High price of mediocrity. Nothing is worse than overpaying a middling (or declining) player except giving them extended term. That’s what the whole Florida/ Calgary trade was about. Chicago has run into this. Getting out from under it is a multi year effort
This is why you're the best. An amazing video that explains the whole situation and calms people down. I hope every hockey fan sees this video. You told it like it is and it showed it wasn't all that bad, in fact, it was pretty good.
I agree, Shannon has an ability to explain complicated topics, in a "dumbed" down way that is not patronizing and insulting. Kinda like the franchise "for Dummies" i have a few of these books and there in no way insulting you, infact very helpful. This is a talent. He would make a very good foreman or boss, or even a teacher/proffessor. Underrated comment.
Shannon breaks it down in a way that an average person can easily understand. My retired mom watches a lot of hockey but she is still a casual fan, who is not into analytics and other more hard core details/stats, and she gets a lot of Shannon's videos. He's easy to listen to and avoids making these just about his personal opinions which helps.
The Worst Contract on Each NHL Team - Jeff Skinner for the Sabers, Lucic for the Flames, Jamie Benn for the Stars, Tavares for the Leafs, T.J Oshie for the Caps, Matt Murray for the Sens, Bobrovsky for the Panthers, Elvis for the Jackets (yeah I know he's a good guy off the ice, but he's NOT woth that money ON the ice), I guess Doughty for the Kings since he's no longer worth THAT much, ditto for the Sharks and Karlsson, Tartar for the Devils... Hell, the Flyers have THREE I could name - JVR, Rasmus Ristolainen and Kevin Hayes, ouch.
The only issue I have with the salary cap is local taxation. Clubs with a high local tax rate have to compete with teams that are not taxed. It’s easier to get players to sign lower salary terms if they are not paying tax because they keep their principal. Then the Canadian teams have to sign at a higher salary so players can get their wage. The local tax should be added to the salary cap, so a team that pays no tax gets the base salary cap and the teams that pay a 20%/40% income tax should have that added to their salary cap, in other words they should only show take home money against the cap.
It's state tax (or Provincial tax in Canada) - everyone pays a Federal tax. Ergo... while I completely agree with the concept it's not quite as dramatic as your example.
For some teams it's not their desire to lose, it's just common sense. Team can be completely screwed by prior mismanagement and locked into the position where it's impossible to win. So, for them it would make sense to not spend to the cap and just do rebuilding steps.
Each of the four major sports pay about half the revenue to the players in the NBA players get paid but it also has by far the fewest roster spots most pro basketball players will not make the NBA, MLB is very top heavy with the top 20% of the players getting most of the money about a third making the league average with most of the rest making the league minim or a little more, in the NFL the starters get paid but the rosters are so big half the team is backups and specialty players who make the minimum of 660,000 to about 1.1 million so the NHL probably has the best balance.
I am very skeptical that MLB pays half of revenue to the players. They don't release a great deal of financial information because of the antitrust exemption.
In fact, you could almost call the NHL the most "socialist" of the leagues. Top salaries today are hardly any higher than top salaries 20 years ago, while down the roster, salaries have increased substantially over that same time frame!
@@dpause10 More like egalitarian regarding player salaries. The owners still own the teams and everything associated with them, and there's not really a REdistribution so much as the future distribution (as of 2005) changed dramatically. The closest (and still a far cry) pro sports franchise in the U.S. to anything socialist is Green Bay, but that is limited social democracy at most.
@@closethockeyfan5284 50% is pretty much the standard and MLB has the strongest player union in pro sports so I think it's a safe assumption to make lol
@@kiroolioneaver8532 I don't know, how does one measure union strength? With how they got taken to task in multiple recent CBAs and the clear divide between leadership and rank-and-file voting, I think the MLBPA has weaknesses owners have exploited, including with carefully orchestrated language that leaves them cut out of the biggest money-making initiatives built around the games. NFLPA I'd likely rank lower; NBA I don't follow enough but hear the PA does well; and NHLPA is a mixed bag. Anyway, we don't have the actual figures because of the antitrust exemption, so I think it is difficult to say they for sure make half, especially with no salary floor and a de facto cap now in place. There is nothing in the CBA that ties payroll to revenues.
