Dave Molinari: Tough Questions Remain for NHL

Analysis: Tough questions remain for NHL
6-year contract clears up some issues, not all

Thursday, July 14, 2005
By Dave Molinari, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The National Hockey League and the NHL Players Association yesterday reached a new six-year agreement, but whether they did so in time to save the league from severe, perhaps permanent, damage won't be clear for some time.

A long list of issues -- from possible rules changes to a new national television partner to lower ticket prices -- will have to be addressed before training camps open in early September.
If adopted by the league this week and the players next week, the agreement will end the league's 301-day lockout, which scuttled the entire 2004-05 season.
The proposed agreement links revenues and payrolls, giving players a maximum of 54 percent of the money the league generates. That will translate to a salary cap of about $39 million for the 2005-06 season; some teams have had payrolls twice that size in previous years.
Although it could hurt big-spending teams like the New York Rangers, the salary cap could help the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Officials of the Penguins, whose payrolls have been among the league's smallest in recent seasons, have gone on record as saying the team will aggressively pursue free agents once the agreement has been approved. For most of this decade, they have lost, not acquired, high-impact players through free agency.
Penguins president Ken Sawyer realized long ago that his team's long-term viability hinged on altering the economic structure of the league.
For him, losing the 2004-05 season to a labor dispute was a small sacrifice to make for that kind of epic change.
"We had to do whatever we did to make that happen," Sawyer said at a Mellon Arena press conference yesterday.
Smaller-market teams such as the Penguins, which have been victimized by free agency, now will have a chance to profit from it. Clubs such as Philadelphia and Detroit, which usually are big spenders, might be forced to buy out the contracts of some high-priced veterans so their payrolls do not exceed the salary cap.
It still isn't clear precisely which free agents the Penguins plan to target -- hundreds will be available once the agreement is ratified -- but it's no secret they are intent on upgrading their roster.
"We expect to have a very competitive team," Sawyer said. "And we're very excited about that."
The league wants to showcase its top stars, but for that to happen, a new national television package will have to be negotiated.
ESPN declined to exercise a $60 million deal for the cable rights during the coming season, and NHL executives refused to lower the fee they wanted the network to pay. Other cable outlets have shown interest in acquiring those rights, but it is not clear when -- or if -- a successor to ESPN will be chosen.
The league's only national TV package at the moment is a revenue-sharing deal with NBC, which will carry a limited number of games.
Despite the limited scope of that over-the-air arrangement, NBC executive Dick Ebersol reacted enthusiastically to yesterday's tentative agreement.
"We are thrilled for the fans that hockey is returning to the ice, and we're delighted to be the network television partner of the NHL as it moves into what I believe will be an exciting new era," he said, in a prepared statement.
Reports out of Canada suggest that advertising spots on NHL telecasts for the 2005-06 season are being sold at discounts that project up to a 20 percent drop in viewership. In this country, the NHL might have a hard time getting many games, let alone ads, on national TV.
The Penguins' broadcast rights for the coming season already are spoken for -- they have a multiyear TV deal with Fox Sports Net, and one year left on a radio deal with Clear Channel.
Part of selling the sport on national television will be how the league handles possible rules changes to make the game more entertaining.
The only official change so far is a reduction in the size of goaltenders' equipment, but there are strong indications that the NHL will crack down on obstruction and interference infractions -- tactics that negate the talents of skilled players -- and make several other significant revisions.
There is strong sentiment to employ "shootouts" to produce a winner in games that are tied after overtime, and some people in the industry are advocating such radical steps as "removing" the center red line for purposes of two-line passes, arguing that would add another element of offense to the game.
In a shootout, teams select players -- usually three or five -- to go one-on-one against the opposing team's goaltender. The team scoring the most "shootout" goals is the winner.
The move to revise some rules is designed to give the game's most gifted performers the best opportunity to display their skills.
Getting fans back into arenas when the season begins in October also will need to be addressed by the league and its 30 franchises.
Near the end of the 2003-04 season, the Penguins -- mindful that a protracted lockout could be coming -- made across-the-board cuts in season-ticket prices for the team's next season. Those reductions, which range from six to 45 percent on full season tickets, were reaffirmed by Sawyer yesterday.
Cutting ticket prices is a strategy that has been considered by numerous teams, particularly those in cities where public support can be soft, but the Penguins are one of the few to implement reductions so far. Washington, San Jose, St. Louis, Florida and the Rangers are among the others that have done so.
But just how all this translates into the sport getting its fan base back to pre-lockout numbers remains to be seen.
(Dave Molinari can be reached at 412-263-1144.)