25 Reasons Why Players are Losing the P.R. Battle

Why are players losing the so-called public relations battle in the ongoing labor dispute with NHL owners?

And does it really matter to the players, anyway?

Is it because the players are not getting their messages across effectively? Or are their messages — what they are saying and through their actions in recent years — indeed coming through loud and clear?

A recent ‘poll’ (on slam.ca) while not likely scientifically accurate, suggests 47% of those who ‘voted’ supported the owners; 12% supported the players. 30% didn’t support either of them.

Maybe more disconcerting than that to both parties is the fact that while fans in the U.S. are largely unconcerned about the lack of hockey, that apathy has crossed the border into Canada.

Oh sure, hockey fans would like to see hockey, even in certain U.S. markets. Once baseball is done, and the Super Bowl is history, long-time fans will crave the game come January.

But right now there just isn’t a lot of gnashing of teeth over the lack of NHL hockey, even in Canada.

To the earlier point: why might it be that so few people are aligned with the players in this protracted dispute?

Owners don’t score pretty goals. They don’t sign autographs. They’re management. Nobody likes management.

Most media people will suggest that hockey players are by far the best athletes to deal with of the major sports in North America.

It’s a reputation hockey players have earned, by and large. In Canadian markets, it’s hard to imagine anyone more popular than a member of the Oilers, or Leafs, in their respective communities. Many hockey players are also well known for their charitable involvements.

And after all this is a lockout, not a strike. The players say they want to play.

Well, in terms of public perception, there are possible reasons why fans aren’t rushing to support the players, and may never, regardless of how long this lasts.

1. As talented as many of the NHL’ers are, and as physically demanding as their job is, it is difficult for the “average” person earning, say, $40,000 a year, to relate to players whose average salary is almost 2 million a season.

2. Players insist a salary cap is unacceptable, in part because it goes against free market principles. There has never been a salary cap in hockey. So they don’t want to “give up” something they’ve “earned” through collective bargaining. Yet if they were operating under a different set of rules to begin with (i.e. a limit of some description on overall salaries) they would gladly, one assumes, appreciate the opportunity to earn an average annual wage of 1.3 million, which is what the owners claim to be offering.

3. As one of their messages, NHLPA leadership continues to put forward the idea that National Football League players, for example, are unhappy with the NFL salary cap, which has been in place for many years. Yet prominent NFL player reps are saying exactly the opposite — that a cap has been good for football, and for the players. The NFL is the best-run and most popular sport in the United States.

4. Players say they are fighting for the younger players, just as players in earlier generations fought for them. Yet, how many current players fought alongside Carl Brewer, Gordie Howe, Andy Bathgate and others to try to ensure that players of yesteryear — the very players who really made the sport what it is today — received their due while they were being unjustly treated by the league and its owners?

5. If this dispute does not ultimately resolve the economic woes plaguing many franchises, and results in, say, four of those franchises ceasing to operate in future, that would result in a net loss of about 100 NHL — and therefore NHLPA — jobs. Does this outcome help all the players in the Association?

6. Fans may wonder: how much does a player need to have “financial security” for their family? Must their income ensure security for their families for generations to come?

7. Many players are quoted as saying they have already offered “concessions” to the owners. But when the bar was set so high in favor of the players for years, is the appropriate word really concessions? Isn’t it a matter being time the players got in touch with reality?

8. NHL players are a brotherhood, and players stress that they are sticking together. Yet more than 200 players have signed contracts to play in Europe — most of whom have every intention of racing back to North America the moment a new deal is signed. In the same breath, some long-time NHL players have actually signed contracts to play in the American Hockey League, or other minor leagues. In a free world, that’s entirely within the rights of any individual, of course. But how is that creating a sense of solidarity? What message does this send to the public?

9. Those NHL players now playing in Europe — many of whom have been earning millions of dollars a season — are taking jobs away from players who really need those jobs. Do those NHL players care about putting fellow professional players out of work, and the impact that has on those families? Or are the only “fellow players” that matter in the NHLPA?

