contest until the the 15th when they'll start the real negotiations. They seem resigned to a work stoppage, which really pisses me off!

Anyway please sign the petition, and yes I'll grant a waiver for purchasing Jets stuff

[Steve]

Here is an insightful read into how Bettsman negotiates: www2.macleans.ca/2012/04/03/cbc-vs-nhl-goes-into-overtime/

You've got to hand it to the guy though. If I wanted someone to get me the best deal, I'd be hard pressed to find someone better than Gary. No wonder the owners are in no hurry to replace him.

[IantheD]

November, I'm being optimistic.

[TheDeuce]

Aug 20, 2012 11:54:26 GMT -6 Steve said:

Here is an insightful read into how Bettsman negotiates: www2.macleans.ca/2012/04/03/cbc-vs-nhl-goes-into-overtime/

You've got to hand it to the guy though. If I wanted someone to get me the best deal, I'd be hard pressed to find someone better than Gary. No wonder the owners are in no hurry to replace him.

AKA: jetshockeyforum.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=talking&action=display&thread=3508

In 2004, despite the advice of friends and family—including his father Peter, the celebrated Second World War CBC correspondent—Richard Stursberg accepted the position of head of CBC English television. As part of his strategy to revitalize the corporation’s cratering audiences, he was determined to keep CBC sports alive and profitable. After the dispiriting losses of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics bid, the curling championships and CFL coverage to the deep pockets of Ivan Fecan’s CTV and TSN, maintaining a viable sports department meant above all preserving the rights to the most iconic (and lucrative) sports show in Canadian history, Hockey Night in Canada. As set out in Stursberg’s take-no-prisoners memoir of his stormy six-year stint at the corporation, The Tower of Babble: Sins, Secrets and Successes Inside the CBC, that meant negotiating with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

In April 2006, CBC president Robert Rabinovitch and I flew to New York to have dinner with the NHL commissioner. Bettman is a small, intense, extremely clever businessman, so disliked in Canada that he was lampooned in one of the country’s most successful films, Bon Cop, Bad Cop, where he appears as a malevolent midget named Harry Buttman. We first met him at Nobu, an overpriced sushi restaurant in New York. Bettman was with Bill Daly, the deputy commissioner of the NHL. They were sitting in the middle of the loud room, stargazing. As we sat down, Bettman pointed out Sugar Ray Leonard, the world champion boxer, and Barry Diller, the media mogul. Last week, he assured us, Bruce Willis had been there, along with some other people whose names elude me now.

Bill Daly is the physical opposite of Bettman. He is large and completely bald. He looks like a menacing professional wrestler. His background is in competition law. Like Bettman, he likes to negotiate, indeed lives to negotiate. When they are together alone, I assume they spend their time practising their negotiating skills. Who will pick up lunch? Who will go first into the elevator? Who will be meaner to the public broadcaster? Daly is often described in the press as the kinder and gentler of the two.

That evening we laid out our concerns about being excluded from bidding and proposed that we pursue an accelerated timetable to a new contract. “Hmm,” Bettman replied noncommittally. “Hmm,” he said again, his voice almost lost in the cacophony of the celebrity crowd. Bill Daly passed us more sushi. He stared at me balefully. Sugar Ray Leonard wandered by, shadow boxing, throwing little lefts and rights into the expensive restaurant air.

“Hmmm,” Bettman said once more. He ordered the cheque, smiled menacingly and promised to get back to us.


{snip}


Weeks drifted by. The league dithered. Meanwhile the CBC sports department was becoming restive.

As spring gave way to summer, nothing much happened. Finally, in July, I called Bettman and said we would make him an offer to get the ball rolling. “I am happy to receive an offer,” Bettman said. He always appears happy, no matter what is going on. “But,” he continued, “you understand that I would like to continue to sniff around.”

“Sniff around?”

“Sure. Just to see what else might be out there, besides you.”

“I understand,” I said.

I hung up with visions of Bettman and Ivan Fecan, the CEO of CTV, enthusiastically sniffing each other. We were preoccupied at this point with whether CTV would bid. It seemed implausible. CTV usually reserved Saturday nights for the Canadian shows they were obligated to provide as a condition of their licence, and they reserved the more lucrative weekday nights for their bread-and-butter American programs.