What's holding the salary cap down is a group of NHL owners who knew their GMs, if left to their own devices, would gladly get into a bidding war over any player, superstar or grinder, and bankrupt the entire league. Oh, I'm Chris Drury in Manhattan and I'm allowed to pay Tyler Motte $8 million a year so no one else can have him and I can just hoard players and keep them from other teams? Sure. Why not? Obviously, that means Connor McDavid is worth about $8 million per, but that's not really my problem. My job is to build the best team possible in the Big Apple. I don't care what other teams can and can't do. That's why the salary cap exists. Players aren't going to reject a huge contract, so between the NHLPA and the Owners, if there's no reasonable salary cap, both sides would put the league out of business. GMs want a competitive team, and players, like everyone else, are going to try to get as big a salary as possible.
This patially true, Big market teams like New York and Toronto could afford to blow a hundred million plus and hoard players. But you're not going to bankrupt the leauge by doing that. Each team has an owner and board of directors that is responsible for keeping the franchise financially soluble. If there was no salary cap, Brian Armstrong couldn't just blow 100 Million on Arizona's roster to build a contender. He would get fired. No salary cap would just mean every team has there own individual salary cap based on revenue.
I counted 25 teams that are definitely wanting to win - or at least 25 that aren't actively rebuilding. VGK, TB, WSH, EDM, FLA, VAN, CAR, PHI, BOS, TOR, PIT, NJ, SJ, CBJ, STL, NYR, LA, CGY, NYI, NSH, COL, MIN, WPG, OTT, DET, and DAL. Obviously not all those teams are contending but there are some on the uptick like DET and OTT or teams like SJ and PHI who are still trying to compete with mediocre rosters.
Sitting with cap space heading into September is not a bad move, as you have leverage over available free agents and over teams sitting above the cap looking to unload contracts. Some smart teams could come out way ahead by having cap space heading into the new season.
Can you do a video on the Gold plan for replacing the draft lottery? That would sure squash the argument that teams are incentivized to lose. As a Sabres fan, for 10 years I've been looking at wins in March and April as a double edged sword - meaningless victory and hurting the franchise in the future. But the Gold plan would eliminate that. All late season games would be meaningful for every team! Would love to hear what you think about it.
Not wanting to quote Brian Burke (who said NHL fans are too stupid to understand three point victories) but ... I think it's too confusing to incorporate this plan.
You can't look at a single covid season's losses in a vacuum and say that owners could've greedily shut it down. Keeping a connection between a sport and fans is a marathon so it could absolutely be the greedy decision to play a season out because cancelling that season would cost the owners so much more in the long run.
That was my first thought too, but its hard to tell, as most of the other seasons that got cancelled are way too long ago and not really comparable to modern seasons in terms of finances. It could definitively be a long term decision, but at the time the decision was made, there was still a lot of uncertainty about what the next years are gonna look like. There was no guarantee that its just the one season and everything after that will go back to normal, so i definitively think that this decision wasnt made out of pure greed and long term strategical thinking.
There is definitely a difference between owners trying to lose and owners trying to keep costs down, but the one thing I’ve always hated and never understood is when owners attempt to cry poor… I will never think the players make too much money no matter what the revenue split in the CBA is (50/50 is more than fair) and I will never feel sympathy for the owners when it comes to expenses -- if you can’t afford to own a team, then maybe you shouldn’t own one.
Finaces!!!Finances!!!! I have been waiting for months for this. Lol. Keep up the great work. Need to know about everything to understand things better.
I'd be more curious of the when the reduction of salary via escrow still exists. Escrow is not as talked about as much with no movement of a salary cap. So with stagnant cap space that thought would be expanded, owners are skimming another 10% off the player salary back to themselves and still counting against the cap.
I think a too sudden raise in the cap would make things much more difficult and less structured. All that would do is shuffle up the whole market and help out teams who are struggling with bad long term contracts they signed. Who would sign a long term contract when the cap will go up by 10 million in just a couple years? How would adversity be limited by that? Its very clear that good teams cant keep the band together forever and will eventually have to make compromises and downgrade at some positions, what i think is good as is. Would that mean FA prices just going into insanity when its clear the cap will rise by much? Yes.
Some of those contracts were signed with the expectation that the cap would go up though. In a way, they were a victim of circumstances. I feel like with the cap not going up as expected, contracts signed within a certain period should have had the ability to make restructurings to them if the player consents rather than just screw teams over.
