Is the IRL increasing NHL Salary Cap an Illusion?

[nino33]

There certainly have been many posters asking about why the Salary Cap doesn't increase in EHM:EA!
And I recall with EHM07 there were a significant number of posters asking about how to increase the Cap in EHM07 too...
And I've seen responses (including from Riz) that note the complexity of modeling economics, and "not likely/not soon/maybe someday"

In thinking about these issues and looking into things lately, I found that it seems the IRL NHL Salary Cap isn't really going up every year because of revenues (it's often the players using the "increase the Cap by 5%" escalator clause that's in the CBA).....and based on the escrow that the players have paid back, the Cap kinda hasn't actually/in the end been rising recently (the escrow means part of the players salary is held back until the year end when revenues are calculated, and the player doesn't get the money unless revenues were "as expected" when year end calculations are done).


This year the players again triggered the 5% increase, and the Cap rose from $69 million to 71.4 million. http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/nhl- ... -at-71-4m/
What I think is interesting is a 5% increase from $69 million should have been a $72.45 million Salary Cap...seems the Cap would have gone down if the players hadn't triggered the increase...and the NHLPA said earlier this year "the value of player contracts is, and has remained, less than the full face value of their contracts over the last few seasons"


Apparently the players paid back 12% of their salary in 2013-14 http://thehockeywriters.com/nhl-escrow-tricky-dynamic/
When the 12% salary reduction is factored in...was there really a Salary Cap increase?

For 2014-15 the escrow started at 14% and by midseason was bumped up to 16% (I couldn't find any final figures available yet)

[nino33]

There certainly have been many posters asking about why the Salary Cap doesn't increase in EHM.....I've seen responses (including from Riz) that note the complexity of modeling economics, and "not likely/not soon/maybe someday"

I found and thought I'd share what Riz said (on the SI Boards on April 30th) http://community.sigames.com/showthread ... st10300981

"Even FM doesn't try to model inflation, so I don't think that will implemented any time soon. For a fully dynamic cap for example, you would need a very detailed financial model not just for all the clubs in a league but the league as a company itself. Not to mention a global economic model to correctly simulate the effects from the financials of other leagues and markets.

So yes, sometimes a balance must be found between gameplay and realism, especially when a fully realistic model would require so much resources to develop that it would hinder other gameplay development. In the end, it is a computer game, not an attempt to scientifically model something 100% realistically compared to real life."

[Andrew55]

yeah i agree, that kind of financial model seems hard to implement. A dynamic salary cap isn't even necessary, i don't know any game (EA series like NHL, FIFA, nor NBA 2k, Football Manager) which has dynamic economy, there's more important things to fix first.