Panarin Says Escrow Needs to be Fixed Before Players Return to Camp

I'd also probably reckon that there are more players not named Artemi Panarin who feel this way harder than he ever will. For every one of him, what are there, like 20 Greg McKeggs?

 

He's a top player on a big market team using his position to make a difference for others.

Yeah. He has a voice and the ability to potentially do something about it. I have no problem with this. Panarin has the insurance in case anything goes wrong but not all do. I don't see an issue with players wanting to make sure they're financially secure during a period in which they're deferring salaries but can suffer injuries.

Artemi Panarin - F**k you for whining about money when there are millions of regular people starving and out of work for MONTHS already during a GLOBAL PANDEMIC.

Jamal Adams - F**K You too you spoiled, self entitled, selfish, over rated wanna be superstar turd.

 

Hot news flash for you. Sports is NOT AN ESSENTIAL business! Life has, and will continue to go on without you and your Escrow.

 

 

Seriously though, why do these over paid whiners think anyone cares about their salaries, especially now? Honestly, at my age, I am starting to hope sports never come back. So tired of living in my shithole apartment while kids like Jamal Adams and Artemi Paneran play games, make millions, live in mansions with 15 rooms, 12 bathrooms, bowling alleys, movie theatres, 4 pools and all, yet still find things to whine and complain about. Would love to see them all have to go out and get regular jobs like us working stiffs.

 

 

Now having said all of that, who's watching the lottery tonight LOLLLL?

Sports is essential or it wouldn’t be multi-billion dollars industry. Yes we will survive without sports but i can say that about anything other than food and water.

I'd also probably reckon that there are more players not named Artemi Panarin who feel this way harder than he ever will. For every one of him, what are there, like 20 Greg McKeggs?

 

He's a top player on a big market team using his position to make a difference for others.

Thats right. They have short careers and $15-20K is a lot money Greg McKegg

Greg Mckegg is a millionaire. If he's not, he's an idiot. After his short career is done he'll get a six figure job in the game of hockey and business opportunities galore due to having played in the NHL. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

How is he a millionaire? Can you explain.

And why would someone hire for a six-figure job in the hockey world? What other talents does he have to command that much? Something i dont know?

Yeah. He has a voice and the ability to potentially do something about it. I have no problem with this. Panarin has the insurance in case anything goes wrong but not all do. I don't see an issue with players wanting to make sure they're financially secure during a period in which they're deferring salaries but can suffer injuries.

This has nothing to do with getting injured. Players don't get paid for the playoffs, anyway. So what if someone suffers a career ending injury during a normal playoff? They were playing for free, technically. This is no different.

Look, the point of the whole lockout before (from the owners PoV) is cost certainty. Now we can sit here and debate whether it's justified that the owner's money is guaranteed at the expense of the players, but let's have an honest debate and not conflate what Panarin is saying here. He's saying he doesn't want 15% of his pay held every period, in case the NHL doesn't meet revenue numbers and then he loses it. I don't think Panarin gives a shit about Gregg McKegg's finances. Why are we making Panarin out to be a saint? I don't know where the idea of "playing without a paycheck" got inserted into the thread but it's a false narrative.

Now the reality is that the only way to get some revenue back into the NHL is if the players...play. If they don't play, the cap next year is sure to impact player's jobs (and it won't be Panarin who's impacted), and reality is the entire league could be at risk.

The players missed X amount of games which they did not get paid for. That makes sense to me.

They NHL wants a 24 team playoff to salvage some revenue. That makes sense to me.

Players do not get paid salary in the playoffs (just bonuses), so they won't get paid in this playoff. That makes sense to me.

Artemi Panarin complaining about escrow in the middle of a global pandemic when he's got no financial hardship...Makes no sense to me.

What if the NHL exceeds the revenue numbers? Do contracted players receive bonuses from the owners? Seems fair that they would if the owners skim 15% off when projections aren?t met

The NHL skim when projections aren't met. It's money held in escrow.

The cap goes up. Players get higher salaries.

