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  CBA: Book Review

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Author Marc Edge was gambling when he decided release a book in early October about the NHL's labor dispute. He was gambling that all his hard work would still be timely. The gamble paid off. The dispute is nowhere near resolution and Edge's book is a timely guide to hockey's holy war.

Edge's book, Red Line, Blue Line, Bottom Line - How Push Came To Shove Between The National Hockey League And Its Players, opens with a possible glimpse of the future.

Peter Forsberg, Joe Sakic and Markus Naslund hook up for a goal that clinches the Stanley Cup. But they don't win it as members of a National Hockey League franchise; they pull it off for MoDo in Sweden.

Unlikely? The rise of a European Super League has been mentioned as a possibility by many observers, but it may not happen as quickly as Edge suggests when he argues: "The NHL may have appropriated Lord Stanley’s mug for the past half century or so, but if it’s not going to award it in 2005, perhaps someone else should."

But Edge's main focus isn't on predicting the future. What Red Line, Blue Line, Bottom Line offers readers is some well researched, tightly written background on what has brought the NHL and the NHLPA to their current stalemate.

Edge has the background to effectively tackle the task. The Vancouver native is a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he teaches journalism. He has a Ph.D. in Mass Communications, a Master's Degree in Labor and Industrial Relations and a B.A. in Commerce. He spent 13 years working for the Vancouver Province and four years writing for Hockey magazine.

No book on the current state of the NHL would be complete without the obligatory mention of the league's financial woes and the reasons behind it. Edge rounds up the usual suspects. That would be the owners.

"The 'ego economics' of the league are predicated more on greed and one-upmanship than on fiscal responsibility or even balancing the books. As a result, team owners squandered most of their expansion gold on contracts for scarce free agents, bidding their salaries up wildly in the hope of profiting even more at playoff time — on and off the ice. Now that they finally realize the grim reality of what they agreed to, the owners want to change the rules of the game — again," Edge writes.

But where Edge's book excels is in the perspective he brings to the subject. These issues didn't just materialize over the last few years or even the last decade. He details the history of relations between management and labor in sports and breaks down the key economic issues. He goes beyond hockey, looking at the labor and economic issues surrounding baseball, basketball and football as well.

There are plenty of issues to tackle and Edge does it in a straightforward, no frills style. He examines the reserve clause, free agency, arbitration, salary disclosure, strikes, lockouts, salary caps, luxury taxes and revenue sharing.

The history of labor relations is one of the most significant parts of the book. It's one of the key elements many fans overlook or may not even know about when trying to make sense of these disputes between players and owners. There is legislation such as the Sherman Antitrust Act and court rulings that have defined the ground rules for how these battles are waged.

There is also the subject of economics. This is, after all, about money. Edge astutely points out the role of salary disclosure in helping drive NHL player salaries skyward in the early 1990's. It's another topic that seldom gets mentioned.

The chapter on revenue sharing is one of the most intriguing. Edge opens it with this explanation: "The term 'revenue sharing' has two meanings in the business of professional sports. Owners can enter into revenue-sharing agreements with their players or amongst themselves. Usually they do both, to a greater or lesser extent, but not in the NHL — and that might be at the root of the league’s money problems."

But not for the reason you usually hear about, which is competitive balance. Edge cites the work of some economists who argue that, "the net effect of revenue sharing between teams is to allow owners to keep more revenues for themselves by discouraging them from paying it to free-agent players."

It's an interesting theory, and apparently one that Edge likes.

"If NHL owners weren’t quite so greedy and learned to share a little bit better amongst themselves, perhaps they wouldn’t find themselves frittering away most of what they make by inflating the salaries of free agents," he suggests.

Of course, Edge acknowledges that defining revenues is another sticky issue and he examines that issue as well.

Edge also takes a look bargaining models, the impact of public relations and the highly unlikely possibility of mediation. He closes the book the same way he opens it -- with the possibility of a new Super League in Europe.

Overall, Red Line, Blue Line, Bottom Line - How Push Came To Shove Between The National Hockey League And Its Players is a good read. Edge handles the history of labor relations and economic issues extremely well. That's no surprise considering his academic background. But his journalistic background helps him make those complex subjects understandable.

Nobody delves into a subject without already having an opinion or eventually forming one and Edge appears to be no different. It's highly unlikely that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman will be requesting a signed copy of the book. Edge is hard on the league and owners at times. Unfairly? For the most part, no. The NHL and some of the owners, not all of them, do deserve a lot of the blame here.

Edge may go to a little too far at times in blasting owners, especially when he brings up Enron in respect to accounting issues and team revenues. He also raises the issue of Enron when discussing Arthur Levitt, who wrote the study claiming the league lost $273 million in 2002-03.

Edge suggests the league could have chosen a "more reputable spokesman" than Levitt, who was SEC chairman when the accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom were taking place. There are many who would strongly disagree with that conclusion. But a review of a hockey book on a hockey site is no place for that discussion.

Edge is not offering a solution to the NHL's current mess, but that is not his stated mission. Edge accomplishes his goal, which is to explain how the NHL and NHLPA arrived at a standoff that will have a dramatic impact on the hockey landscape on way or another. And Edge has done an excellent job of setting the stage for the still to be determined final act of this drama.

The book is listed at Amazon.com. Simply search for the title or the author (Marc Edge).

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