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What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

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Re: What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

#11

Post by msbarnett »

This article seems poorly researched and poorly reasoned. Most observers are crediting the end of the lockout not to "the players realizing the owners were willing to scuttle the season", but instead to the players having voted to authorize the NHLPA to disclaim their representation of the players, effectively removing the players from the union, thereby opening the owners up to anti-trust lawsuits.

Only once the NHLPA took that step did the league seem to start negotiating in earnest, having previously pursued a strategy they hoped would break the union as it did during the previous lockout.

It's essentially the same tactic that ended the NBA lockout.

Re: What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

#12

Post by pkaler »

halo wrote: post #8

Strikes would not happen if US sports leagues were based around free market principles rather than monopolies that set artificial restrictions on athletes salaries and conditions.

At-will employment wouldn't make sense in professional sports. Imagine a team that got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. A player could give two weeks notice and then join a team that was still competing.

Re: What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

#13

Post by mikemac »

halo wrote: post #8

Strikes would not happen if US sports leagues were based around free market principles rather than monopolies that set artificial restrictions on athletes salaries and conditions.

The flip side of that is you would decimate small market teams who don't have the funds to compete with much larger markets. That means "buying" power for salaries would be centralized to a handful of teams, while the rest of the league would be less and less competitive until they would have to fold.

Re: What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

#14

Post by correctifier »

pkaler wrote: post #12
halo wrote: post #8

Strikes would not happen if US sports leagues were based around free market principles rather than monopolies that set artificial restrictions on athletes salaries and conditions.

At-will employment wouldn't make sense in professional sports. Imagine a team that got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. A player could give two weeks notice and then join a team that was still competing.

Contracts would still exist, as well as a few other rules, but for the most part there wouldn't be things like a salary cap.

European club soccer is much closer to this model and it both creates really strong competition at the top end and a large spread between the top and bottom teams in a league. It is also very difficult to move from the bottom to the top without a huge amount of outside revenue.

Pro sports leagues in North America tend to operate as a monopoly, allowed because they have a union to balance it out. That's why both the NHL and NBA settled their lockouts right before the unions were able able to de-certify (NHL) or file an anti-trust (after decertifying in the NBA) lawsuit.

Re: What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

#15

Post by NoPiece »

halo wrote: post #8

Strikes would not happen if US sports leagues were based around free market principles rather than monopolies that set artificial restrictions on athletes salaries and conditions.

Also, don't you think wages would be higher without unions? The collective bargaining is allowing professional sports owners to suppress all salaries. If there were no unions/collective bargaining, at the very least, the top players would immediately start to see much much bigger contracts. No sure if the journeyman player would benefit as much.

Re: What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

#16

Post by SeanLuke »

halo wrote: post #8

Strikes would not happen if US sports leagues were based around free market principles rather than monopolies that set artificial restrictions on athletes salaries and conditions.

Your approach is more or less what happens in world soccer. Clubs like PSG or Manchester United essentially purchase their championships. Libertarianism doesn't make for very interesting games or teams.

I think sports leagues could do with a little less privatization and a little more Green Bay.

Re: What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

#17

Post by mrchapman »

halo wrote: post #8

Strikes would not happen if US sports leagues were based around free market principles rather than monopolies that set artificial restrictions on athletes salaries and conditions.

This is a lockout and not a strike, for one. Two 'free market principles rather than monopolies' - monopolies and free market principals are synonymous. They are not in opposition to one another (except in libertarian-land).

Re: What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

#18

Post by brudgers »

cube13 wrote: post #9
brudgers wrote: post #5

> "The NFL has managed this shift quite remarkably, in a fashion that has gotten them so that virtually very team is profitable" Professional football's labor economics are radically different from other sports. They have virtually no development costs associated with talent - development of talent is largely done by universities (many tax supported). In addition the market value of players is based upon barter - tra…

>Professional football's labor economics are radically different from other sports. They have virtually no development costs associated with talent - development of talent is largely done by universities (many tax supported). The NHL has a similar system, though. They draw on NCAA and international minor league talent, neither of which are paid for by the league. The NBA is similar, though I would argue that the out…

Other collegiate sports offer scholarships, but not like football. NCAA Division I schools have 88 scholarships apiece. Division I hockey, 18. There are more Division I football scholarships in Texas than total Division I scholarships for hockey. Division II with its 65 football scholarships per school dwarfs a handful of DII hockey schools with 13.5 scholarships each.

The resources for developing football players probably exceed those of any other sport in the world, e.g. Nick Saban earns a salary comparable to managers at top footballing clubs. And the NFL pays for none of it.

Re: What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

#19

Post by sethist »

NoPiece wrote: post #15
halo wrote: post #8

Strikes would not happen if US sports leagues were based around free market principles rather than monopolies that set artificial restrictions on athletes salaries and conditions.

Also, don't you think wages would be higher without unions? The collective bargaining is allowing professional sports owners to suppress all salaries. If there were no unions/collective bargaining, at the very least, the top players would immediately start to see much much bigger contracts. No sure if the journeyman player would benefit as much.

Yes, wages for the best players would be higher, but wages for everyone else would be lower. The unions are designed to protect the majority of the players at the cost of the truly elite players.

Re: What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor

#20

Post by parineum »

msbarnett wrote: post #11

This article seems poorly researched and poorly reasoned. Most observers are crediting the end of the lockout not to "the players realizing the owners were willing to scuttle the season", but instead to the players having voted to authorize the NHLPA to disclaim their representation of the players, effectively removing the players from the union, thereby opening the owners up to anti-trust lawsuits. Only once the NHL…

I disagree about the disclaimer of interest threat ending the lockout.

If you look back to the previous two lockouts, you'll see that the NHLPA was bullied (or felt like it) and wanted that to end. The hiring of Donald Fehr, a known hard liner on the side of labor with a history of labor disputes. When Fehr was hired, there was going to be a lockout. Almost no negotiation was done prior to the actual lockout which is par for the course for the NHL but something new for the NHLPA. Fehr's strategy was to make lockouts in the future not seem like such an painless move for the NHL and he did so.

As the process moved from forward after the lockout, it was the NHL negotiating with itself. All of the proposals the NHLPA suggested were only small ideas of what could eventually be in the final agreement. Each successive comprehensive NHL proposal incorporated some of the ideas the NHLPA had suggested. It wasn't until Bettman announced that there would need to be at least 48 games in the season for it not to be cancelled and that the deadline for that amount of games would be Jan. 19. Only when that deadline approached did we see the NHLPA actually counter an NHL proposal with their own, comprehensive proposal. That's when the horse trading began and the deal was done relatively quickly after that point.

Donald Fehr's strategy all along was to drag his feet for as long as possible to not only get the best deal for the NHLPA but to, more importantly, frustrate the NHL and show them that a lockout is not an easy button for labor disputes.

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