Report: NHL Has Lost $240 Million To Lockout
SUNRISE (CBSMiami) – As the NHL owners and the NHL Players Association continue to battle over how to split up their money, the amount of money available to the league continues to shrink.
Overall, the lockout is 25 days old, but the entire preseason schedule plus the first two weeks of the regular season, a total of 82 games, have already been canceled. In fiscal terms, that means the league has lost more than $200 million in 2012 thanks to the lockout.
"So you're talking about 230,240 [million] to this point that's in jeopardy," NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told the O.C. Register. "That's 240 that we both lose. It's not just the league that's losing that money. The players are sharing on some basis in that. Some substantial basis. Whether that's 57 percent or whether that's 50 percent or whether that's 47 percent, it's some basis and it's a significant basis."
Last season, the league pulled in roughly $3.3 billion in total revenue and if Daly's numbers are correct, that's more than 10 percent of the pie that's already been taken out of the discussion thanks to the owners' lockout.
The irony of both sides fighting over money while losing money aside; both sides of the dispute have displayed inflexibility during collective bargaining talks. The players want to be guaranteed the overall salary poll will not shrink while owners want players to take as much 14 percent less of the overall hockey-related revenue, though that number has shrunk in recent negotiations.
The NHL is no stranger to prolonged work stoppages. It's the only major professional sport to ever lose an entire season to a lockout. Since 1992, the NHL has lost more than 1,700 games to work stoppages.
All the while, the NHL has fallen in clout amongst many U.S. sports fans, trailing Major League Baseball, the NBA and the most popular sport in the country, the NFL.