@@Katie-hb8iq I don´t think this will work. It would incentivise gambling on the cap to go up and signing bigger contracts, knowing you can just restructure the payment later, should your gamble not pay off. The teams that signed these contracts gained an advantage when they aquired the player that other teams then couldnt afford, so now that the gamble doesn´t pay off, they should also be the ones who are in a disadvantage.
The owners may ‘get’ 50% of revenues, but that’s not 50% going into their pockets. They still have a TON of non-player expenses to pay for, and chartered jets and fancy hotels for 44 away games (41 reg season + 3 preseason) ain’t cheap. And there’s millions more in salary expense for the coaches, GM, scouts, and all the non-hockey ops people too. If Forbes is anything to go by, the highest paid player on 2/3 or the league’s teams is actually making more money than the team’s owner. Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Vancouver, Boston, and New York (Rangers) are obvious exceptions to that, but most teams are not making a ton of money even if we’re using prepaneemic numbers.
They own the team to make money bruh. What do you expect lol. And stop bringing up the value of a team. The value doesn’t mean shit until they actually sell the team. A team could be worth 10 billion and it doesn’t mean a thing until you actually sell it. It’s just a number.
@@DigBickLick - Team values for sports franchises are determined by assessing the monetary worth of the league itself and what share the team receives, the size of the specific team market, it's arena(s) and other properties and their concerning deals, and the revenues from merchandising their brand. Then they factor in financial metrics like debt and operating income and so forth to derive an accurate appraisal value for the team. Why do you think Arizona is valued at $0.4 billion and the Rangers at $2 billion? Answer: Arizona has 1/2 of the NHL revenue share, 1/9th of the market share, 1/10th of the arena revenue and 1/10th of the merchandising revenue that the Rangers have. The values of the teams are metrics directly tied to how well they are doing so yes the value of a team does mean something outside of just selling it.
Of course the owners have expenses. But the players are still underpayed in contrast to the value they create. They would be much higher without the cap.
Hi Shannon! A video request: This Fall marks the 50th anniversary of the WHA starting up. How the WHA shaped and influenced the NHL and professional hockey in North America. Love these videos! Keep up the great work. 😀
The main issue I have with the cap is it is based on gross salary paid/received. When in reality it should be based on salaries after taxes. A player in certain states/provinces will make significantly more after taxes then other states/provinces and this really is unfair. How can teams compete financially when they have to pay a player double what other teams do for the player to make the same money after taxes? It’s like low tax states/provinces have an extra 25% of cap space.
Great video Shannon. I think sometimes people forget that the NHL is a business and a business is meant to make money. I think it's smart on the owners to carry what they could over the pandemic in order to keep the NHL active and in front of the fans, even if they ended up in the negative.
If I was a player in the league I’d be asking why the league insists on keeping a team in Arizona that has NEVER turned a profit. The team is costing the leagues overall revenues. You move that team into literally any other location it should start turning a profit
AZ Coyotes and VGK exist to maintain awareness and appreciation for ice hockey in the SW desert region and make the NHL a more complete North American sport. With 32 teams in the NHL, having 2 or 3 teams in all of the NHL that lag behind financially, is no sweat, no detriment.
@@Gogalen789 VGK are making a profit for sure. High attendance all the time due to the fact that if the VGK suck, the tourists will still buy tickets to see games. Tickets are #1 revenue source for the teams. People go to Vegas for entertainment, hockey is another venue near the strip. Also lots of merch sales.
NHL cap works very differently than the other 2 leagues with cap. NBA has a cap that's highly flexible so teams can pay over the cap as long as they are also willing to pay for luxury tax which benefits players more than owners but it will also create a huge gap between small and big market teams. NFL has the same cap as NHL but however the salaries are not always guaranteed which teams can offer a player for 100M but without guaranteed money that they can just cut him without ever paying for the player again.
I wish we would have gotten an amnesty buyout where each team could buyout 1 contract penalty free. I know it was discussed and shot down by both owners and player union, but I think it would have helped
The Bruins ownership rated Ray Bourque across the coals when it was time to pay him to keep him in the early mid 90's. Ray Frighing Bourque. I recall a big girder on the New Garden during construction had a Huge PAY RAY on it. So yes green has been around for ages
I dunno, the NHL still needs gate for revenues when COVID shutdown the lge and then made it difficult to put fannies in the seats then tons of revenue was lost. An entire playoff season was played in '' bubbles'' in Edmonton and Toronto. No fans, no gate from playoffs either.