 

The NHL skim when projections aren't met. It's money held in escrow.

Cap goes up for future contracts. Currently contracted players dont get anything.

So the NHL holds 15% of players salaries in case the salary projections arent met. And if they arent met then owners get to keep that money? So for the players it is only a guaranteed contract if the revenues dont go down, but if they do go down the owners get to slash 15% off of player salaries.

In Panarin’s case its around $2M per season. No small change.

Every one of us has the ability to control our way of living. Are you a ?below your means? person, living ?about right? relative to income, or like I see to often in my work, are you living ?above your earnings??

A high salary can be out-spent or maxed out. I?ve liquidated assets for high earners. Yeah, they have lots of nice things but In some cases just too many of them. Add in the peripherals like homes, jewelry, etc., and sometimes, no amount of income is enough.

Every one of us has the ability to control our way of living. Are you a ‘below your means’ person, living ‘about right’ relative to income, or like I see to often in my work, are you living ‘above your earnings?’

 

A high salary can be out-spent or maxed out.

What if your wife likes expensive Chanel bags?

Cap goes up for future contracts. Currently contracted players dont get anything.

So the NHL holds 15% of players salaries in case the salary projections arent met. And if they arent met then owners get to keep that money? So for the players it is only a guaranteed contract if the revenues dont go down, but if they do go down the owners get to slash 15% off of player salaries.

In Panarin’s case its around $2M per season. No small change.

Look, escrow is a necessary evil to provide cost certainty for owners. Despite what you hear about how profitable the NHL is, about 1/3 of teams lose money, and some don't make much of a profit.

The owners are putting up the money to run the league. Without a league, owners, buildings, etc...There is no where for the players to play. Go the KHL, if you don't like it. The owners are taking much more of a risk financially than the players and they are only asking to be made whole in a 50/50 partnership with the NHLPA.

So if players didn't take a hit on escrow, wound up with salary being 65% of revenue and owners getting 35%, how would a league survive? This is pretty standard across other capped leagues, even if the escrow system is different.

In the NFL, players get 47% of the revenue, and in the NBA players receive between 49% and 51% based on expected income.

Hockey players have it pretty good from a revue share standpoint, plus they have guaranteed contracts.

The players were very lucky that the shutdown occurred when it did, when they had received all but one paycheck for the year. They would have been in far worse shape had it happened in December or January.

As for the McKeggs of the world, they are not millionaires and their earning potential is not that great after hockey. What does a guy making say $1.3 million take after taxes and agent's fee? How many years is he making that for? What are his expenses? If he wants to coach, he'd probably start as an assistant for a junior team at a substance wage and would not necessarily progress far past that.

At a loss why fans always take management's side. Salary caps are designed not for competitive balance, even though that's how they are sold. It's labor cost suppression. Small market teams are always going to be behind the 8 ball. But they still don't go out of business. Professional sports has hit a bump here, and they are trying to salvage something of a season to get some money in the kiddie. Tax laws allow them to expense -"depreciate"-the players themselves as assets, like the arena or team practice facility. The owners will be fine.

The player however have limited careers. There will come a time when they won' be able to play. The owners will still be printing cash. And I don't begrudge them that at all. But it's a dynamic that will never change.And when players have some leverage, they will rightly use it.

I have never gone to a movie nor a concert and gave Fuck#1 about what money the performers were making. Why as a sports am I being asked to care? Don't want to pay a player, fine. Does Jim Dolan have a salary cap for concert performers? "I"ll pay Phish and Beyonce, but Paul McCartney and the Foo Fighters, NO WAY!".

No sports franchise has gone under since the Cleveland Barons in the mid 1970s. Right now, even under these conditions, nobody is saying any of them are going broke. Well, except the Mets, because MLB has inexplicably indulged the crooked Wilpons, but that is a long term situation and has nothing to do with salary costs. But I can drive down any business district in and around NYC and see many businesses shuttered,and they aren't coming back. Those people I feel terrible for. You work your whole life to create a business and now it's gone. So pardon me if I don't give a fuck about the perils of the Arizona Coyotes and their cost certainty.

