A suggested rule change (even if for a full season away)... Signing bonus's SHOULD be part of the salary cap

Philippe27 · Guru

RE: A suggested rule change (even if for a full season away)... Signing bonus's SHOULD be part of the salary cap

Florida Panthers · Senior Member

Philippe27 wrote:

If we do it now it's unfair.
If we do it starting season 3 then those who signed their RFA's this off-season to long-term deals will have big advantages.
We should keep it the way it is, even if you guys think it's not ideal it is the fairest way and an important rule like this which affects the value of cash and players should not ve changed even with a 1 year warning.

That can be said about any rule change. Did we go back and reverse the trades that a few GMs had already made with regards to trading away draft picks beyond next season? No... no difference here. I would consider it a big advantage to the teams that had already been able to trade away future draft picks (without paying their dues for those future seasons). But the rule was changed... big deal.

Philippe27 wrote:

Can we get Eric or Bryce's thoughts on this so that this debate doesn't go on forever?

Why? What's the rush, this discussion/thread hasn't even been up for a day yet! For the first time in a long time, there's several people giving their opinion into something and not simply bashing each other. Why try to silence it? It's not as if it's something that has to be said "no" or "yes, done!" to right this second.

Although obviously the league isn't a democracy, if discussion clearly shows that there's widespread support with valid reasons, and only limited objection, at the very least it should demonstrate that even if Eric or Bryce personally aren't in agreement, that hey, maybe it's something the league should seriously look at.

-- Edited by Florida Panthers at 11:42, 2006-12-09

Philippe27 · Guru

That can be said about any rule change. Did we go back and reverse the trades that a few GMs had already made with regards to trading away draft picks beyond next season? No... no difference here. I would consider it a big advantage to the teams that had already been able to trade away future draft picks (without paying their dues for those future seasons). But the rule was changed... big deal.

The difference between a draft pick rule that barely affects anything and a rule that would affect the way one may build his franchise is HUGE.
If Bryce and Eric are even CONSIDERING changing a rule like this we need to know as soon as possible. I don't wanna be giving out huge signing bonuses and then realize they will count against the cap, I don't want to trade for cash and then realize it's worth nothing, if signing bonuses this year don't count for next year then I want to give out as much as possible.
As I have said often, I don't care what the rules are as long as we know what they are and that the ones that affect the way a team builds their franchise don't change.

It's like saying starting next year I don't think money should be given out for top 50 prospects and that money should be given to playoff teams? Would that be fair? No not at all because that rule affected the way GM's drafted their team.

Florida Panthers · Senior Member

Philippe27 wrote:

The difference between a draft pick rule that barely affects anything and a rule that would affect the way one may build his franchise is HUGE.
If Bryce and Eric are even CONSIDERING changing a rule like this we need to know as soon as possible. I don't wanna be giving out huge signing bonuses and then realize they will count against the cap, I don't want to trade for cash and then realize it's worth nothing, if signing bonuses this year don't count for next year then I want to give out as much as possible.

I would actually say that the draft pick rule certainly DOES affect things to a greater extent that you said. I certainly may have made a trade or two additionally with future draft picks if I'd known with more time.

Also, I think it's pretty much guaranteed that no rule change is going to go back retroactively to change anything... so it's not as if anybody's suggesting already signed players with signing bonuses are suddently going to changed. Those would have to be grandfathered in.

And all this talk about cash being worthless is simply untrue (granted, it's worth a hell of a lot less since you can just "buy" it with real money). It just means there's no easy "out" of the salary cap.

Philippe27 wrote:

It's like saying starting next year I don't think money should be given out for top 50 prospects and that money should be given to playoff teams? Would that be fair? No not at all because that rule affected the way GM's drafted their team.

I don't see it as being anything remotely like that.

Anyway, the point is that so far there's been good support aside from 2 GMs, one not wanting it changed because of his clear dislike for caps and the bonuses are ways around them, and the 2nd because he feels it's too drastic a rule change. That's not saying they aren't valid reasons, simply pointing out that the thread is generating discussion and I think that it should continue to be discussed, not summarily shot down, or even agreed to instantly. There's no need to have some instant answer from the league when clearly there's discussion and input to be had.