Nevertheless, we were still worried. It was not just that Fecan had happily overpaid for the Olympics, but he had recently begun buying more U.S. programs than he could ever schedule, to keep them out of the hands of his rivals at Global. It was an enormously expensive strategy but it demonstrated the lengths he would go to achieve national domination. The prospect of Bettman and Fecan not just sniffing each other but actually consummating something was too awful to contemplate.

On July 19, in Montreal, we presented Bettman and Daly with a formal offer. Less than two weeks later, we met again in New York. This time Bettman tabled his revenue model, which had been prepared by an outside group of consultants. The numbers looked absurd to us. They were another world from what we were actually achieving. Bettman, however, seemed quite happy with them.

“So,” he asked, “now that you see how well you should be doing, how much more can you put on the table?”

“These numbers are crazy,” I said. “Your projections are way too aggressive.”

“Maybe you just have a lousy sales force,” he countered.

“We have a good sales force. They have been selling Hockey Night in Canada since the dawn of history. They know the market better than anyone.”

“Our consultants say you are priced too low,” Gary went on. He smiled cheerfully.

At last we agreed that his man, Steven Hatze-Petros, would meet with our head of sales, David Scapillati, to see whether there was a common ground. And in fact they did agree. By the end of the month they had produced a common revenue number, which was much closer to our own.

The next day, I called Bettman. He was his usual sunny self.

“Now,” I said, “since we have agreed on the revenues, we should be able to close.”

“Nope,” he replied.

“Nope?”

“There is no agreement on the revenue number,” he said.

“That can’t be! Scapillati told me that he and Hatze-Petros had agreed.”

“Well, I didn’t.”


{snip}

Edited for length and to avoid a complete cut 'n' paste of published material.

[JordyRamone]

Great, millionaires fighting with billionaires and the fans get f@cked. I havent followed this that closely but I think both sides should smarten up!! They can't do this again!

Also, anyone know when ST's are getting sent out? They won't wait till this is over, will they?

[bcmike]

No offence, but Stursberg doesn't seem like a fit negotiator, if that's how it all went down.

Several times he revealed to Gary what his thoughts where regarding the competition, etc.. basically he showed fear and apprehension. Gary must have salivated at every opportunity to meet with him, and indeed extracted a very lucrative deal from the CBC.

My tac would have been to play myself as the impoverished, trusted public broadcaster trying desperately to scrape together the cash. In the mean time I would have gotten hard info as to what CTV's intentions where. The NHL stalling could have worked to his advantage.


But... that's just me...

[bigcanadiano]

This is unreal to me, but I think we won't have a season this year. Something tells me the players are going to hold.

[donwood]

I have the least sympathy (Other then for Phoenix) for the player agents, I had some back and firth with Alan Walsh, who contends the oners need to share more revenue. He didn't seem to like my assertion that the Phoenix and Columbus's shouldn't benefit or even stay in business simply because the rich teams (Primarily Canadian) prop them up. Move franchise that haven't shown they have any chance of making money to Quebec and Southern Ontario and the pie will be bigger for everyone. I have to say sympathy for the players diminished considerably after there proposal of more revenue sharing and no salary cap.

[bigcanadiano]

Aug 20, 2012 20:02:34 GMT -6 donwood said:

I have the least sympathy (Other then for Phoenix) for the player agents, I had some back and firth with Alan Walsh, who contends the oners need to share more revenue. He didn't seem to like my assertion that the Phoenix and Columbus's shouldn't benefit or even stay in business simply because the rich teams (Primarily Canadian) prop them up. Move franchise that haven't shown they have any chance of making money to Quebec and Southern Ontario and the pie will be bigger for everyone. I have to say sympathy for the players diminished considerably after there proposal of more revenue sharing and no salary cap.

Solid.

[kk]

The whole thing sickens me, truly. I'm thinking we're back in action in Nov, but that's just me being naively optimistic I fear.

[wolfmannick]

Please give us hockey this year...I'm not sure who I'm pleading to, everyone one here is asking the same thing as me lol.

[Lions67]

what sucks the most of all of this is the fact that Winnipeg has been sandwiched between lockouts.
locked out in 94-95 for a short season, then play one and leave. now we are back, play a season and locked out again.
sucks