Again, this is a labor negotiation, nothing more.

Oh well. That's part of being in a union and having "collective bargaining".

 

Well boo hoo that you're getting 9+ Million vs 11+ to play a game for 6 months.

 

Look, escrow is a necessary evil to provide cost certainty for owners. Despite what you hear about how profitable the NHL is, about 1/3 of teams lose money, and some don't make much of a profit.

 

The owners are putting up the money to run the league. Without a league, owners, buildings, etc...There is no where for the players to play. Go the KHL, if you don't like it. The owners are taking much more of a risk financially than the players and they are only asking to be made whole in a 50/50 partnership with the NHLPA.

 

So if players didn't take a hit on escrow, wound up with salary being 65% of revenue and owners getting 35%, how would a league survive? This is pretty standard across other capped leagues, even if the escrow system is different.

 

 

 

Hockey players have it pretty good from a revue share standpoint, plus they have guaranteed contracts.

"Lose money" on the books, or in cash flow. They are different things.

There are a lot of businesses that via depreciation and amortization and all kinds of other perfectly legal tricks don't produce a profit. Movie studios are the most notorious example, losing so much money they build huge destination amusement parks with all those....oh, right. Many businesses do give their owners significant cash flow AND losses to write down their other income. If you buy an NHL franchise, it is not you primary business almost by definition. I would bet my house, my car and perhaps my kids that if you look at the Pegulas' tax return the paper losses on the Sabres are even welcome to offset the money they get from the Bills and their construction businesses. Nobody buys a sports franchise thinking they will make a huge profit day to day. What they expect is good cash flow, and huge growth in equity which you can access and knowing when you sell you will have a huge capital gain. Accounting wise, a big cash flow is wonderful, but a taxable profit, not so much. What the Pegulas and other owners miss right now is cash revenue from their cable contract with MSG and arena revenue.

At a loss why fans always take management's side. Salary caps are designed not for competitive balance, even though that's how they are sold. It's labor cost suppression. Small market teams are always going to be behind the 8 ball. But they still don't go out of business. Professional sports has hit a bump here, and they are trying to salvage something of a season to get some money in the kiddie. Tax laws allow them to expense -"depreciate"-the players themselves as assets, like the arena or team practice facility. The owners will be fine.

 

The player however have limited careers. There will come a time when they won' be able to play. The owners will still be printing cash. And I don't begrudge them that at all. But it's a dynamic that will never change.And when players have some leverage, they will rightly use it.

 

I have never gone to a movie nor a concert and gave Fuck#1 about what money the performers were making. Why as a sports am I being asked to care? Don't want to pay a player, fine. Does Jim Dolan have a salary cap for concert performers? "I"ll pay Phish and Beyonce, but Paul McCartney and the Foo Fighters, NO WAY!".

 

No sports franchise has gone under since the Cleveland Barons in the mid 1970s. Right now, even under these conditions, nobody is saying any of them are going broke. Well, except the Mets, because MLB has inexplicably indulged the crooked Wilpons, but that is a long term situation and has nothing to do with salary costs. But I can drive down any business district in and around NYC and see many businesses shuttered,and they aren't coming back. Those people I feel terrible for. You work your whole life to create a business and now it's gone. So pardon me if I don't give a fuck about the perils of the Arizona Coyotes and their cost certainty.

 

Again, this is a labor negotiation, nothing more.

Your concert analogy is straight out of left field. Both salary caps and escrow are for cost certainty, if you want to call it "salary supression", that's fine but a league cannot survive when owners can't afford to pay players. See: WHA, and women's hockey in general.

The bolded statement while factually accurate is a misrepresentation. The Penguins filed for bankruptcy in 1975 and recently needed a bailout from Lemiuex to save the team. Gretzky bailed out the Coyotes. The NHL has bailed out teams with no right to exist financially many times. This list of 10 teams that filed for bankruptcy is from 2010 and 7 of the 10 are NHL franchises.

