A New CBA Will Not Solve Anything For The NHL

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Nov 1, 2012; San Diego CA, USA; Fans of the NHL and the San Diego Chargers hold a sign that reads “Lock out has got us down so we

As we sit here on day 75 of the lockout, it’s hard not to wonder how we got to this point. With the NHL coming off a season of record revenues of $3.3 billion, how could the league and players possibly be at a point where they have missed nearly two months of the regular season with no end in sight?

Forbes recently released their annual NHL team values and it got me thinking about how healthy the league actually is. Let me preface this by saying that the Forbes numbers are only estimates and some consider them to be utterly useless. Tyler Dellow at mc79hockey does a nice job in a post he wrote recently describing some issues with the numbers and why we should not take them as 100% accurate. Saying that, I thought it would be interesting to take a deeper look at their numbers, specifically the revenue numbers for each team.

The table below gives each team’s revenue in millions of dollars as estimated by Forbes for each season since the last lockout (I could not find the revenue numbers for the year prior to the lockout). The final column gives the percentage revenue change from the first year after the lockout to this past season.

Team Name	2011-12	2010-11	2009-10	2008-09	2007-08	2006-07	2005-06	Revenue Change
New Jersey Devils	122	100	104	97	97	65	62	96.8%
Pittsburgh Penguins	120	110	91	93	87	67	63	90.5%
Montreal Canadiens	169	165	163	130	139	109	90	87.8%
Chicago Blackhawks	125	118	120	108	79	69	67	86.6%
New York Rangers	199	169	154	139	137	122	109	82.6%
Vancouver Canucks	143	146	119	109	107	96	80	78.8%
Calgary Flames	117	105	98	95	97	77	68	72.1%
Washington Capitals	106	94	82	83	73	66	63	68.3%
Toronto Maple Leafs	200	193	187	168	160	138	119	68.1%
Winnipeg Jets	105	71	71	68	70	67	64	64.1%
Boston Bruins	129	125	110	108	97	87	86	50.0%
Ottawa Senators	113	100	96	90	96	93	76	48.7%
San Jose Sharks	101	96	88	84	85	72	69	46.4%
Los Angeles Kings	120	101	98	92	91	84	82	46.3%
Nashville Predators	88	82	74	71	70	65	61	44.3%
Detroit Red Wings	128	127	119	130	110	109	89	43.8%
Edmonton Oilers	106	96	87	83	85	71	75	41.3%
Philadelphia Flyers	124	111	121	101	102	87	88	40.9%
Minnesota Wild	99	97	92	95	94	78	71	39.4%
Buffalo Sabres	95	87	81	79	76	74	70	35.7%
St Louis Blues	89	78	79	80	73	66	66	34.8%
Florida Panthers	87	81	76	74	74	67	65	33.8%
Phoenix Coyotes	83	70	67	66	68	67	63	31.7%
Columbus Blue Jackets	85	80	76	77	71	68	66	28.8%
Anaheim Ducks	91	84	85	94	90	89	75	21.3%
Carolina Hurricanes	85	81	75	82	75	68	72	18.1%
New York Islanders	66	63	63	62	64	60	56	17.9%
Dallas Stars	100	90	95	97	105	91	89	12.4%
Colorado Avalanche	91	83	82	84	91	79	81	12.3%
Tampa Bay Lightning	88	87	76	80	84	85	82	7.3%

***All Revenue Numbers From Forbes.com***

The revenue change is very interesting. The league as a whole has increased revenue from approximately $2.1 billion in 2005-06 to $3.3 billion this past season. That is a 57.1% increase in revenue. If you examine the table, only 10 teams have experienced a revenue increase at or greater than that amount from the 2005-06 season. One of those teams being the Winnipeg Jets who were clearly buoyed by the move from Atlanta to Winnipeg.

Think about this for a second, the salary cap was $39 million in the first season after the lockout with a salary floor of $23 million. Those values sky rocketed to $64.3 million and $48.3 million respectively last season. The floor more than doubled in only six seasons!

Based on what is being reported on the negotiations between the owners and the players, it looks like the main change to the new CBA will be a reduction in the player’s share of hockey related revenue from 57% last season to 50% at some point in the next few years. Given the economics of the NHL, this will not do anything to help resolve the issues with the struggling franchises. Although teams will be paying out a smaller share of revenue to the players to start, teams like the Maple Leafs and the Rangers will continue to grow revenues and drive the salary cap and floor higher, while teams like the Lightning and Blue Jackets will only see minimal growth and in some years revenue regression.

Given what we know about the negotiations between the NHL and NHLPA the league continues to ignore the fact that revenue growth in the league is being driven by the high revenue teams. I realize that this is a very simplistic way of looking at things, but it is obvious that a majority of teams in the NHL cannot keep up with the overall revenue growth of the league. Bettman’s failure to accept this fact will only lead us to another lockout in five or six years when this new CBA expires and the majority of the leagues owners continue to cry poor.

Follow Tony on Twitter: @TheDailyBites