Does Violence in the NHL Impact Players Salaries - Term Paper Example

Does Violence in the NHL Impact Players Salaries? Sports are known as a form of entertainment, which is at the same time a form of business. Playersreceive their salaries with the idea of the risks that they will be facing every time they play for a team. In a business point, the owners of the team can only provide salaries to their players from fan revenue. This is the reason why in Hockey, fighting or fist-fight has its place. National Hockey League (NHL) has always been considered a dangerous sport. This sport is also known even as a blood sport, which ironically, fans get more interested because of that idea. It has been known as a sport that is prone to violence resulting to physical injuries. Among other major sports, only hockey grants two players to fight each other without having any severe consequences. For that reason alone, it is never a surprise that fighting in hockey has been a serious issue whether it should be accepted or not. As hockey players, they tend to have an aspect of aggression that can lead to violence during a game. Among all seasons of the NHL, there have been major physical injuries among hockey players. These aggression and violence are seen as determinants to a player’s excitement, satisfaction, and even pleasure. Hockey players tend to be aggressive, which results to fist fights, is considered by team executives, fans, and even players themselves as integral part of the game. It is even applied strategically. Whether strategically or not, NHL is affected on the ongoing violence in the ice-rink. In relation, there are already policies being brought to lessen such violence in NHL. These policies cover almost everything, including physical injuries and fist-fighting that can affect players in the arena. However, violence in NHL does not only come from the aggression of players. As mentioned, violence is somehow considered to be a strategic plan for hockey teams. Hence, the economic literature in relation to salaries and incentives of hockey players is generally scattered. Promoting such violence during a game gives hockey players some monetary benefits. One of the major factors cited that can trigger hockey players to create violence in the game is their aim for a bigger salary. Though the main origin why fighting during the game of hockey is still put in question, as far as people know, majority of fans enjoyed watching the game and even encouraged to have a physical play. Some recent research states that in NHL, violence is considered as good characteristics as stated by Jones, Stewart, and Sunderman. It is believed that encouragement in putting a physical play during the game is the reason why hockey games usually end up on ice fights. It is also said to be one of the sources for the team to generate profit and even revenue maximization. Obviously, violence has always been part of the hockey game. In addition, to prevent other players in taking advantage of the situation--take a beating to opponent players because of the lack and ineffective game rules--teams started to employ players as enforcers to those who get into physical. On a similar note, Jones, Nadeau, and Walsh mentioned that the violence-salary relationship enables the team to create a special class that is composed of players who have different skills among other players. Thus, this class should be in a different category for the purpose of winning at the same time salary differentiation. In reference to that, it clearly informs that salary determination is highly affected to it. As what George Engelhardt stated that fighting, which include “toe-to-toe fist fights, stick-swinging duels, bench-emptying brawls, and wrestling matches,” can be a tactical strategy for any hockey team to effectively win the game. Furthermore, the body size of the player can affect his salary (Idson and Kahane). Study showed that a player can use his large body size during the game in which opponents will focus on him as expected, thus, giving his teammates an advantage to score. On that case, this player is seen to have a high salary. Players who have their own advantage, when it comes to skills and abilities in playing the sport, on the other hand, provide another indicator of having larger salary. It is for the reason that a player who started playing the sport with high skills can obviously start a good phase of his career. Though the high rate of salary will only be shown later, it will still be reflected on the professional player’s career. It is also an additional factor that fans love to see when their hockey stars add physical fights in the game. Certainly, there is a high relationship between winning games in NHL and fighting behavior that players involved themselves to please the fans and the audience. It shows that there is a higher possibility about the existence of violence on this different category of players. It can be best determined that players who manage to be one of the physical and skilled players can also be prone to physical aggression. Physical aggression, also known as a degree of violence, can be one determinant for the salary of a hockey player. As what Leo Kahane mentioned that one of the ways to assess NHL’s player salaries is the connection of team revenues and the mean salaries of the players (629). For this reason, players involved themselves into a fist fight to somehow give their fans an entertainment. Moreover, making fans more interested to hockey games can profit the team, which can lead to a positive impact on the player’s salary. Despite its positive impact, violence in NHL can also promote negative effect or downfall to the society as noted by Jones, Stewart, and Sunderman. Public interventions, in economic terms, can