10. The public has read, for years, comments from the players association that suggest the players, like the owners, have built up a huge “war chest” as they prepared for this scenario. If such a “lockout” fund is available, the public wonders: why do the players need to earn money by playing in other leagues?

11. Interestingly, some players are not signing with other leagues. Many are staying in shape by renting ice and working out together. They are evidently making a clear choice not to play in a different league. Again, everyone is free to follow their own conscience. But if you belong to an “association”, generally members stick together in order to, among other reasons, send out a consistent public message, regardless of whether it’s a lock out or a strike situation.

12. Players who have signed with the so-called Original Six Hockey League are saying they’re doing it for charity, for the fans, so kids can see them play. They stress that kids will be allowed into the dressing room after games, etc. Sounds tremendous. Will players encourage and allow this same free and easy access to kids once they are back in their NHL dressing rooms and there is no public relations battle to be won?

13. NHL officials are not being paid at all during the dispute. Many are taking jobs of various descriptions. The average wage of NHL official is about $100,000 a year. Yet they have — to a man— decided they will not take refereeing jobs in other leagues, to ensure they don’t take jobs away from fellow referees. This is clearly not a stand all players have taken.

14. If there is any sympathy felt, it is for those really affected by the lockout: individuals in the industry who have lost full-time jobs, and part-time rink employees, for example, and all those who are missing out on important income to help them make ends meet at home, or help get them through school.

15. A high-profile NHL player, during the 2003-’04 season, was accurately quoted as saying the players would “sit out for the rest of our lives”, rather than accept the conditions the owners were trying to put forward. This particular player makes several million dollars a season. When the player realized how his comments came across, he tried a more conciliatory tone the next day. But his true feelings had been expressed for all to hear.

16. Similarly, some years back, a veteran NHL player (still actively involved with the Players Association) was asked about the fact that many fathers could no longer afford to bring their kids to an NHL game. The response was, basically, “Maybe those dads should not be taking their kids to a game.”
One more recent example: A prominent NHL’er recently reacted to an appearance by NHL

17. Commissioner Gary Bettman on the CBC National news. Reports quoted the player as saying “I know Mr. Bettman likes to think he knows a lot about hockey. But I’ve never seen him stop a puck, or bleeding when he gets a shot in the face or getting needles in the arms, back and stomach. Players are rewarded handsomely, we understand that, but at the same time we work very hard for what we have.” Players work hard, indeed. People in many walks of life (teachers, police officers, those who do manual labor — soldiers on the front lines, to be sure — and many others) “work hard” . Many take serious physical risks, yet have limits on what they can earn.

18. When figures are cited about player salaries, that doesn’t take into account the royalties players receive on items such as trading card sales, and monies raised through licensing agreements for the sale of NHLPA endorsed merchandise. That bumps the players’ real income up by a substantial amount.

19. The public may wonder how many “freebies” and various ‘perks’ of fame players receive. Do players ever travel other than first-class? Does a hockey player stand in line for anything?

20. Some players play into June in a given season. It can be a long, tough season. For those players who don’t make the playoffs, however, their season starts in training camp in mid-September and ends in mid-April. Five months off in the summer. The “average” person works 49 weeks a year, with three weeks off.

21. Many fans are fed up with hearing athletes whine. Whine that they want to play for a winner, rather than accepting the challenge of staying where they are and helping make their current team a winner; are insulted by contract offers that don’t pay them enough millions; players that demand trades; hide behind the words of their agents; ask to renegotiate contracts; hold out for even more money when they are still unproven and in the early years of their career.

22. Many fans are increasingly tired of the influence of agents. Fans realize that the agents really do speak for the players they represent. The players allow their agent to do the public dirty work.

23. People also likely cringe every time a player is quoted as saying, “I sure hope this gets resolved before much longer”, as though individual players are standing on the outside of this situation and have zero influence. Of course players have influence on the Association leadership. They aren’t helpless by-standers in this situation. And if they are helpless by-standers, people wonder, what kind of an Association is it?

