NHL lockout over, but why did it take so long?

“It is true that a very significant amount of their revenues went to salaries, and the union realized this and was willing to cut back," says Mark Conrad, a professor of sports law at Fordham University in New York City. "But sometimes these collective bargaining agreements are made to protect owners from themselves, because they are the ones who sign these long-term contracts.”

Professor Conrad has some sympathy for the Leopolds of the NHL. Star players are a limited commodity and therefore have enormous leverage.

“The elite players drive the market up. It’s a very controlled labor market because of that,” he says.

Yet much of the NHL's current cycle of crisis was foreseeable when the NHL expanded into non-hockey markets in the 1990s in the bid to become a national brand, say others.

The league diluted total revenues by giving out too many licenses to underserved markets like Columbus, Ohio, and Atlanta, says Frank Shorr, director of the Boston University Sports Institute. There are currently 30 NHL teams; in 1990, there were 21.

“The owners were willing to hand out all these licenses, but they didn’t really understand that, down the line, they were going to face empty seats,” he says.

Because professional hockey does not earn as much in corporate sponsorships and television revenue as baseball, basketball, or football, the league was weakened when teams in non-hockey markets failed to pull their weight at the gates.

“You’ve got a sport that doesn’t appeal to a large number of fans and viewers. Because they don’t have the TV revenue, they have to charge exorbitant ticket prices, and the only way to keep costs down is keep salaries down. But if you keep salaries down, it doesn’t attract a decent team,” he says. “There are no secrets here, but they waited way too long to figure that out.”

In hitting the reset button this time, the NHL and NHLPA agreed to contract limits. Now, a contract can be no longer than seven years, unless a team is re-signing its own player – those contracts can run eight years. New rules also prevent teams from front-loading contracts so dramatically. Other terms of the agreement include recalibrating how league revenues are divided between players and owners and deciding where to set salary caps.

The new season will likely begin either Jan. 15 or Jan. 19 and run either 50 or 48 games. The new agreement will last 10 years, with either side able to opt out after eight years.

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