If Zherdev works out well, the team wins more games, sells more seats, and make the playoffs, doesn’t the increased revenue from regular season ticket sales and possibly playoff ticket sales offset the loss of revenue sharing dollars?

Yes, Zherdev is a risk; but, I’d rather take a Zherdev type risk than the usual 35 year old over the hill greybeard risk like Rucchin or Klee.

I’d like to see the Thrashers give Zherdev a shot. Zherdev wants to come here and that’s a far cry from last season when Dan Boyle waived his no trade clause to avoid coming to Atlanta on waivers. To me, the Thrashers should take advantage of the turning tide otherwise the Thrasher ship may still be stuck in port as it has for 10 years.

The owners are kind of delusional in my opinion, so I’m not sure we should hold our breath here. Their attitude all along has been one of “Buy season tickets and give us sell outs and then we’ll improve the team. We’re not putting money into the team until we are sure the fans will support us as it would be stupid to pay more out of our pockets and not get any additional income.” And many fans have rightly said “Until you show a commitment to improve the team, you won’t have sell outs.” Those attitudes are diametrically opposed to each other with each side insisting that the other is wrong and neither side willing to take a chance that the other guy might be right. Actually the fans are right in this one. Unlike DungeonK, I’d rather have Antropov, but having both would be nice.

I keep checking the news because I truly expect the Thrashers to sign Zherdev any day now.

Zherdev gives the Thrashers the one thing they have been dying to get for years now, a second option at RW, and scoring depth across the top two lines. Zherdev allows Little to move back to C (if he and the staff think that he can be as productive at C as he was at RW). Zherdev adds depth and replacement value at LW if/when Kozlov steps down at the end of the season (assuming Zherdev would stay after one year.) He adds a stickhandling and passing threat that this current simply does not have.

Mostly, he helps this team take yet another step towards the playoffs.

Screw the revenue sharing money. Spending a little more $$ and putting the best team possible on the ice will increase attendance, better the chances of making the playoffs (free money!), increase ticket sales down the road, make this team a more attractive free agent destination… the list goes on and on. All of the positives that come from being a better team are part of the road to better financial success for the owners.

being miserly and hoping for a handout from the league is pathetic. The owners shouldn’t settle for charity when they have the power to generate profits on their own.

bogosian cant be the only one with bonus incentives in his contract and if your already that close to the mid-point you better be prepared to go over.

Gotta love opportunity costs…

If Pfloyds numbers above are correct, what is the math for the Thrashers losing revenue sharing? If we’re just talking about $10M vs a playoff run, it’s not even worth doing the math.

The Braves suck, the Falcons play once a week and UGA is going to be pretty average this year. If there was a year for the Thrashers to start filling up a bandwagon with fans, this would be it.

If you use ridiculously conservative numbers, and assume a $50 average ticket price, and maybe $25 per person for food, drinks, and merchandise, then revenue per playoff game is about $1.35 million. Worst case (or best case), that’s two home games, so about $2.7M. Obviously, some of the costs would have to come out of that, but not player salaries. So, using the standard that salaries are roughly 60% of revenues (see cba), and assume a slim margin on the remaining 40%:

Thrashers clear somewhere around $1.6M for two playoff games. If you get to the second round, you can probably double that amount (higher ticket prices, more swag, more beer drinking), and at a two-game minimun, add another $3.2M.

So, somewhere near $5M for sweeping two rounds of playoff games.

I just did mostly the same math on the value to the franchise of playoff games. Z makes is MUCH more likely that the Thrashers pick up a couple million in playoff revenue.

That said, the cheaper way to do that is by picking up a rent-a-player for the playoff run.

I believe rental players are truly dangerous for a team trying to make the playoffs. A rental player is extremely costly, and worth the payoff only if the rented player is the final piece that you think you need to win the Cup, not make the playoffs.

Let’s do a quick analysis, using really broad assumptions. Bear with me.

First, let’s assign some relative score for winning a playoff round and winning the Cup. Just for the sake of simplicity, I’ll go with the revenue numbers above: Call it $800k per first round playoff game, $1.6M for second round, $3.5M for conference finals, and $8M for Cup games. And, if your team wins the Cup, we’ll bonus you $10M for merchandising, future ticket revenue, etc. We’ll assign an average 3 home games per round. Sound reasonable?

Next, we’ll have to assign some dollars to players. Let’s call a full-season ufa Z, and assign a $4M salary. Then we’ll call a rental R, and assign the same salary, but for 20 games, or $1M. Without Z, an alternative must play. We’ll give him a $1M salary over 60 games, or $750k. Then, we’ll assign three players given up for a rental, and call them A, B, and C. A is next year’s top draft pick, we’ll give him an average of $3M per year for 3 years (he’ll rack up some nice bonuses). The other two we’ll say are top prospects, $1M for 3. Total cost, $15M for three years.

If you give up these three players, you have to replace them. You have two choices, either replace them with cheaper alternatives who won’t be as productive, or with similar productivity that you have to buy outside of your system. So, let’s hold productivity the same, but attribute a 25% premium for buying them. Total cost, $18.75M for three years. See where this is going?

Okay, not signing Z and getting a rental saves you $2.25M in salary, but costs $3.75M in additional, replacement salary over the next three years. So, you’re losing $1.5M. This is without any additional costs like lower revenue during the first year, etc.

If the rental player allows you to make the playoffs and lose in the first round (cough-Rangers), then the total payoff for renting is about $900k. If he helps you go from 1st round to 2nd round, payoff is also $900k.

If he can make the difference between 2nd and 3rd round, then the payoff jumps to $4.2M.

If he can get you to the cup, its a $12M payoff, and $22M if you win.

That’s a lot of envelope math (and a boatload of assumptions that can be easily argued out) but it’s at least an illustration of what renting can cost you. If the team is solid enough to be a 2nd-round playoff team, and the rental upgrade over current players/depth is enought to push you to the 3rd round or finals, then by all means, rent away. Otherwise, It’s a sucker’s game, and the suckers are usually the fans.