24. Fans have noticed that every time a player steps out of line and says anything the union leadership doesn’t want to hear, the player suddenly retracts or clarifies his earlier (honest) feelings.

25. Additional reasons why players are losing the optics battle jump out almost every time someone speaks on behalf of the union. For example, a high-ranking NHLPA official was just quoted as saying he couldn’t imagine the owners putting a worse proposal on the table than is there right now. Worse than an average salary of 1.3 million a year? Again, the public hears this and just sighs, stunned.

Fans don’t want to hear one more agent or player say, “Well, we didn’t make the owners give us the money. It’s not our fault”. This comment implies of course that owners are “dumb” for spending so much on players to begin with. Many won’t disagree. But hearing the comment repeated endlessly and stated as though the players are simply unwitting millionaire pawns leaves the public numb.

The players stress no one forced the owners to drive up salaries. True. But even if owners decided individually to use their ‘common sense” and set up their own informal wage ceiling, would teams be accused of collusion?

There is little question that pages could also be written about the all the baggage ownership brings to the table in this dispute — not to mention the often unseemly history of NHL ownership over the last many decades. It’s unlikely that many fans have any real sympathy for owners, or much care about the owners at all.

It is clear that there is no game without players. But most people also realize that without owners, there is no sport at all. You’d be left with just a bunch of talented athletes who may get together, barnstorm through the countryside and pass the hat out during a series of exhibition games against local competition from town to town.

Sympathetic figures or not, without those who have made huge profits in their various businesses, there would be no owners in professional sports. Hockey needs the successful entrepreneurs to survive and there aren’t that many of them around — at least not that many that can run a professional sports franchise efficiently and successfully.

And these owners expect to make significant money on their investment, including with their sports franchises.

There is one question that no one will answer, but is an interesting question nonetheless: If the current players refused to play under the conditions ownership wants, and if the NHL as we know it dissolved tomorrow and a new league started anew, would there be players to fill teams?

If players felt truly “free” to decide, on their own, without pressure from any particular corner, and did not feel they were crossing some sort of real or imagined picket line, it’s hard to imagine the answer would be anything but “yes”.

In other words, if the game started over again, could it work?

The answer is indeed yes. Players who may not be as gifted as current NHL’ers would play, and they would play for much, much less money just for the honor of playing in what might still be called the National Hockey League.

After all, isn’t that what the AHL and ECHL are right now, and for that matter, the European professional leagues? Good leagues made up of good players who, for the most part, are not quite NHL-players just yet?

They earn a good, steady, if unspectacular income. People pay to watch them play in various markets across Canada and the United States and Europe. Yet not one of the players complains publicly over little things, because there are dozens of other players just “below” them hoping and waiting for their chance.

Would people still pay to see the game if every current NHL’er quit the game?

Absolutely.

Real hockey fans love U.S. college hockey, Major Junior hockey, semi-pro hockey. If it’s well played, played hard by people who give their all, people will come and watch.

Imagine returning to a time when a parent could bring two or three kids to an NHL game and buy really good seats — park, eat something, and go home with change in their pocket after spending less than a hundred dollars.

Imagine returning to a time when, like in the Canadian Football League, the players realized they were fortunate to play a sport they love, be paid for it, and, like most everyone else in society, had the same financial insecurities most people face, once their career in sport are over.

As the economy has changed and evolved and ebbed and flowed over the last 15 or so years, tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs, struggled to find new employment, started over again.

Many people have had to “re-invent” themselves, to borrow the often-used phrase.

Maybe the players will finally realize that while many fans enjoy and appreciate their talents, they are no more special than anyone else simply because they are professional athletes.

Maybe it is time to start all over again. A new league. New players — eager, appreciative players who can repair the disconnect that is killing the relationship between athletes and fans, players who won’t balk at playing for, say, a few hundred thousand dollars a year, which is still more than the best medical specialists earn — people who can actually save lives through their education, training and “hard work”.

