NHL Releases Details, Explanation Of Latest Offer To Players' Union
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — The NHL has released details of its latest collective bargaining proposal to the public.
In an unprecedented move, the league has published the documents it handed over to the NHL Players' Association on Tuesday in an attempt to save a full 82-game season and end the third lockout of Commissioner Gary Bettman's tenure.
The first document is the 10-point offer and the second includes a detailed explanation of the proposal. Both documents are published in full on the league's website.
"We've given it our best shot," Bettman said Tuesday.
As NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said, the offer is for six years, with a mutual option for a seventh, and includes a 50-50 split in revenue. It also includes a provision to ensure players receive all of the money they've been promised on existing contracts.
The NHLPA is expected to offer a response to the proposal when the sides meet again on Thursday. The season, under this proposal, would start on Nov. 2. A new CBA would need to be signed by Oct. 25 to facilitate the opening of weeklong training camps the following day.
"We're focused on getting the puck dropped on November 2nd and playing a full 82-game regular season and full playoffs," said Bettman. "That's what this offer is all about."
Some players expressed cautious optimism in the wake of Tuesday's proposal, but Fehr was much less enthusiastic. In a letter sent to his membership and player agents, which was leaked to TSN on Wednesday, Fehr wrote that the offer "represents very large, immediate and continuing concessions by players to owners."
"Simply put, the owners' new proposal, while not quite as Draconian as their previous proposals, still represents enormous reductions in player salaries and individual contracting rights," Fehr said. "As you will see, at the five percent industry growth rate the owners predict, the salary reduction over six years exceeds $1.6 billion.
"What do the owners offer in return?"
The NHL's latest offer was the third it has delivered to the union since talks began in June and included fewer concessions than it had previously asked for. For example, it said the proposed 50-50 split would be based on the same definition of hockey-related revenue used in the last agreement, pending "mutual clarification of existing interpretations and settlements."
Some of the other highlights of the offer include:
— An official salary cap of $59.9 million for the 2012-13 season, with the provision that teams can actually spend up to $70.2 million for one year to ease the transition.
— A new rule that would allow teams to retain a portion of a player's salary in trades.
— The reduction of entry-level contracts to two years.
— A term limit on any contract beyond that set at five years and a stipulation that the average annual value can only vary up to five percent. This is a mechanism designed to eliminate the long-term, back-diving deals that became popular during the previous CBA.
— The elimination of re-entry waivers.
— An annual revenue-sharing pool of $200 million, half of which is raised from the 10 wealthiest teams, and the creation of a committee to determine how the money is distributed. The NHLPA would be given representation on the committee.
— The introduction of a "neutral" third-party arbitrator to handle appeals on supplemental discipline with a "clearly erroneous" standard of review.
Among the items not addressed in the league's offer was realignment, drug testing or the NHL's participation in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
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