Basically every player from the lost season is gone now. I feel like players have way less reason to be upset compared to the past. Even the player who makes the least amount of money makes a lot of money. I’m not surprised there’s in general less anger between players and owners.
Regarding the 2020 playoffs, the league was about to enter a new TV deal and they needed the boost. There weren't a lot of sports being played at the time, and there weren't as many regular out-of-home entertainment options. I don't think the NHL had the playoffs that year out of benevolence to the players and the fans, it was also an investment to secure a monster TV contract between ESPN and TBS.
The greed come at both ends. Players and owners. I agreed the league did the right thing not tanking the cap for the bad years and a slow increase is a fair compromise. I can just imagine how bad it would have been if the league dropped the cap to 65million jeeze.....
It also deserves an asterisk. There's significant speculation that Carey Price won't play again but at the earliest he's expected to be out until November 5th. His $10.5M cap hit is part of the listed cap, so that offsets a lot of their cap space. In addition, teams that are rebuilding properly (read: not my Sharks) weaponize their cap space and take on bad contracts in exchange for picks/prospects. The Habs realized the Price situation, so they took on Monahan's $6.375M cap hit in exchange for a future first (I won't go into the conditions because there are a lot of them, but at the end of the day it'll be at least a first). While they're nowhere near the top part of the list, the Coyotes are doing a great job weaponizing their cap space. They took on Nemeth for a second and either a third or a future second, took on Kassian to move up a few slots in the first and picked up a future second and third with it, took on Stralman for a second rounder, took on a short time with Roussel, Beagle, and Eriksson in exchange for a long time with most of OEL's deal and they were rewarded with a 1st, 2nd, and 7th, etc.
Im not sure Id say "trying to lose", but have you not seen what Chuck Fletcher is doing in Philly? He created this cap hell - Risto at 5.1M, Deslauriers at 1.75M, buying out Lindblom. And thats just this years bad moves. And then said his job is "too hard" referring to trading the JVR contract. After all that, I cant say theyre trying to win, either.
Raising the salary cap can hurt teams that are losing money and in small markets as the salary cap floor would also rise as well. I think the salary cap floor should be lowered at least by 10-20 million.
A five year rolling average is fine, steady increase is better, as the game grows. The cap is a great equalizer. as the cap increases more players should have a higher minimum salary, those third and fourth lines do not make enough-- it is a team game, expand the roster, Increase the minimum.
Hear me out though.... They are having the Coyotes play in a 5000 seat arena for 3 years, which will depress Hockey Related Revenue significantly. Since the players get 50% of HRR, the players are also subsidizing the Coyotes temporary ASU scheme via reduced income while they try to secure a Tempe arena.
It is laughable that Bet-man fought for the Coyotes survival endlessly, but let Quebec go so easily. The fact that Arizona is ready to build a third arena, for them has something to do with that fact
If there was greed over the last couple years, it was the players deciding that they weren't going to have their salaries reduced in line with the reduction in games played. If they had done that, the salary cap would be going up this year. They chose to get their money up front as opposed to delaying it. I don't besmirch them that decision, it was right for them, but they can't then turn around and accuse the owners of keeping the cap down.
I would like if the NHL was flexible enough to get creative. Like the MLS with (correct me on the technicality) one player that doesnt register on your cap that you consider your franchise guy. Not an exact copy of that model but something that could work for the NHL.
The salary cap doesn't incentivize losing. It is a form of socializing costs/revenues in pursuit if competitiveness. In Major League Baseball where there is no cap and revenues are more unbalanced, a small market team has to save money for a long period of time (unless they figure out another Moneyball hack) because the Yankees and Dodgers are paying one player almost as much as small market team salaries. Max Sherzer of the Mets has the same salary as the entire Baltimore Orioles team in 2022. The luxury tax also pays money to low salary teams. I've thought that if I was KC, PIT, or other small market team, I'd run a low salary for a decade, build some young stars, sign them for as long as I could afford and try for a few years of competitiveness. Florida/Miami (was small market because of low attendance) did this twice already, tearing down the team to low salary and then "buying" a World Series. The NHL doesn't have teams far below the cap and several NJ, CLB, SEA with low playoff odds almost at the cap. Teams can't buy a Cup, and cap trouble makes it difficult to poach talent. Like the NFL, things you can spend a lot of money on, like coaches, scouts and GMs matter much more.
i think there are several systemic problems which covid only exacerbated. just because the cap goes up 1m or 10m doesnt direct how teams will spend that money. who says the next stars wont make 15m a year? the nhlpa always tries to make the top players earn the most money they can to pace the market. what happens is then the middle class ends up with 1m a year contracts..
