Hockey should share wealth, like baseball
Hockey's Hall of Fame is located in Toronto, as is one of its most
storied franchises. These days, it also is the home of one of the
NHL's lesser teams and one of the AHL's as well, and if you're
looking for reasons why this sport has such a difficult time
getting out of its own way, you may want to start there.
Then move to Montreal. Then New York. And then Philadelphia.
The Maple Leafs came to town last night with a team two
points worse than your own, with fewer recognizable stars, too.
Tomas Kaberle is on the roster and a Toronto reporter pointed out
former Bruin Phil Kessel, but the rest of it had about as much name
recognition as a Scrabble game spilled on the floor.
Well, to be fair, there was an Orr.
But not that one.
A fight-filled, 6-2 loss later, the Leafs were four points
behind the surging Flyers , who have emerged from among the NHL's
bottom feeders recently largely by feeding on them. With their
fifth victory in their last seven games, the orange and black
pushed over .500 and to within two points of the Canadiens for the
eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Philadelphia, Montreal, the New York Rangers, Toronto. All
are fringe players in the playoff hunt on Jan. 7.
Stated simply, this can't be good for business.
In another time, in an era not that long ago, fans in Toronto
would not stand for this, would demand players be traded, coaches
be sacked, and most of all, superstars from lesser municipalities
be lured away for bloated contracts. This was the formula used for
the years leading up to the lockout in 2004, and while it made
those in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary whine endlessly about
extinction, it was good for cities in which television ratings were
measured in millions of homes, not hundreds.
The Flyers followed this formula, of course, signing big-name
players from other teams to supplement home-grown stars, paying to
keep them all, outspending the Canucks the way the Yankees outspend
the Royals. The Flyers did this because they could afford to and
because we knew they could afford to. If you doubt this, you must
have been overseas during those seasons when bargain-buy goalies
like Roman Cechmanek failed us in crunch time, and the Flyers
brass, um, heard about it afterwards, and felt it in sluggish
summer season-ticket sales.
Which brings us to this realization: The NHL chose the wrong
cost-containment mechanism. It should have emerged from the lockout
with a luxury-tax/revenue-sharing system like the one in baseball
because hockey's structure is much more like baseball's than it is
other sports'.
"Absolutely," said Chris Pronger. The newest well-paid Flyer
then nodded toward Comcast-Spectacor chairman and Flyers owner Ed
Snider. "But I'm not going to tell him that."
NHL teams carry 18 players and use every one of them.
Baseball teams carry 25 and do likewise. Each team makes its own
local television deal, and those deals vary as wildly as they do in
baseball. The Yankees may spend way more on salaries than the
Royals do, but they collect hundreds of millions more in television
revenue, too. High-revenue teams like the Yankees, Mets and Red Sox
have been underwriting the smaller-market teams since baseball's
1994 strike.
Teams that sell out their stadiums and have healthy
television contracts can afford to spend more, do spend more, and
can attempt to fix their ills quickly. It doesn't guarantee success
for all. But far more often than not, it provides baseball's
postseason with at least one of its more storied franchises. Most
Phillies fans would agree that it was much cooler to watch their
team win Game 1 in Yankee Stadium last fall than it was to watch
them win Game 1 inside of Tropicana Field the year before.
Isn't there a similar feeling beating one of the NHL's
Original Six, Snider was asked.
"I just want to win the game," he said with a smile. "I don't
give a [bleep] who we play."
I have no doubt Ed Snider would like to win another Stanley
Cup before he dies. I also have no doubt that he favors the system
he's operating under over the one in baseball. As long as he spends
$56.8 million on salaries — this season's cap — no one
can argue he didn't try to win.
But put him in a system that allows him to overspend and pay
a luxury tax? Well, just take a look at the outrage over the
Phillies' swap of stud pitchers over the last month. The baseball
team will spend in excess of $140 million next season, but was
still called cheap by some.
The Maple Leafs still sell out their home games. So do the
Flyers and the Bruins and the Habs. They have big TV deals. "Their
fans show up in every arena," said Montreal-born Flyer Ian
Laperriere. You see 38,112 standing in the cold of Fenway Park for
a glimpse of a game between two of hockey's name brands, you see
promise.
You see the emotion on the ice and in the stands last night
for a game between two struggling, storied teams, you can't help
feeling that too much is being left on the table.
