Financial Issue #1 - Revenue Model
What makes the CCHL a great league to be a part of is the financial side of it. It keeps the league balanced by not allowing teams to load up and stay on top year after year. The financial aspect allows the owners to be more involved and invested. When I look quickly at the financial page on the website, only 6 out of 22 teams are predicted to make money this year. I feel like that is an issue. Last year I was lucky enough to win 54 games in the regular season which earned $90 million. However, a team with half those wins earned only $7 million less. Where is the incentive to field a competitive team? I think the goal of the CCHL is to be as realistic as possible and if an NHL franchise were to not have a competitive team that franchise would lose revenue through a loss of ticket sales and fan support. My solution is that there should be a wider gap between the revenues for a win and a loss.
Financial Issue #2 - UFA bidding
A quick way to CCHL bankruptcy is building a team through the UFA bidding process. For the first 3 rounds, the starting point is the NHL salary, this leads to good players making high salaries and then they even get a raise off of their higher then NHL salary if a team wants to use their one UFA resign on them down the road. Last year Chara was making $13 million even though his highest salary in the NHL was $7.5 million. I understand that it's an owner's choice to bid on a UFA and it's one of many different ways to construct a roster, but I feel that there would be greater involvement and greater strategy if the bidding were to start at a point below the NHL contract.
Issue #3 - UFA resigns
A team gets only 1 UFA to resign a year and a raise comes with that resign. I would propose that a UFA resign should be treated like the RFA resign and stay the same or match the NHL salary. In a case like Chara whereas he has gotten older he took less money, A CCHL franchise should be able to receive the same benefit when resigning one of their own players.
I imagine these ideas are not perfect but maybe it can create some conversation throughout the league.
A few responses from the league office...
ReplyDelete#1) I don't disagree but the devil is in the details. Historically, we've often adjusted the W/L revenues to reach a 50/50 breakdown of teams showing a profit and losing money.
2) Paul is the go-to guy on UFA Bidding every year. Are there other ways we could set up UFA bidding? Sure...we'd just need to identify what an adjustment like you suggest would actually look like. Also, the teams that have built up big cash revenues would lose a competitive advantage they currently possess. Is that fair?
3) My previous answer would fit this one, too. A salary cap has been brought up a few times and it may be time to reconsider that again. In 2017, we surveyed the league on that topic and the league was against a Cap by a 38% (pro) vs. 56% (Against) breakdown...
We love this sort of interest in the league from our GM's. Ideas, questions, etc are always welcome...
The issue since day one in this league has always been a balancing act between realism and simplicity with the work level required to achieve optimum results diligently applied. We have come a long way over the seasons and the view has always been to improve things as much as possible without putting too much of a burden upon those of us who maintain things behind the scene.
ReplyDeleteRevenue is applied so that teams earn relatively similar levels with the underlying thought process being that the league is only as strong as its weakest team. Yes some might view wins as somehow earning more which would then put a premium them, however it is the teams less likely to win that need the financial support to be able to build back up again. Besides, who is to say that winning earns money ? I don't buy that argument. We assemble the best team we can and the sim decides the result. How does increasing win revenue help a team like Niagara ? It doesn't.
Winning teams get a chance at playoff revenue which is pure profit. There are no team salaries in the post season. Just bank the cash. This rewards winning teams.
I am not speaking for anyone else in this matter and in my view the revenue ratio is not perfect but overall I am satisfied with it.
UFA bidding has always been a tricky situation. The league decided to go with realism for salary structure as regards UFA. Could that change ? Perhaps. We can discuss this in the offseason if anyone wishes to.
Finally UFA resigns. While it may appear to be inflationary, it depends on the contract status of the player in question. With only 1 player per team the league decided we can put in the extra work to input the salaries on these kinds of players. Remember that the work necessary to implement the system is often the deciding factor.
I'll give you an example from my team that shows it isn't necessarily more expensive. Victoria will most likely resign Tyler Myers. His NHL salary this season is 7 million, while his CCHL contact is 3.5 million. If we implement the NHL salary then the cost to retain him almost doubles.
Its hardly a perfect system but we do our best to keep the playing field balanced and the league as competitive as possible. We do very much appreciate the feedback, outsider or not.