What did take time, was me getting around to updating the schedule on this site. That’s not the case anymore. Check out the schedule page for the up-to-date game dates.

Side Effects

An unfortunate side effect to the lockout, and subsequent re-instatement of the season, is the casualties — Boston and Arizona. This has made me revisit how the schedule system is set up and revise it slightly. Even though both teams have pledged to play in 2009, there’s no point in having them included in this years schedule, so they’re not. Sorry guys, it’s a waste of space and clicking. :)

Shortly after the cancelation announcement last week there were rumours circulating that both parties had begun negotiating again. Reaction to the rumour of renewed talks was mixed, with some saying it was in preparation for 2009, and others hoping it was to salvage this season. Looks like the faithful won this round.

Detaills on the new CBA haven’t been disclosed yet but here is what we know so far, based on various sources:

• the CBA is a 7 year agreement, with opt-out options for either side after the fifth year
• the owners have agreed to revenue sharing, based on average ticket revenue, bonus, and promotional money
• veteran-maximum salary and franchise players receive a 5% pay increase each year, rookies and veteran-minimum salary players get 6%
• the league will give $100,000 to the PLPA for use as player benefits until the previous CBA dispute has been settled

NLL Commissioner Jim Jennings will be hosting a live chat on NLL.com on Monday, starting at 6pm EST.

As a quick sidenote, it seems Jennings and the owners received a lot of feedback — he mentioned 1,000 in one interview — from fans regarding the cancelation. I’m not sure what percentage was civil but it looks like the fans really stepped up to the plate. It’s also great to know that the owners and league took us into consideration.

After an information drought on the PLPA site, Succamore posted this response to all the press releases from the NLL office. In the article dated October 16th, addressed to both fans and players, Succamore offers some tidbits on the proposals offered to the league by the PLPA. He states:

This past Sunday morning in New York, around 11:00 am, the League representatives received a counter proposal from the PLPA negotiating Team. After about a 30 minute review, we were invited back in to the room. The League’s Committee members informed us that they were rejecting our proposal and that the proposal that we had just countered was their final offer.

30 minutes doesn’t seem like a lot of time to review a document as complex as a CBA. Moving on…

We quizzed them directly on one of our the (sic.) key provisions, a choice offering an upward adjustment on the Revenue Thresholds causing less exposure (6.10 B) or a new taxation system that would not take effect until salary costs exceeded $500,000 occurred (currently less than $400k on average with bonuses).

The new revenue proposal is pretty straightforward to me: The league makes more money, and so does everyone involved. The exact terms and percentages haven’t been revealed anywhere — at least nowhere that I’ve found. The only percentages I’ve seen were that the league offered a 3% salary increase for the first three years, and a 5% increase for the last two years of the NLL proposed 5 year CBA. The PLPA was asking for more.

According to all the talk around town, the league certainly has its sticking points and the amount of cash it’s willing to put down for player salaries is one of them. As much as the league is in it to grow the sport, it’s also in it for the money. Player salaries are a significant portion of the $3.5 million franchise fees new owners can be expected to pay. Even with salaries in line with what the NLL wants, the revenue sharing certainly cuts into the profits.

The taxation system is completely different than what the NLL is currently using. This is, from what I understand, a huge issue to the NLL and its owners. This completely new system seems to be based on the MLB, where a team can spend whatever it wants to recruit and employ players. One caveat is if the team spends more than $500,000, it is taxed on every dollar over that cap. Currently each team has a spending cap of $521,000.

Owners are finally getting in the groove of how to make their teams profitable — currently only three teams are making money, and about three additional teams are close to turning a profit. More and more new NLL owners are also NHL owners and are very used to the type of bookkeeping these leagues use. Changing that system to account for the taxation and spending cap isn’t a welcome change for owners.

Another problem the taxation system poses, as anyone familiar with the MLB knows, is that teams with money will attract all the top players, leaving the rest of the teams with a less than stellar lineup. With a relatively small pool of eligible players, for the time being, all the top names would certainly be snapped up in record time.

The article continues:

This morning in reading the Leagues press release, I was somewhat frustrated by Jim Jennings claim that the League will “look to work improve our overall business model”. A model which leaves small market teams behind. Interesting how we offered a model during the multiple negotiations which lead to the expired CBA. REVENUE SHARING would be a great place to start folks.

Proposing a “club share” is the PLPA’s solution to help the teams that are losing money. In a noble sense, this is a great suggestion. Teams that have plenty help those that don’t. This definitely keeps the overall health of the league in an upward direction. What it doesn’t do is allow fledgling teams figure out how to create a sustainable market on their own. Obviously, the other side is that the teams making money might not want to give up that extra money, but that’s purely speculation, and I’d like to think the NLL owners aren’t that greedy — at least not yet.

Succamore closes with:

Do they realize that our Current proposal, 3 year term with and opt out after year 1 for EITHER SIDE, would allow EVERY CLUB to pay roughly the same salaries as last year. THAT IS THE Million Dollar QUESTION?????? If they say yes than why did they cancel the season. If they say no then they were not informed of our proposal, did not review our proposal and were likely planning on attempting to break the union.

While it may sound good, everyone involved — including the fans — would prefer to not be in the same situation we currently are a year from now, no matter who opts out of the agreement. When it comes to the length of the CBA, I’m leaning closer towards what the NLL is asking for: 3 to 5 years. Having clauses that allow either side to opt out is a recipe for disaster, especially after the first year.

If you want to be free to ask for a new agreement after a year, be honest and just ask for a one-year agreement. But that won’t happen in a league that’s trying to grow.