be acceptable if there are already negative social effects to the market behavior. It is seen that any type of violence, whether it NHL or other sports, can be applied in everyday life. Promoting violence in any form can be a tool in dishonoring the law and can generate others to promote violence in any areas. Another negative impact is specifically focused to hockey players who are prone to fighting against spectators causing violence not just in the arena but in the streets. Violence shown during the game can also trigger violence that can go beyond what is on the arena. Violence in the arena, which is seen as negative impact in the society, is believed to be lessened through self regulation, judicial system, and direct control (Jones, Stewart, and Sunderman). In terms of self regulation, it can be easy to apply in different teams, as well as in different countries. However, if there are still incentives given to a team that promotes violence, then self regulation will not work. In addition, when it comes to judicial systems, specifically the court, it is still ineffective when it includes controlling players, as well as teams. It is more effective if the law can charge both players and teams if necessary. The third way that can minimize violence in NHL is the direct control. This way can lessen violence by promoting some variations on the board that can contribute in giving punishment to a team, which has an excessive violence in any sport including hockey. Basing on what Jones, Stewart, and Sunderman stated, it is clearly recognized that when it comes to NHL, violence simply sells. The main reason for that would be the reality that there are financial incentives, which promote violence in the world of hockey league. The measurement of player’s productivity in the team somehow differs from one position to the other since different positions have different functions and importance. Thus, Cebula stated “the overall estimate implies that both player productivity and team revenues positively affect salaries” and even added, “players are paid something in order of their marginal revenue products within the private enterprise system of the NHL.” In relation with economic theory, the system of the market usually gives rewards to labor in reflection with the marginal revenue product. Hence, same goes with NHL regarding its “salary-marginal revenue product” (Cebula). Cebula even notes “in any case, it appears that the NHL clearly provides a good example of salaries being approximations of marginal revenue product in our private enterprise system.” In connection with the compensation of hockey players, fighting gives positive impact because team owners can provide the high salary demand to players by way of fan revenue. In addition, because of the fact that they are hiring and giving high salaries to players who can be considered as enforcers, those who are willing to give fist fights whenever necessary, they create fan revenue and help the players, at the same time, to have a stable salary (Engelhardt). Since hockey is considered to be a physical and rough game, players are required to be aggressive during the game. Coates, Battre, and Deutscher insist that the rules, which limits the scoring and recommendations that lessen violence during the play, affected the fan interest on NHL (47). Thus, it affects the financial status of the game, which is shown in the 2004/2005 season. The decrease of interest from the fans results the players to have a salary cap only on which it relies to the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) (Coates, Battre, and Deutscher 47). As what Paul and Weinbach stated “attendance studies of hockey have mostly focused on the effects of fighting and rule changes.” These new policies that require lessening violence in NHL have been considered as a vital factor, which influence the salary of hockey players. As barbaric as it may sound, fans love to see two players fighting each other or literally brawling and fist fighting during the game. A lot of people claimed to enjoy it because for them it is a form of entertainment. Vincent and Eastman also point out that intangible skills can also impact the player’s wage. It has a positive impact if the player has aggressiveness regarding his defensive performance. One of the impacts that Vincent and Eastman also confirmed is the measurement of reputation. For instance, when a player is considered to be a star player, he can be offered a high salary since it is expected that fans are attracted to him. In addition, creating a fight during the game usually makes the name of the player known to the fans; hence, it adds up to his reputation. There are also other determinants that can impact the hockey player’s salary aside from promoting violence. Cimini and Muhl affirmed that acquiring free agency can also be one of the factors that can impact a hockey player’s salary. In fact, Vincent and Eastman cited that the movement of player when it comes to free agency and trading is one way for him to acquire a higher salary. Moreover, the relationship of mobility and earnings in NHL plays a huge impact to the player’s salaries. Another determinant is when a player decides to leave his former team and move to another team. According to research data, players earn over 30 percent of their salaries when they decided to change team in comparison to other players who have not transferred to other teams (Vincent and Eastman). Regarding labor markets, there are two ways for mobility to occur with players. It could be voluntary or involuntary (Vincent and Eastman). In contrast with employees seeking new jobs or changing other jobs, layoffs, quits, and discharges would be the main reasons of it. Nonetheless, NHL player can move involuntarily