Professional hockey would still be, as many ruefully say, a “business”. But it would be a different kind of business.

One fans might understand.

So Little Perspective

Much has been and will be written about the opposing “sides” in the ongoing NHL labor dispute — a dispute which could last well beyond the 2004-05 season.

There is no lack of points of view concerning who is to blame (if blame can be attributed in such a circumstance).

What does seem clear is that both parties go to great lengths to defend their positions in public, in an effort to create awareness and understanding — and perhaps even a twinge of support, if not sympathy — for their position.

Inevitably, comments will be made which leave an observer shaking their head.

One example: A prominent NHL’er with a Canadian-based team recently reacted to an appearance by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on the CBC National news.

Newspaper reports quoted the player as saying “I know Mr. Bettman likes to think he knows a lot about hockey. But I’ve never seen him stop a puck, or bleeding when he gets a shot in the face or getting needles in the arms, back and stomach. Players are rewarded handsomely, we understand that, but at the same time we work very hard for what we have.”

This is not simply to chastise this particular player, who has a reputation as a tough, hard-working player.

Clearly, few who have any sense of what it truly takes to become a professional (or high-level) athlete — especially a professional hockey player — doubt the talent, hard work and dedication required. Most would acknowledge, and could not themselves tolerate, the severe physical toll hockey takes on individual players.

But it is difficult to comprehend the argument that that physical toll means the average NHL salary should be almost $2 million dollars a season per player, when the “average” person works 50 weeks a year to earn maybe $40,000 a year. Brilliant surgeons, who can save lives, for example, do not make anywhere near the kind of money top NHL players make.

Oilers General Manager Kevin Lowe made a simple but revealing remark when team stalwart Ryan Smith was in a contract stalemate some time back. Lowe basically said the team had done all it could to keep Smith happy over the years, and alluded out loud to the fact that Smyth — still a very young man — had earned something like 17 million dollars in 6 or so seasons with the club to that point.

Smyth is a fine player, full of heart, indeed. But 17 million dollars already?

Those who follow pro sports realize that there are “superstar” players in sports who have earned more than 15 or 20 million dollars a season. Many people do not like the idea, but recognize that the “best of the best” in the entertainment industry are paid beyond what makes sense.

But Lowe’s simple comment, about a someone many see as a solid yet unspectacular player, likely struck a nerve with many fans. 17 million dollars in a few short years. That is way, way more than most hard-working people would earn in several lifetimes.

Public appearances by athletes for financial and public relations purposes aside, there is a real disconnect nowadays between many athletes and the people who support them.

More to the point, perhaps: if an NHL player truly believes he is “worth” millions of dollars a year for playing a game, what is the young man or woman “worth” who fights to defend their country in times of war? Whether one agrees with the notion of sending young people off to fight to preserve freedoms, it has been and is a political and life reality.

These young men and women risk more than a physical toll. They risk their very lives. And if they return home at all, they risk returning home with lifelong physical ailments.

And they aren’t doing what they do to simply entertain other people.

While that is an extreme example, it is nonetheless a comparison worth noting. But there are many other people who work hard at what they do who don’t receive the kind of income, compensation, perks, “freebies” and adulation that pro athletes receive.

If the players want to “win” the public relations battle, they would be well-advised to communicate through the media with the public a little differently.

The average person can no longer afford tickets to watch NHL teams. Do the players care?

When you hear quotes like the one above about Bettman, the old quote rings true about “protesting too much”.

The players can protest all they want. Few are buying that they should continue to receive the kind of income they have achieved simply because of the competitive realities owners face to field competitive teams.

I recall a comment a prominent NHLPA member once made (he’s still an active player). When asked about the fact that many dads could no longer afford to take their kids to an NHL game, the player said, in essence, “well, maybe that dad shouldn’t be taking his kids to the game if he can’t afford it.”

That comment was made years ago.

Have the players learned any lessons since?