According to NLL.com the PLPA rejected the proposal “without permitting all of the players to vote on the league’s final offer.” The website does not disclose the terms of the final offer.

Unfortunately the PLPA has chosen to not update their website in the past few years. They’ve also avoided using the media as a weapon during these negotiations — unlike the league this year and the PLPA during the previous CBA negotiation 3 years ago.

Some teams have posted in their respective fan forums stating they’ll be releasing the arena dates over the next couple days. Other teams are continuing the silent treatment. The rumor mill is saying that Jim Jennings, league commissioner, has sent out an email to all players telling them the season is over.

Who Do I Blame?

Both sides. There was clearly a major attitude problem with the entire negotiation process this time around. In the year that both sides have had to clear up the CBA neither one has given an inch (at least that’s how I’m interpreting it until terms are released).

Here’s what I consider the biggest kick in the pants, an arbitrator was never brought in! Yes, you read that correctly. Both sides were so confident that the other would flinch, that even in the final seconds before the deadline an arbitrator wasn’t even considered.

Now What?

Everyone needs to go and vote on this frustrated fan poll. Immediately. Hopefully, by getting enough responses we can actually show the league and players what we think as a group.

Also, anyone with season tickets needs to be patient. It’s extremely annoying having put the money down for season tickets that you’re not going to use, but each team still has to decide how they want to handle this. Some teams will most likely be offering additional incentives for letting them keep your deposit. Others might simply just need time to process the returns.

Keep your ears to the ground people, there is always a tiny, miniscule, infinitesimal chance that something might still happen this year. Otherwise, we’ll see what’s being offered for 2009.

I’ve been doing a little bit of thinking and here are some quick points that are running through my mind:

• The PLPA and NLL are dragging their feet a little bit. Everyone knew new terms would need to be hashed out before the 2008 season, yet nobody was talking over the summer break.
• The NLL is really pushing the press on this issue. Seven, yes, seven posts on NLL.com are talking about how the season will be over before it even starts if a deal is not made by October 15th (tomorrow as of this writing).
• A few outspoken players are really concerned that the deal be fair to both the players and the NLL — usually in the NHL or other pro leagues it’s often a players vs. league mentality.
• About 8,000 fans, depending on the city, will be extremely pissed off — and potentially non-returning fans next season — if a new CBA isn’t reached.
• This is starting to look like a bad year for the Boston Blazers to come back to the league. ;)

This may be over simplifying things a little bit but doesn’t it seem like both parties are being a little childish? I understand that the most people think the best way to win their case is to hold out the longest and win the pissing contest. All that really does is prove one side has a bigger bladder — leaving the “losing” side with resentment. Have these people not read How to Win Friends and Influence People?

I mean come on people. How about each side sit down and write a list of what’s most important for their side. Then write a list of what’s most important for the other side. Compare the lists and see what points match up. After that the only thing left to do is meet in the middle.

Yes, this is a very simplistic approach to the issue. What I want to know is why do negotiations always have to become so complicated? You all remember the old adage KISS right?

Sure, showing off the Calgary Roughnecks schedule on a website dedicated to the Roughnecks is good idea. What about fans in other cities that want to look at their team’s schedule? They could always go to Pointstreak.com, or NLL.com (which just pulls the schedule from Pointstreak anyway) and get the full schedule but lets face it, those sites are a little hard on the eyes.

Now, instead of straining your eyes to see who your team is playing next, all you’ve got to do is hit up the schedule page on GoNecksGo.com. The best part? You can bookmark your team’s page and come back to see it any time. So all you Knighthawks, Shamrox, and Edmonton Rush fans actually have a reason to visit.

So, from now on, if you’re wondering when the next Calgary Roughnecks game is, just visit GoNecksGo.com, look in the sidebar, and you’ll see the next four games listed. Pretty easy eh? That’s what I thought too.

Where to next?

Now that I’ve got the full 2008 schedule set up I’m planning to revisit the schedule page and show the full Roughnecks schedule there. Downloadable versions will still be available.

In the grand scheme of things, I’ll have the full Roughnecks schedule listed with the ability to also view any other team’s schedule — the latter being the more time-consuming.

Once that’s all set up, I’ll be looking into setting up an email subscription that will send out reminders before each game. When you sign up for the reminders, you will be able to specify which team you’d like to receive notifications for as well as all games or just home games. This is a little ambitious at the moment but I think it will be great once it’s ready.

Meanwhile, I’ve updated the schedule page for the 2008 season. Right now there is a .ics file and a link to the Google Calendar for the schedule. I’m working on creating the .cvs file that all you Outlook/Entourage users need for your calendars.

Today I added the photos page of GoNecksGo.com for all to enjoy. Currently the images being shown are the most recent photos from the Calgary Roughnecks Flickr group on the photo sharing website Flickr.com. For now the six most recent photos in the group will be shown on GoNecksGo.com. You can find out more info on the photos page.

This is how photos will be displayed on the site until I can work out the best way to get a nice, friendly, and easy to use photo gallery going on GoNecksGo.com. If you’re not already a member of Flickr it’s dead simple to use and completely free to join — though you can pay for a pro membership if you upload a large number of images. So, what are you waiting for, get over to Flickr.com and join! Then join the Calgary Roughnecks Flickr group and start adding your pictures!

It should be also be mentioned that there is a tape delay in the east and the game will be shown Sunday morning, around 10am I believe. For those in the east that subscribe to SportsNet Pacific or West may still get to see the game live. The U.S. fans will have to wait until Sunday at 2:30pm to see the Versus coverage of the game though.

Be sure to tune in and cheer on your favorite players March 10th at 8pm MST/7pm Pacific.