later in his career. The professional contract for a hockey player starts when he will be chosen by a team. The contract then will be based on his age, and his compensation basis is capped on the level suggested in CBA. Also, the player will be granted a restricted free agent once his first contract expires. It only means that the player can sign to another team, but he is liable to pay a certain amount to his previous team. Hence, the players move can be considered as involuntary. There are also situations wherein a player performs below a team’s expectation resulting to teams not renewing his contract, or they can even trade a player to another team in order to gain compensation. Later on the player’s career, he will be a free agent and that is the time when a player can sign a contract for another team without any obligation from the previous team (Vincent and Eastman). Another point stated by Cebula that has an impact in the individual salary of NHL player is simply the player’s contract, and how it affects the firm’s pursuance of maximum profits. The contract includes the negotiation between the management of players’ salaries and the NHL player itself (Cebula). In return, the player should be consistent in terms of its productivity level as part of the team. Ideally, this can be related to economic theories regarding relevant insights to “free market decisions and outcomes involving marginal revenue product” (Cebula). Economic terms, such as profit maximization of firms, can be measured from production/cost side of the profit, and can be connected as to how team owners on NHL measure each player’s salaries. The usage of quantifiable information about the performance of each player can be essential in systematically measuring the individual compensation of player in terms of his productivity level, as well as the player’s own specific marginal revenue product (Cebula). This theory can show how the measurement of each player’s productivity helps in identifying the player’s salary. Also, marginal revenue is significant in terms of pay determination. For example, the productivity of marginal revenue is important between one player who plays in a large market with a lot of fans and a player who plays in a smaller market with lesser fans. As a result, since it affects the revenue of the team, the role of productivity also affects NHL salaries (Cebula). In perspective for human capital theory, it shows the relationship of mobility and earnings, which relates to how violence impacted the player’s salary. This means that for every player who plays in each game, the player can acquire general trainings. Each player can even have specific and unique training in every team that he had. In addition, these general trainings can be carried over if the player decides to move to another team. However, all the specific/unique training he had from previous teams will be left behind. Hence, it will affect his current earnings since his wage will be measured from accrued general trainings and specific trainings he had. This only shows that a player who changed teams more than ones can possibly gain less in terms of salary since that player may have many non-transferable human capital (Vincent and Eastman). In comparison to players who played for only one team, the player can have a low productivity resulting to a low salary. As for mobility, timing is very important. Vincent and Eastman proved that literature considers “mobility to be a very important determinant of salaries in the labor market outside of professional sports.” Additionally, teams hiring players from other teams also see the advantage of taking the player into their team. Hence, players who are known to give entertainment to their fans are more likely to be offered high salaries. Fighting during the game is already part of the hockey culture. Fans and even players believe that if you take out fighting in NHL, it will never be considered as hockey in the first place. Violence should go together with the culture of the game and so, creating fights would clearly impact the game itself. Since violence is inevitable during the game, other teams contemplate it in a strategic way. It is seen that violence in hockey is already part of the nature of the game. However, violence in any sports league has been enforcement on how NHL’s rules have been applied. The application of economic theories regarding violence in NHL can be related to the economic theory of crime posits (Heckelman and Yates). This theory shows that each criminal who commits the crime consider two things: costs and benefits. In relation to a hockey game, costs and benefits can be considered as penalties and infractions. The cost is the penalty, which can result to the opponent team to be given a period of time that can lead them to have an edge to score. Benefits, on the other hand, are seen as infractions. In hockey, the benefit of having infractions is that the opposing team will have less chance in scoring. Heckelman and Yates even stated that one of the ways to generate benefit on this manner is by being aggressive and somehow shows violence in the game. Todd Jewell even cited that violence in hockey is one of the ways that the team can use to maximize its profit. Fans’ main reason to watch a game of hockey is merely to enjoy the entertainment it brings, which include the violent hits, crashing players into the boards, and even the fights that usually break out (Jewell). In addition, he points out that usually the team, which applies a more physical style in a game, would likely have successful winning games. Hence, it showed a balance between the demand of fans to have physical fights in the scene and the winning game that a team can have. Moreover, other studies proved that enhancing