I find it interesting that the league seemingly put a beat down on the PA in the last cba negotiations but what the league tried to accomplish did not occur. If anything it's gotten worse with the latest round of free agency and cap circumventing contracts. Should be interesting.
It really did occur for the better to a very large extent.
Before the CBA, the players were taking 75% of the revenues. After, the players are locked in at 56%.
Overall, it doesn't matter a lot if the league is full of lousy contracts or full of the best contracts you could possibly imagine because no matter what, the players only get 56% of the revenue pie - not a dime less nor a dime more. The owners wanted cost certainty and they got it.
The players feared it would stifle the growth of the game and with it, their salaries but the cap has gone from $39 mil to $64 mil. So their worst fears didn't come to pass as the owners said they would not.
It was never promised that the new CBA would solve ALL the individual teams financial problems - it would just help. And with revenue sharing and the cap, it has.
For the most part, this CBA delivered as advertised by Bettman. They still have some issues with small market teams but those issues are not nearly as bad as they would have faced without this new CBA. And in the CBA to come, they will probably adjust further to deal with that problem.
