Agent Provocateur with Allan Walsh and Adam Wylde
Jun 6, 2026 · 1 hr 8 min · 18 segments
On this episode of Agent Provocateur, with Allan Walsh and Adam Wylde discuss Bettman's comments about NHL league revenue, the draft combine, the PWHPA choosing to disclose salaries, Lemieux's family…
Allan WalshHost
Adam WyldeHost
But I think the first thing that we should talk about, and this is major, is the NHL revealing that the, uh, hockey-related revenues are up, and they're up big time, right? $7.5 to $8 billion.
To give people an idea of what they were just a couple of years ago, Alan, I was talking on the podcast and I believe the revenues were at about 6 billion two seasons ago.
And so you're talking about a 25% increase, and, and 25% on a league that was already extremely healthy.
But let's talk about the implications first for paying back the players, because this is a really interesting wrinkle.
They used to have to pay into an escrow to pay the owners back at the end of the season, right?
If at the end of the year, player compensation, uh, after all revenues were accounted for-
... and agreed on between both sides, if revenue, uh, came out to a certain number, the players receive 52% or 53% of revenues.
There's a pool of money that had been withheld from player paychecks sitting in an escrow account, and that money would be distributed back to the owners to equalize to the dollar 50/50.
And, you know, sometimes, uh, especially in the early days of the cap, those, those, those escrow payments could be as high as 20%.
But I think the first thing that we should talk about, and this is major, is the NHL revealing that the, uh, hockey-related revenues are up, and they're up big time, right? $7.5 to $8 billion.
To give people an idea of what they were just a couple of years ago, Alan, I was talking on the podcast and I believe the revenues were at about 6 billion two seasons ago.
And so you're talking about a 25% increase, and, and 25% on a league that was already extremely healthy.
But let's talk about the implications first for paying back the players, because this is a really interesting wrinkle.
They used to have to pay into an escrow to pay the owners back at the end of the season, right?
If at the end of the year, player compensation, uh, after all revenues were accounted for-
... and agreed on between both sides, if revenue, uh, came out to a certain number, the players receive 52% or 53% of revenues.
There's a pool of money that had been withheld from player paychecks sitting in an escrow account, and that money would be distributed back to the owners to equalize to the dollar 50/50.
And, you know, sometimes, uh, especially in the early days of the cap, those, those, those escrow payments could be as high as 20%.
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