violence in the hockey game can also enhance the demand and revenues of the team, thus, affecting the player’s salary (Jewell). Davidson and Steinbreder implied that it is not a usual hockey game if people will not see the benches empty and without even seeing the players wrestle against the other team and throwing punches during the game. However, rules are already being implemented today in NHL regarding brawling and fist-fightings. NHL and other leagues proposed stricter rules that can lessen the fighting during the game (Davidson and Steinbreder). Though, there are still professional leagues that allow fighting but not without giving the player a penalty. There are also other people who really want to eliminate the fighting but completely banning the fights is impossible in NHL (Davidson and Steinbreder). Further, in an actual hockey game, fighting refers to a term ‘fisticuffs’ (Davidson and Steinbreder). Fighting, along with slashing and high sticking, is already included to the strict rule in which a player can incur penalty once one of the three will be done during the game. In contrast, hockey violence as stated by Jones, Stewart, and Sunderman is acceptable. In NHL, violence has three different definitions: penalty minutes, fighting majors, and different styles of play (Jones, Stewart, and Sunderman). Penalty minutes include its total form, misconducts and, major or minor degree of violence. Like for example, both home and visiting teams encompass penalty minutes as essential for U.S. results. On the other hand, extreme forms of violence are more valuable for the home team when it comes to Canadian result. Hence, we can clearly identify that it is marginally stronger for the U.S. to consider NHL as a blood sport (Jones, Stewart, and Sunderman). Further, it is still the same comparison when it comes to fighting majors as one of the definitions of violence. Between the U.S. and Canada, “fights” have their own significant and positive attributes to home and visiting teams. In Canada, they are more into visiting teams who fight than fighting by home teams. In the U.S., on the other hand, fight is seen to be positive and essential for both visiting, as well as home teams. In relation, same goes with the third definition of violence as seen by Jones, Stewart and Sunderman--the style variables. There are three styles of play: games between fighting teams, games between fighting-skating teams, and games between skating teams. In the U.S., they don’t give much value to games between skating teams and prefer games between fighting teams and games between fighting-skating teams. Conversely, Canadian games prefer those between skating-fighting teams than games between fighting teams. Hence, this hockey violence is seen to be the major influential factor when it comes to the attendance of NHL. It is more obvious that in the U.S, in terms of economic hypothesis, promoting violence during NHL has a positive impact (Jones, Stewart, and Sunderman). Simultaneously, Haisken-DeNew and Vorell claimed “violence and foul play are simply a fact of life in the National Hockey League, reflecting very much strategic considerations as opposed merely “venting off steam”” (13). In determining wages for every professional hockey player, skills for goal scoring are not the only determinant but also the fighting ability. This is also recognized as the indicator for the success of the team. Based on statements above, players who can protect their center players have premium wage. On this sense, players who protect their center players should be aggressive and fight the other opposing players just to protect the star player. It can be understood that they are being paid to fight. They are given high salaries to give valuable services by protecting the team’s star player and by harassing the opponent, which the team can benefit. Given this monetary incentive to hockey players, it can never be avoided that using violence during the game will be strategically used in winning. Though, using such violence may lead the team to victory and may have positive impact to the hockey player’s salaries, there are still downfalls when using violence in NHL. Haisken-DeNew and Vorell provide an example on what happened to one of the hockey players who brutally used violence during NHL (14). The first hockey player who was charged for criminal charges set the downfall in using violence. He was even convicted because of it. In conclusion, taking the point of Haisken-DeNew and Vorell, giving incentives and providing players with a high salary because of using violence should be changed so that it can reduce fighting in the hockey game (14). Hence, players should not be given high salaries and even other monetary incentives for them to create violence during the game. It can also be beneficial for players’ career not to use violence so that they can have more years in playing such sport and can avoid injuries that will cause an end to their career. Moreover, the main benefit of not promoting violence through increasing salaries of players in NHL would be the quality of play that they can offer to the audience. It will automatically regain the name of the sport since the team will not only pay for hockey players to provide fighting skills, but instead pay their goal-scoring skills. Works Cited Cebula, Richard J. “Teaching How Private Enterprise Works Using Professional Sports: A Brief Note on the Case of Individual NHL Player’s Salaries.” Journal of Private Enterprise 24.2 (2009). Print. Cimini, Michael H., and Charles J. Muhl. “Pact Ends NHL Lockout.” Monthly Labor Review 118.4 (1995). Print. Coates, Dennis, Marcel Battre, and Christian Deutscher. “Does Violence in Professional Ice Hockey Pay? 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