Philippe27 · Guru

Anyway, the point is that so far there's been good support aside from 2 GMs, one not wanting it changed because of his clear dislike for caps and the bonuses are ways around them, and the 2nd because he feels it's too drastic a rule change. That's not saying they aren't valid reasons, simply pointing out that the thread is generating discussion and I think that it should continue to be discussed, not summarily shot down, or even agreed to instantly. There's no need to have some instant answer from the league when clearly there's discussion and input to be had.

You may be right there I just feel like the longer we wait the more unfair it may get.

BryceBruins · BRHL2 Co-Commish

If Eric or myself is waiting to weigh in on a discussion, often it is because we want to see the opinions out there. SOme people argue that our influence one way or another as commish can swing opinions. We want to see what people think.

The one question I have, in particular for yourself Kent, is if we were to either eliminate signing bonuses or restrict them more. What benefits would there be to having cash in the league? I'm sure we've all seen leagues where every team has 30 million in the bank and it means absolutely nothing. So how do you make your finances important other than using them for signing bonuses?

Your arguement that it is a way to circumvent the cap. In a sense you're right, but thats why we have signing bonuses capped (albeit at a higher level than the NHL) because we don't have to worry about shareholders etc... to please. Otherwise realistically, we may as well just turn finances off.

Habs · Senior Member

I feel that having signing bonuses makes it far to easy for top teams to keep all of their players. Look at tampa for example. He plans on using all of his earnings on signing bonuses and locking up all of his top players to long term deals at a cheap yearly salary. Teams that are struggling this year won’t have the money to do that and will face cap restriction that top teams won’t even though there players are not as good.

The purpose of a signing bonus is so that teams can put parts of a players contract in to one year. So that he can be cheaper latter on in the deal. For example a re-building team with lots of cap room would sign their player to a 3 year deal worth a total of 15 million dollars. The player will receive 15 million not matter what and the team will be charged with 15 million against the cap over those 3 years. The benefit on the bonus is that you can shift 2 million from the last year to the first year. So that you lose 7 million against t he cap in the first year when you are re-building and have the cap room, but save 2 million against the cap in year 3 when the team would be looking to add so players and make a run at the cup. Of course there are restriction so that you can’t pay 15 million up front and have the guy for free the next 2 years.

It is my understanding that this is how signing bonuses are suppose to work in a cap structured league and think this would be the best way to do it in our leage.

Philippe27 · Guru

BryceBruins wrote:

If Eric or myself is waiting to weigh in on a discussion, often it is because we want to see the opinions out there. SOme people argue that our influence one way or another as commish can swing opinions. We want to see what people think.

The one question I have, in particular for yourself Kent, is if we were to either eliminate signing bonuses or restrict them more. What benefits would there be to having cash in the league? I'm sure we've all seen leagues where every team has 30 million in the bank and it means absolutely nothing. So how do you make your finances important other than using them for signing bonuses?

Your arguement that it is a way to circumvent the cap. In a sense you're right, but thats why we have signing bonuses capped (albeit at a higher level than the NHL) because we don't have to worry about shareholders etc... to please. Otherwise realistically, we may as well just turn finances off.

I know I've posted a lot but let me just add that I think this just becomes a rule to prevent good GM's from building something good. We all started off even, same market (as CBJ said), we all drafted our team and we all made trades, no one had an advantage whatsoever so I don't see why we need a rule like this to force good teams to trade away players.

You take the example of my team who will resign all his RFA's with signing bonuses but this 20 millions I have, I traded for it, I had to give up some good players to get it. If I hadn't done that there is no way I'd be able to offer these high signing bonuses, look at other teams, very few signing bonuses offered are over 1 million dollars.

Florida Panthers · Senior Member

BryceBruins wrote:

The one question I have, in particular for yourself Kent, is if we were to either eliminate signing bonuses or restrict them more. What benefits would there be to having cash in the league? I'm sure we've all seen leagues where every team has 30 million in the bank and it means absolutely nothing. So how do you make your finances important other than using them for signing bonuses?

Your arguement that it is a way to circumvent the cap. In a sense you're right, but thats why we have signing bonuses capped (albeit at a higher level than the NHL) because we don't have to worry about shareholders etc... to please. Otherwise realistically, we may as well just turn finances off.

