They're Baaaack... But For How Long?

“Theirs not to reason why

Theirs but to do and die.”

Where others hesitated, the NHL has decided to charge headlong in to the Valley of the Covid19. Using bubble cities Edmonton and Toronto it has created a format to protect the participants in the postseason from the virus as best as they can. Not only that, it has worked with the NHL Players Association to forge a new four-year extension of the collective agreement to deal with the expected plunge in revenues due to the pandemic. 

Getting ahead of the new reality was enough to force these antagonists into a deal. The other leagues must follow. We wrote about the importance of forestalling financial disaster on April 19 , “Teams use the cap to determine which players they can retain and which they must release from year to year. They do project budgets for multi-year contracts based on the predictable rise in revenues sports has seen the last few decades as TV/ digital rights have skyrocketed. They also pro-rate signing bonuses over the course of those contracts.

It’s largely the same in all the leagues governed by a salary cap— which is to say almost all the leagues outside MLB which uses a luxury tax to discourage overspending on personnel. So their portion of gross revenues is vital in maintaining the enormous salaries players command these days.

But it’s becoming clear that leagues that actually do open for business again after the self-isolation phase will likely perform in front of empty stands for a while. In states and provinces hard hit by Covid that might be a very long while. Empty stands mean no beer sales, no concession sales, no souvenir sales, no parking revenue and, crucially, no ticket sales or luxury box rentals.

Consider, for example, that a high-end luxury suite at Rogers Centre for the Blue Jays and other events can bring in $ 50 K or more a year— and that Rogers Centre has 5,700 club seats and 161 luxury suites. Plus concessions and ticket revenue on top of that. You begin to see how much not having fans in the stands will hurt. And what a slice it will take out of salary cap percentages.

So if teams come back to finish— or start— their season under the Covid plague, look longingly at your teams. They may not resemble anything you’ve cheered before once the losses are totted up. “

Now we have the NHL setting the table. As we wrote on May 31, the notion of Gary Bettman being a trendsetter is stunning. “When the commissioner announced that the NHL— the wee, timid mousey of professional sports leagues— would be the first to re-open after the Covid-19 lockdowns there were some who imagined we’d entered a new reality. Before the NBA? Before MLB? Before NCAA football? Let’s pinch ourselves.

When, in his almost 30 years as the face of the league, has Bettman ever proposed taking a risk before the other leagues had a chance to test-drive it first? (Okay, Winter Classics, maybe.) He was so slavish in his devotion to the other league’s salary caps that he cancelled an entire season to imitate them.

But here was Bettman last week saying the NHL would show the world how it works when you come off a quarantine. Above the ambient noise of doorbells and his grandson in the next room, a housebound Bettman declared the 2019-2020 season kaput after about 85 percent of the games having been played. Seven teams were going to the EI office, will not pass Go and will not collect $200— until next season. 

The remaining 24 clubs would participate in a gauntlet that leads to the Stanley Cup. None of which will happen before mid-July. And might last till after Canadian Thanksgiving (pushing the next season till maybe the Christmas break.) 

We at IDLM will presume you’ve seen the plans for summer hockey, so we’ll spare you the machinations of play-ins and play-outs. (To say nothing of the NHL’s Rubik Cube draft process.) Suffice to say that some teams will get a bye, others will go bye-bye and the Commish will get his chance to be booed handing out the Cup.”

We also wondered, would the 2020 playoff format become the new normal?  “The most interesting experiment will be whether a 24-team playoffs (without pod cities) is a viable concept. Many in the NHL have been trying to find a way to expand the most lucrative part of the season (when player contracts don’t apply) for a while now. They see the marketing opportunities for NCAA March Madness or the NFL postseason and say, “Why not us?”

Should all these new five-game play-in series not descend into farce there’s a good chance the league could make some or all of this a permanent postseason format. Why? Ka-ching. 

There are those who will say that eliminating just seven teams makes the regular season a farce. Many of these same people still extoll those lazy-hazy-crazy 21-team days when just five teams were eliminated in the post-WHA period.  Or recall the 1982 playoffs when the L.A. Kings upset Edmonton, a team they finished 48 points behind in the regular season. 

Also of note, Bettman has said  the NHL will play a full schedule in 2020-21, begging the question how he can squeeze the same 82 games into a space that suits a 60-game schedule. The answer might soon be that, with a new playoff series delivering more revenue, the NHL could pare back its regular season to, say, 70 games— a concept discussed in Cap In Hand — while still paying the players the same salaries they see under an 82-game sked.

But that all hinges on how Festival Bettman works out this summer before acres of empty pews. And if 2020 has taught us anything so far it’s that assumptions are for suckers.”

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his next book Personal Account with Tony Comper will be available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca this fall.