Salary Cap (NHL)
The NHL salary cap is the maximum amount that a National Hockey League team can spend on their player salaries in one season. This is a “hard” upper limit that excludes exceptions such as the “luxury tax” that is common in baseball. Like many other professional sports leagues in North America, the NHL has a "salary cap" to prevent financially strong teams from signing the best players for large sums of money. This is to keep the competitive advantage over financially weak teams low. Since there are no promoters or relegators in the NHL, the “salary cap” is an essential component in addition to the NHL Entry Draft to ensure a long-term balanced competition.
The maximum amount is different every year and is calculated as a percentage of the league's income in the previous year. In the 2007-08 season the upper limit was approx. 50.3 million US $ per team, in 2008-09 it was 56.7 million US $, in 2009-10 it was 56.8 million US $, in 2010 –11 at US $ 59.4 million and in 2011–12 at US $ 64.3 million.
Teams that violate the salary cap can be punished with a fine of up to US $ 5 million, the cancellation of contracts, the loss of draft picks, point deductions and / or automatic defeats in games influenced by the violation.
Before the salary cap
Before the introduction of the salary cap following the lockout in 2004/05 was decided, the NHL was the only one of the major professional leagues in North America that had neither a luxury tax, a system for redistributing income nor an upper or lower salary limit.
Player salaries in the NHL weren't a big issue before the 1970s, until Alan Eagleson founded the NHLPA players' union and the newly launched World Hockey Association league competed with NHL teams for the best talent. Owners like Harold Ballard of the Toronto Maple Leafs paid their players minimum wages to make the teams as profitable as possible. There was little incentive to invest money in top players, especially in Toronto, as the team's home games were always sold out regardless of their success. The Leafs, which in their long history before Ballard's start in 1972 had only completed ten seasons with more losses than wins, had twelve more seasons with a negative record until his death in 1990.
The 2004/05 lockout was already conducted through the salary cap issue, which led to the cancellation of parts of the 2004/05 season. This allowed only 48 games and the subsequent play-offs to be played.
Although six NHL franchises were from Canada at the time the Salary Cap was introduced , almost all NHL salaries were paid in US dollars . At the beginning of the 21st century, as a result of the weak Canadian dollar, this created major financial problems for the teams in smaller Canadian markets, whose income consisted largely of Canadian dollars. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman successfully managed to convince the US teams to contribute to an exchange rate adjustment.
Salary cap
2004–2005 negotiations
The negotiations of the 2005–2012 collective bargaining agreement ( NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement ) had player salaries as the main point of contention. The league stated that teams spend around 75% of their income on player salaries; a percentage that is well above that in other North American sports leagues. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman called for "cost certainty" and presented various concepts to the NHLPA, which were quickly dismissed as a euphemism for a salary cap.
Due to the strict rejection of a salary cap by the NHLPA, the labor dispute resulted in a lockout of the players by the NHL, which ultimately led to the cancellation of the entire 2004/05 season. This was the first time that any of the major sports leagues in North America lost a full season to an industrial dispute. Ultimately, the dispute was resolved by the players union, which agreed to a hard upper limit. In turn, the NHL expanded the redistribution of revenue between teams.
2012–2013 negotiations
In 2012–2013, a new, lower limit was set following the lockout. To help teams transition to the new cap , each team was given the right to two amnesty buyouts . After the 2012-2013 season and after the 2013-2014 season, each team may dismiss a player who is "bought out" of his contract. This amount is added to the total income of all players, but not to the total expenses of the team against the salary cap. The new collective agreement also prohibits wage fluctuations of more than 35% from year to year within a contract and stipulates that the lowest-paid year of a contract cannot be less than 50% of the highest-paid year. This was to prevent mechanisms for circumventing the salary cap.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ The NHL Salary Cap from 2005 to 2012 proicehockey.about.com
- ↑ NHL lockout ends and now begins the long, hard work to repair the damage ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Arthur, Bruce, National Post accessed January 25, 2014
- ↑ NHL / NHLPA PROPOSED CBA - SUMMARY OF TERMS nhl.com
