Chapter 14 Imperfectly Competitive Markets for Factors of Production Start Up: Hockey Players Frozen Out On October 30, 2004, Columbus Blue Jackets’ center Todd Marchant would ordinarily have been getting ready to open the 2004–2005 National Hockey League (NHL) season before a packed house in a game against the Dallas Stars in Dallas Instead, he was home and devoting his season to coaching his six-year-old daughter’s hockey team Mr Marchant was home because the Commissioner of the NHL, Gary Bettman, had ordered players locked out on September 15, when training camp was scheduled to begin and when the contract between the NHL and the Players Association expired Mr Bettman had warned for five years that he would take the drastic action of shutting down the hockey season unless owners and players could agree on a system to limit player salaries In the NHL, player salaries amounted to 75% of team revenues By contrast, player salaries represented 64% of team revenues in the National Football League and 59% of revenues in the American Basketball Association Mr Bettman contended that the league’s 30 franchises had lost a combined $500 million in the previous two years Players and owners alike had a great deal of money at stake The NHL was selling 90% of its seats available during the regular season and generating $2.1 billion per year in revenues “No one likes losing money, but this year everyone involved in hockey may be losing something,” Mr Marchant Attributed to Libby Rittenberg and Timothy Tregarthen Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books/ Saylor.org 734