SPECTOR ON NHL: BETTMAN BAD FOR BUSINESS

Sometimes, it is good to step outside your comfort zone to confirm something you already thought you knew.

So we asked economist and author Andrew Zimbalist, a favourite voice from lockouts past, what it means, exactly, when a professional sports league is facing its third lockout in as many collective bargaining agreements?

"It means it is poorly managed," said our frank, 64-year-old professor of economics at Smith College in Massachusetts, and author of 20 books, including May The Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy.

"Mr. Bettman, although he has some qualities that are admirable, has made a lot of bad decisions," Zimbalist said this week, before Thursday's confirmation that we are heading towards Bettman's third lockout since becoming the commissioner of the National Hockey League in 1993. "He has not promoted effective management at the team level, and he is unwilling to admit his mistakes and walk away from them."

Zimbalist is not a hockey man. He doesn't even purport to watch the game.

He has, however, studied the various sports economies over his years. Ironically, all of that studying has left Zimbalist in a position to draw the exact same conclusions as anyone reading this column.

"The teams below the Mason Dixon line in the United States are not profitable. Some of them are bleeding tens of millions of dollars a year," he said, as if one needs a PHD to figure that out.

So, how would our renowned economist from an esteemed school of economics in Massachusetts begin to solve the NHL's economic problems? Exactly the way a couple of roughnecks would, over a beer at the Paddy McSwiggins in Fort McMurray.

o Allow relocation in Canada, the northern U.S., or "further internationalize the league."

o Encourage sound management practices. (Read: quit signing stupid contracts.)

o Extend revenue sharing

"Unless you do some of those things it's inevitable that you're going to bang heads with the players' association. To come to the table and say we want you guys to drop your share in revenues from 57 per cent of revenues to 42 per cent is a declaration of unreasonableness and irrationality."

For the record, our solution to the constant labour strife in the NHL is simple: phase the NHLPA back to a 50-50 split of the revenues, say, one per cent a year over a seven year CBA. In the meantime, continue to grow revenues, so the pain would barely be felt.

Once you're done, it's a 50-50 split. From that moment on, both sides can keep their damned hands out of everyone else's pockets.

That alone isn't enough, Zimbalist says.

"The bottom line is this: the league is not well managed, it's not well structured, and that has to change. Ownership and Bettman can't expect the players to assume the whole burden of those problems.

"Gary Bettman doesn't want to admit that his southern strategy was a bad strategy, back in the 1990s," Zimbalist said. "It is his intransigence around this issue that's created this problem."

It's hard to argue that, other than to add, those poor markets are worth 25 jobs per team to the NHLPA. Contraction does not help the players one bit, so if it is to be avoided, then the PA must share some of the pain in other areas to preserve those jobs.

History tells us, however, that Bettman ventured into the four corners of the USA for one reason: that mega-bucks U.S. TV contract that forms the economic pillar of all major North American sports. In the end, the NHL secured all the markets -- many of them weak -- but the league never did get that giant TV deal.

"That's the main difference," Zimbalist agrees. "In hockey, the U.S. contract is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $5-6 million a team. In football, it's $150 million per team. In basketball and baseball it's closer to $35 million a team."

Bettman's NHL has to prop up all those money-losers in Florida, Nashville, Phoenix, Carolina and the second teams in New York and Los Angeles. But their presence has never provided the TV revenues that would make those markets self-sustaining.

Now, with the second lockout in seven years upon us, the damage on those already wonky markets will be the most severe.

"If you have another work stoppage, hockey will bounce back in Canada. I don't think there is any question about that," Zimbalist said. "What happens in the United States is another question.

"Hockey is on a very thin string of popularity in the United States," he concludes. "Whether it can bounce back in the presence of all the competition that is springing up around it is another question. Soccer, for instance, is an ascendant sport here.

"Whether it loses its status as the fourth most popular sport and begins to sink, is an open question at this point."

It looks as if we're going to find out.

Problem is, when teams are forced into spending 45mill at minimum, there's no where to turn for relief. Biggest mistake in hockey is that cap floor. Until they get rid of that or Gary Bettman turns into Robin Hood, there's no hope for this league.