NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman Shoots Down State Tax Concerns

With a Florida team in the Stanley Cup Final for the sixth straight season and a new collective bargaining agreement in the works, arguments have arisen about how teams in states without state income tax have an advantage over teams in other states and provinces.

However, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman doesn't buy this argument at all.

Bettman sat in with the fellas from TNT, and analyst Paul Bissonnette is one of the big proponents of there needing to be some way of leveling the playing field on this front.

Now, I think Bissonnette is a great analyst, but he's missing the mark with this one, and I think the commissioner would agree with me on that.

"Will you stop? It's a ridiculous issue," Bettman said when Bissonnette asked about whether or not the league would come up with a way to level the playing field. "When the Florida teams weren’t good, which was for about 17 years, OK, nobody said anything about it." 

This is the same (correct) argument that TNT's Anson Carter made earlier in the playoffs when discussing this same issue with Bissonnette.

There are currently six teams — the Panthers, Lightning, Stars, Golden Knights, Kraken, and Predators — that play in states without state income tax. Four made the postseason, while the Kraken and Predators missed out.

Ironically, this state income issue typically comes up during talk about free agency, as the argument is that these teams have an edge since players who sign there can keep more of their money, and who was the most active team in free agency last summer? The Nashville Predators.

Who was one of the worst teams in hockey this season? The Nashville Predators.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman pretty much laid out where he and the league stand on the state tax "issue.". (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

So, even if they do have a little bit of an extra draw, it's not a recipe for success, plus, as Bettman noted, the state's tax code is far from top of mind for most players.

"For those of you that played, were you sitting there with a tax table? No, you wanted to go to a good organization in a place you wanted to live, where you wanted to raise your kids and send them to school. You wanted to play in a first-class arena with a first-class training facility with an owner, an organization, a GM, and a coach that you were comfortable with.

"And you wanted to have good teammates so you would have a shot at winning. That’s what motivates. Could it be a little bit of a factor if everything else were equal? I suppose, but that’s not it. By the way, state taxes are high in Los Angeles, high in New York. What are we going to do, subsidize those teams?"

Preach, Gary! Preach!