NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr feels at a bit of loss with the NHL labour negotiations.
Fehr said he didn’t see Gary Bettman’s media conference on Wednesday but is still struggling to understand the NHL’s approach with the CBA set to expire Saturday at midnight.
“You had seven years of record revenue,” Fehr told Bob McCown and Stephen Brunt on Prime Time Sports Wednesday. “Even through a financial crisis when things basically fell off a cliff for Western economies …we get to this point — $3.3 billion in revenues and the response is to say we got an enormous salary reduction from the players last time, let’s see if we can do it again.”
While both sides have tabled offers in recent days, the issue of hockey-related revenue and revenue sharing continues to serve as a standstill in negotiating.
“There is a disparity. We will limit future growth so you can grow your way out of this,” Fehr explained. “We will take a much smaller share until we can get to an equilibrium point.
“Secondly, much more significantly revenue sharing and if there’s a problem in a given city than the high income teams ought to be willing to help out with that revenue sharing rather than take big reductions themselves. Got to be shared sacrifice then they would be willing to cut … this is a lockout of choice. They could continue to negotiate. They have chosen not to do that.”
Fehr told McCown and Brunt that the NHL continues to cite that in the recent NFL and NBA labour negotiations the players ended up taking less money but Fehr finds the comparison to be unjust and unfair to the NHL players he is representing.
“All you hear is ‘football players take less and basketball players took less so who do the heck do hockey players think they are?'” Back in ’04 what I am told is that the position the NHL took is that we have to have the cap because we are different than the other ones,” Fehr said. “Hockey’s economics on its own demands it. Now they’re saying, look at basketball and football. What they don’t say of course is look at baseball. Only sport that is stable now in labour relations. There hasn’t been a hint of a problem in more than a decade and a half.”
While the two sides continue to negotiate, Fehr remains passionate that with the proper changes, the NHL can eventually become one of the most prominent sports leagues.
“I took this job for two reasons … far and away the most important was that I got to know these players and really liked him and think they’re terrific and I wanted to try and help them. Other reason was I think they’re poised, if it isn’t screwed up, to really do some great things.”
The collective bargaining agreement is set to expire on Saturday at midnight but both sides don’t appear any closer to striking a deal.