I think the NHL and NHLPA need to come to an agreement during the season to extend the 'lose sharing agreement' by a season or 2 more and allow the cap to go up with more stability over the next few seasons. Instead of going 82-83-84-94. And teams go stupid when the big jump happens.
feel that the Islanders are a darkhorse "tank" team. no more Trotz, no real additions, & they got a year older... outside of Barzal, Dobson & Sorokin, there isn't a whole lot of young real difference makers...
You could argue that short term greed holds the NHL back in other ways (because as a Bruins fan it's my civic duty to be skeptical of anything Jacobs does) but this current cap situation is not the result of greed, it's being responsible. Honestly Bettman's handling of this whole fluctuating revenue situation might be the best thing he did for hockey. It could have very easily been so much worse for everyone.
Arizona, Chicago and Detroit are teams that don't seem very interested in winning,. They might not specifically be trying to lose but they don't seem to care if they win or not.
The cap is Bettmans’s way of keeping Canadian teams down. They’re punished by taxation, even though the league is based in two separate countries. A true cap would have a ‘net of tax’ ceiling, to allow for different tax rates and give Canadian teams the ability to compete.
There are a few states that have a net higher tax than the lower-taxed provinces, but people just think the US has lower tax, it is not true, universally.
Not sure how the cap incentivizes losing... will need that one explained to me. The salary cap incentives you to not make stupid deals. If you feel incentivized to lose, good luck keeping your fan base.
Personally for me the NHL fairest balance between owners & players of the big 4. In the MLB you aren't earning until you've been in the league 5 years & some of the teams are running on the most miniscule payroll & look like they are never trying to win. The NFL is the league where the top stars get paid but that it & if an injury happens tough owners can't spend that money on other replacement players + most are unguaranteed contracts & the NBA has the entire league run by 4 or 5 superstar players & if you don't have at least 2 of the top 25 players then you are essentially trying to lose from the start of the season.
There are teams that aren't trying too hard. Teams know how good they really are and I think some have made the decision that they can spend money and miss the playoffs by a few spots or they cannot and have a better shot at a top 5 pick. It has gotten worse the last few years too. They're thinking is why try to shoot for 10th in the conference when I can be 13th or lower. Missing the playoffs is missing the playoffs. Makes me wonder if the NHL starts thinking about expanding the playoffs. If you're outlook is mid-tier do you then spend a bit and try to get there? If there is some sort of a qualifying round or whatever, would that make teams not sit back? I dunno.
The league still gets a major chunk of their revenue from gate sales. They don't get anywhere near the television/streaming money that the the Big 3 get. Until that happens, there will only be small increases to the cap each season.
I don't think the argument that they lost more money playing than just cancelling is very strong for players or owners. Playing no games for that year may have cost them less FOR THAT YEAR but the down stream affects would have been much worse. Deals with networks (current and future), loss of brand recognition and publicity, and player development degradation would all contribute to losses in the future. Most of these owners are billionaires and while that comes with a number of negative traits being short sighted isn't likely one of them. Players would be motivated slightly differently but I'm sure we're also capable of seeing the bigger picture.
I think teams should be able to use their situation to their most beneficial in all things, why is it ok for some teams that are in nice locations with favorable tax laws fine, but successful teams can't spend more than less successful teams? It just seems that while trying to create fairness, all they have done is anything but fair. If anything, they should add a luxury tax.
THE ISSUE no one is talking about is the NHL was ahead of other leagues only ten years or so the NHL had a chance to get ahead with marketing like the NBA and NFL what they could have done was things like the big three ( NBA NFL and MLB ) they switched to non-gate revenue as at a higher %) like deals with networks, too bad the NHL dragged there feet on those things with dreadful marceting and will probably never catch up to those other leagues.