Why do fans take the owner's side? Because I like to watch hockey and the owners/league make it possible. Without them, the players (and many other people the owners have to pay) would have to find other jobs.

"Lose money" on the books, or in cash flow. They are different things.

 

There are a lot of businesses that via depreciation and amortization and all kinds of other perfectly legal tricks don't produce a profit. Movie studios are the most notorious example, losing so much money they build huge destination amusement parks with all those....oh, right. Many businesses do give their owners significant cash flow AND losses to write down their other income. If you buy an NHL franchise, it is not you primary business almost by definition. I would bet my house, my car and perhaps my kids that if you look at the Pegulas' tax return the paper losses on the Sabres are even welcome to offset the money they get from the Bills and their construction businesses. Nobody buys a sports franchise thinking they will make a huge profit day to day. What they expect is good cash flow, and huge growth in equity which you can access and knowing when you sell you will have a huge capital gain. Accounting wise, a big cash flow is wonderful, but a taxable profit, not so much. What the Pegulas and other owners miss right now is cash revenue from their cable contract with MSG and arena revenue.

You can't compare the Pegulas to other owners. They're an outlier.

The businesses are losing money, regardless of what the owner's tax return looks like. No one wants to own a business that continually loses money.

You can't compare the Pegulas to other owners. They're an outlier.

 

The businesses are losing money, regardless of what the owner's tax return looks like. No one wants to own a business that continually loses money.

You just said 7-10 teams have filed for bankruptcy. The Penguins are now successful. Again if the Coyotes cannot make a go of it, move them already. We now know they could have moved to Vegas and become instantly a big market team, but the owners were too greedy collectively for expansion money. To have lost a season to keep a team in a bad market made no sense at all. And off that, anything Bettman says has to be seen in light of that stupidity. Again with caps we are to believe otherwise intelligent businessmen get weak int he knees at the sight of talented athletes such they cannot b e trusted with their checkebooks in their presence. The Pegulas are not an "outlier",rather typical, that is pretty much how small market teams work. And the Pegulas and every one of those teams losing money KNOW they could put the franchise up for sale tomorrow morning and make a shitload of money over and above what they paid.

Reality remains if you are a small market team with or without a cap, you have to do everything almost perfect and get some lucky breaks to be the 2015 Royals. The cap does not and never has leveled the playing field. But really as the US and Canada grow more homogenized and lower tax rates make smaller market more attractive, being a big market may not even be much of a benefit any more anyway. But it will never be a level playing field. There are always going to be franchises-Winnipeg, Ottawa, Arizona-that will be a step above the Washington Generals.You want to have NHL hockey in such a place, you know that going into things.

Again you are not getting the difference between what you tell, quite legally, the IRS your profit or loss is and your cash flow.

 

You just said 7-10 teams have filed for bankruptcy. The Penguins are now successful. Again if the Coyotes cannot make a go of it, move them already. We now know they could have moved to Vegas and become instantly a big market team, but the owners were too greedy collectively for expansion money. To have lost a season to keep a team in a bad market made no sense at all. And off that, anything Bettman says has to be seen in light of that stupidity. Again with caps we are to believe otherwise intelligent businessmen get weak int he knees at the sight of talented athletes such they cannot b e trusted with their checkebooks in their presence. The Pegulas are not an "outlier",rather typical, that is pretty much how small market teams work. And the Pegulas and every one of those teams losing money KNOW they could put the franchise up for sale tomorrow morning and make a shitload of money over and above what they paid.

 

Reality remains if you are a small market team with or without a cap, you have to do everything almost perfect and get some lucky breaks to be the 2015 Royals. The cap does not and never has leveled the playing field. But really as the US and Canada grow more homogenized and lower tax rates make smaller market more attractive, being a big market may not even be much of a benefit any more anyway. But it will never be a level playing field. There are always going to be franchises-Winnipeg, Ottawa, Arizona-that will be a step above the Washington Generals.You want to have NHL hockey in such a place, you know that going into things.