I suppose it's all relative to how realistic we want to make things (and I've always been one to want to make it very reaslitic). No, we don't have shareholders to please and that's an absolutely huge difference between the real league and ours. The goal of a real NHL team is to win the cup sure, but an owner wants to make money.

I think that finances can definitely play a role in a cap league, but also it means looking at the entire financial situation, as things can't really be looked at in isolation.

These are the intertwined issues I see right now:

- Ability to buy money... how a team is run for the most part doesn't matter as long as the option is there to "purchase" BRHL2 money with real money. That's the first thing I'd definitely take away. There's really no incentive run a team properly if I can just buy my way out if want to/need to.

- The article money. Again, yes, they're nice to read when there's time, but it just rewards people who have a lot more time than others do to sit there and write articles all the time. Granted, I have no idea how much money has actually been funnelled to any team for those because we don't have a public record of that, so I'm just assuming based on the amounts shown in the rules.

- Finances are set too high, and it's way too easy to make money as a team. Really, how many teams are actually losing money right now? LA is last in the league sucking it up, and is over $35 mil in salary, yet is only losing $4 mil. Right now teams don't have to worry about setting ticket prices properly, managing their financial situation regardless of what the cap is, or worrying about anything (for the most part).

I'm in another league right now with a cap (with no signing bonuses), where finances are playing a HUGE HUGE issue. There's many teams losing big bucks right now there because they've signed big contracts and are losing huge money because they aren't winning and haven't set ticket prices accordingly, even though they're under the cap. Just because there's a cap, doesn't mean every team should be able to be right under that cap and still make money automatically.

Other things just off the top of my head...

- Have some sort of additional reward for the team that does manage the best financially (best profit in $ per point)

And absolutely having money right now is totally circumventing the cap system. Let's look at Carolina for a moment. No this is no attack on Carolina, but let's all be realistic here, they've done insanely well for the team they have. That's not a slag, just a realistic look that ON PAPER there's no way they should do nearly as well as they have. Because of the success they've had, and the extremely low payroll, they're projected to have a buttload of money at the end of the season. That shouldn't mean they can put huge amounts towards signing bonuses, and get Spezza at a fraction of what he'd really get so he's lower under the cap. That's not "good financial management", that's just hugely circumventing the cap. Again, I'm not slagging Carolina, it was just a quick and easy example.

Florida Panthers · Senior Member

Philippe27 wrote:

I know I've posted a lot but let me just add that I think this just becomes a rule to prevent good GM's from building something good. We all started off even, same market (as CBJ said), we all drafted our team and we all made trades, no one had an advantage whatsoever so I don't see why we need a rule like this to force good teams to trade away players.

And that's an arguement about cap systems in general. And if that's a discussion to be had, let's have it, but the fact is that we DO have a cap. I'm just saying if we're going to have a cap, let's actually have one, not one with no teeth because people can easily circumvent it.

Philippe27 · Guru

Florida Panthers wrote:

Philippe27 wrote:

I know I've posted a lot but let me just add that I think this just becomes a rule to prevent good GM's from building something good. We all started off even, same market (as CBJ said), we all drafted our team and we all made trades, no one had an advantage whatsoever so I don't see why we need a rule like this to force good teams to trade away players.

And that's an arguement about cap systems in general. And if that's a discussion to be had, let's have it, but the fact is that we DO have a cap. I'm just saying if we're going to have a cap, let's actually have one, not one with no teeth because people can easily circumvent it.

My point is that it's not as easy as it seems to circumvent it. Professional leagues need a strict cap because of the markets. I think in a fantasy league where all markets are even it,s good to have one to keep things wihin a reasonable range but it can't be like the NHL otherwise it just penalizes GM's who made good moves.

Florida Panthers · Senior Member

Philippe27 wrote:

My point is that it's not as easy as it seems to circumvent it. Professional leagues need a strict cap because of the markets. I think in a fantasy league where all markets are even it,s good to have one to keep things wihin a reasonable range but it can't be like the NHL otherwise it just penalizes GM's who made good moves.

I see it exactly the opposite. Firstly it's extremely easy to circumvent our current cap, given that anybody can just buy BRHL2 money, and with pretty much everyone easily making money as is, there's cash, or available cash to be spent.