Is there a reason that teams and players don't negotiate the contracts as a percentage of salary cap instead of fixed dollar amounts? It seems like this would make sense but maybe I'm looking at it wrong. Like say Sidney Crosby makes 10.5% of the 82.5m cap and the rest of the team salary structure then has 89.5% of the remaining cap to divvy up? There is probably a reason this isn't done, but if you included some mandatory minimum salary regardless of percentage it could safeguard from lockouts or whatever. Thoughts?
The fairness of the amount players are paid is always debatable. Ovechkin and Crosby will draw fans all over and they are underpaid because of the cap. It probally hurts their team overall. I would like to see a pool created that allows teams stars to get paid what they are worth wihout having to become a free agent to get paid. The fans in Pittsburg and Washington have got to see ovie and sid for their entire careers. Yet the teams have been in cap hell because of it.
As a Leafs fan with permanent rage blinders on, I thought the Leafs were basically the only team over the cap with all the constant talk about them being over and their spending and their many high-paid players and blah blah
I will say that the salary cap numbers listed should have an asterisk. Capfriendly/Puckpedia both include players on LTIR/IR as part of the salary cap numbers during the offseason but don't list them as part of the "number of players" on the roster at the same time. For instance, you list Columbus in the "within $2M of the cap ceiling" category but that's with 26 players being counted towards their cap numbers (14F/8D/2G + 2x IR). However, there can be a maximum of 23 players on an active NHL roster, so 3 players either have to be sent down to the minors, put on IR, or traded. They're listed as being $416,667 in cap space, but even if we assume they send down their 3 cheapest players, that would free up an additional $2,262,500 in cap space. For teams that are under the cap it's a minor nitpick, but for teams above the cap nearly all of them are in a position where they won't have to do weird maneuvers or dump cap in a trade to get compliant. They have players that will legitimately be on LTIR, or players that will be sent down to get them under the cap. For instance, the Bruins are listed as $2,241,667 over the cap, but that's including Marchand's $6.125M cap hit and McAvoy's $9.5M cap hit when both are expected to be out until at least December 1st as well as Grzelcyk's $3,687,500 cap hit when he's expecting to be out until at least November 1st.
Tax and location matter. Really makes zero sense to have a salary cap when players will just take a cut in pay to play in the US for certain states. This is just bad business practice.
Its hilarious how not even 1 NHL star makes $20 million a year. Its a joke how underpaid they are compared to the NBA, NFL and MLB. Teams who want to to win should be allowed to spend what they want and grow their brand. I think expanding and bringing new owners who want to spend on star players.
Remember when we were worried about mumps? COVID was crazy when you look back at how much we've all been through as fans/players/staff. Normal is coming.
The owners might have lost less money by canceling the playoffs vs playing in the bubble, but that wouldn’t effect the cap. That is a discussion about what the owners net income (or net loss) was. The salary cap is only based on splitting REVENUE 50/50 so the amount of the owners loss doesn’t matter. The rest of the video was very enjoyable.
I disagree with your logic. The revenue would have likely been lower due to issues in the TV deal. The cap is set before the season based on a projection of how much they expect to make in revenue. While escrow reduces the amount they have to pay, it didn't fully cover their losses. The league and the players negotiated how that difference would be paid back, and they agreed to have a flat cap (with the optional $1M per season bump) until it was paid off rather than just immediately paying back the salary.
@cdfmmcc Agreed on Kucherov, and most of what you have written here is great! The distinction of IR and LTIR comes into play here: LTIR players don't count against the cap while on LTIR, but short-term IR does. Las Vegas has iced less than a full roster by placing guys on short-term IR while they've been over the cap. I don't recall them having to waive anyone, just had guys on IR and then had to play with one fewer skater, which in my opinion was getting off easy.
@@closethockeyfan5284 , There was a time when the Chicago Blackhawks had, I think 17 players to start a game due to being that much over the cap. Then there was that time, I think it was Vegas, that had only 19 players start a game due to being over the cap... Of course, the team also gets a fined levied by the League for being over the cap on top of not having enough players to play... so its a double oof.
this is 100% off topic, but looking at his custom jersey got me wondering...does anyone else think that if you simply flipped the Canadiens logo upside down so that nub was on the bottom it would look like a "G" and hence make the perfect "Hockey Guy" logo?