This is all well and good but has almost nothing to do with Panarin and escrow.

Let's not move the goalposts. 50/50 split between owners and NHLPA is pretty standard, and in some cases over, what's in other capped leagues. Plus guaranteed contracts.

I don't really think the players can complain (right now) about having to play.

This is all well and good but has almost nothing to do with Panarin and escrow.

 

Let's not move the goalposts. 50/50 split between owners and NHLPA is pretty standard, and in some cases over, what's in other capped leagues. Plus guaranteed contracts.

 

I don't really think the players can complain (right now) about having to play.

While we disagree about being nonsense, otherwise, agreed. People are getting upset because a player suggested as a union they use some of the leverage they have today in the course of an ongoing negotiation.

And consider the NHLPA has a lot of Greg McKeggs who want to play. Because they have only so many seasons until some new young kid takes their slot at the end of the bench as a 4th liner, 3rd pair, backup goalie. That one missed paycheck might be their last NHL paycheck, and now it's gone. But any other money, escrow or playoffs, this may be the last time they get any of it. That when you consider those "overhead" guys, scratches, guys up and down from the minors, might be 25% of the players who have no idea if they'll ever play in the NHL after this.That is true every season. And that's why what ever Panarin says there probably will be a tournament.

While we disagree about being nonsense, otherwise, agreed. People are getting upset because a player suggested as a union they use some of the leverage they have today in the course of an ongoing negotiation.

 

And consider the NHLPA has a lot of Greg McKeggs who want to play. Because they have only so many seasons until some new young kid takes their slot at the end of the bench as a 4th liner, 3rd pair, backup goalie. That one missed paycheck might be their last NHL paycheck, and now it's gone. But any other money, escrow or playoffs, this may be the last time they get any of it. That when you consider those "overhead" guys, scratches, guys up and down from the minors, might be 25% of the players who have no idea if they'll ever play in the NHL after this.That is true every season. And that's why what ever Panarin says there probably will be a tournament.

every year in the NHL could be there last, and they never get paid for the payoffs. The players missed a paycheck yes but the owners also lost a massive amount of revenue.

There are no winners here. That league is trying to make sure they can salvage every bit of revenue they can, and the players will benefit as well as the owners.

I'm not even understanding what Panarin is trying to speak out about right now.

That not only players lost a paycheck but also coughed up 15% of their salary. Owners lost revenue from a short season but they will make some of it up during the playoffs in July where players will play for free. It would be fairer if the players received their last paycheck before they are asked to play for free

Again, "play for free" is a false narrative. Players pay period ends June 30th, they missed one check.

https://thehockeywriters.com/nhl-player-playoff-compensation/

NHL Playoff Pay

 

Come the playoffs, players continue to receive their salaries based on their annual contracts, since contracts are paid from July 1 to June 30.

 

NHL players do not get paid a separate salary for playing in the postseason. League rules actually prohibit NHL teams from paying their players bonuses for making the playoffs and winning the Stanley Cup. Only players on entry-level contracts and those over the age of 35 are permitted to have bonuses for playoff performances.

 

That said, players still receive compensation for a playoff appearance. The NHL and NHL Players’ Association (NHLPA) agree to set aside a playoff bonus pool to be distributed to each playoff team based on how far they advance. It’s referred to in Article 28 of the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) as the Player Fund.

There has been no discussion on bonus pool structure for this year's 24 team playoff.

This is nothing more than a wealthy person complaining that there's someone greedier.

So the players gave up their last check and didnt play the final 12ish games? Now they get the same opportunity they get at the end of every season, to play for a championship and they are complaining that the escrow got skimmed off like it does every other year. Not seeing the complaint. You played less, got paid less and still have a shot at a championship.

Attack the CBA Escrow rules during negotiations not when a tourney is about to start. C'mon breadman. You got paid. Save this for the off season. Call your union rep. PLAY SOME DAMN HOCKEY ALREADY!

EDIT: I just reread his comment. It's not that bad, minus the report to camp part. Otherwise it was a well thought out post.