I also see a real cap as not only not penalizing GMs, but it in fact forces GMs to not only act in fiscally responsible ways, but it brings out the better GMs because they have to find ways to build a solid competitive team within financial boundries. It's no longer just about signing the best players because you have money, it's about making smart decisions both with regards to rosters and otherwise.

Philippe27 · Guru

Florida Panthers wrote:

Philippe27 wrote:

My point is that it's not as easy as it seems to circumvent it. Professional leagues need a strict cap because of the markets. I think in a fantasy league where all markets are even it,s good to have one to keep things wihin a reasonable range but it can't be like the NHL otherwise it just penalizes GM's who made good moves.

I see it exactly the opposite. Firstly it's extremely easy to circumvent our current cap, given that anybody can just buy BRHL2 money, and with pretty much everyone easily making money as is, there's cash, or available cash to be spent.

I also see a real cap as not only not penalizing GMs, but it in fact forces GMs to not only act in fiscally responsible ways, but it brings out the better GMs because they have to find ways to build a solid competitive team within financial boundries. It's no longer just about signing the best players because you have money, it's about making smart decisions both with regards to rosters and otherwise.

Fine I agree with you with buying the money, take that out though and it's not as easy as it seems.
Lowering the % of signing bonuses at the draft may have helped the best GM's, now it would not reward the best GM's. If it had been done at the draft then smart GM's would have understood players signed to long term deals with low salaries are the way to go. Changing it now just penalizes those who traded for players with 1 year deals thinking I'll resign them using the money I earn and I'll be able to fit under the cap. Basically what the best strategy was 2 months ago would become the wrong one.

CBJackets · Guru

Florida Panthers wrote:

BryceBruins wrote:

The one question I have, in particular for yourself Kent, is if we were to either eliminate signing bonuses or restrict them more. What benefits would there be to having cash in the league? I'm sure we've all seen leagues where every team has 30 million in the bank and it means absolutely nothing. So how do you make your finances important other than using them for signing bonuses?

Your arguement that it is a way to circumvent the cap. In a sense you're right, but thats why we have signing bonuses capped (albeit at a higher level than the NHL) because we don't have to worry about shareholders etc... to please. Otherwise realistically, we may as well just turn finances off.

These are the intertwined issues I see right now:

- Ability to buy money... how a team is run for the most part doesn't matter as long as the option is there to "purchase" BRHL2 money with real money. That's the first thing I'd definitely take away. There's really no incentive run a team properly if I can just buy my way out if want to/need to.

- The article money. Again, yes, they're nice to read when there's time, but it just rewards people who have a lot more time than others do to sit there and write articles all the time. Granted, I have no idea how much money has actually been funnelled to any team for those because we don't have a public record of that, so I'm just assuming based on the amounts shown in the rules.

- Finances are set too high, and it's way too easy to make money as a team. Really, how many teams are actually losing money right now? LA is last in the league sucking it up, and is over $35 mil in salary, yet is only losing $4 mil. Right now teams don't have to worry about setting ticket prices properly, managing their financial situation regardless of what the cap is, or worrying about anything (for the most part).

I'm in another league right now with a cap (with no signing bonuses), where finances are playing a HUGE HUGE issue. There's many teams losing big bucks right now there because they've signed big contracts and are losing huge money because they aren't winning and haven't set ticket prices accordingly, even though they're under the cap. Just because there's a cap, doesn't mean every team should be able to be right under that cap and still make money automatically.

Other things just off the top of my head...

- Have some sort of additional reward for the team that does manage the best financially (best profit in $ per point)

And absolutely having money right now is totally circumventing the cap system. Let's look at Carolina for a moment. No this is no attack on Carolina, but let's all be realistic here, they've done insanely well for the team they have. That's not a slag, just a realistic look that ON PAPER there's no way they should do nearly as well as they have. Because of the success they've had, and the extremely low payroll, they're projected to have a buttload of money at the end of the season. That shouldn't mean they can put huge amounts towards signing bonuses, and get Spezza at a fraction of what he'd really get so he's lower under the cap. That's not "good financial management", that's just hugely circumventing the cap. Again, I'm not slagging Carolina, it was just a quick and easy example.

-Article Money-Ya it may be a bit too much, but look at how many articles we've gotten. There's no team that has made anything like 10 million dollars because it takes a lot of time to write a very good league-wide article and most people even with a lot of time don't feel like doing it more than occasionally. I know I have a ton of time to write articles and am in need of the money, and I've only done a few. Most of the ones that are written are team based and are only worth 250k.

-Buying Money-This is definitely not a big problem. No one to my knowledge has yet to buy any money. And who would buy money at the exhorbitant price its going for. A whole year's entry fee for 5 million bucks, I highly doubt anyone is going to spend that much. The most someone might spend is 10 or 20 on 1 or 2 million and with the cheapskates in this league I highly doubt even that happens

-Finances are perfect. Otherwise you get the turmoil of having a lot of teams in the red, which just isn't good. You'll see after Season 1 how teams that have managed their finances well will have a huge advantage in the market. You use Carolina as an example...they have a tiny payroll and are doing really well, that is IMO the team I want to see make money. Now look at Atlanta, a team that is underperforming with a high payroll. That team is slated to lose money. The finances are perfect. They only look bloated because each team was given 10 mil to start off, but that doesn't really matter because it was given to each team.

Just because we allow signing bonuses into the fray doesn't mean that the cap system means nothing. As I said previously, realistically, big RFA signing bonuses are going to play a part for very few teams. Tampa Bay is going to be able to throw a lot of money at his RFAs this offseason...Why? Because he has traded for A TON of cash and has managed his finances very very well. No other team would be able to lock up their RFAs at the price he will be able to, they simply won't have the cash. That is his prerogative and it comes from smart management.

Anyone saying that RFA signing bonuses will drastically affect the cap hasn't looked at the facts, and it's ridiculous that some people are arguing for bonuses to be taken off it seems just because they don't think it's fair for a good team that has ACQUIRED all their good players to keep them, looks like pure jealousy to me.

-- Edited by CBJackets at 16:02, 2006-12-09

-- Edited by CBJackets at 16:03, 2006-12-09

Florida Panthers · Senior Member

CBJackets wrote:

Anyone saying that RFA signing bonuses will drastically affect the cap hasn't looked at the facts, and it's ridiculous that some people are arguing for bonuses to be taken off it seems just because they don't think it's fair for a good team that has ACQUIRED all their good players to keep them, looks like pure jealousy to me.

No... anybody saying that signing bonuses (not sure why you singled out RFA, it applies to all of them) will drastically affect the cap are simply using logic. Signing bonuses affect players contracts and what they sign, signing bonuses aren't part of the cap... therefore players get signed to lower contracts which circumvents the cap. It's not really more complicated than that.

Once more, the arguement above, is simply an arguement against a cap period. We have a cap system. If you want to have a discussion about getting rid of the cap totally, feel free.

At the same token, the arguement against seems to be nothing more than "I don't want to have to live in a cap system". Aquiring players and keeping them under a cap system is a challenge. If you're a good GM, playing under a cap system will come out as your team will remain competitive, financially stable, and as a GM, you'll have a more challenging time doing that. I'm in no way jealous of anybody. Tampa also has a large chunk of cash for work he helped out with before the start of the season (which I totally disagreed with happening, but that's neither here nor there). I'll have plenty of cash at the end of the season too, no TB dollars, but still plenty of cash. It's got nothing to do with jealousy. And frankly, given the rational reasons that have been presented, it's frankly rediculous to suggest it. TB is the extreme case where there's gonna be a tonne of money thrown at FA with signing bonuses. on the 2 he's already one, because of the the way things are, he's already $2 mil less in cap money than he should/would be per year.

The comment the finances are fine? So we should all just make money automatically? That's part of the reason why cash means very little.

This is a very similar type situation to the old CBA with the rookie max salaries. I'm sure everyone remembers that in the last CBA, there was a rookie salary max. But there was nothing in the CBA preventing bonuses. Which is exactly why every top end rookie got the max, and also had those bonus triggers that were usually set so rediculously low, that the ended up getting huge amounts that were far above what the rookie max was, because of a technicality.

What it comes down to is... if we're going to have a cap system. Let's have a cap system that means something.