State of the Sharkzzzzzzzzzzzz
May 20th, 2008, 9:06 pm
zzzzzzzzzzzzz…….
Is it over yet?
Good lord – That was ninety minutes of my life I will never get back. What was a well intentioned opportunity for the Sharks fans to speak their minds and ask questions of the “brain trust” Doug Wilson and Greg Jamison – it turned into a free for all of lame questions and bizarre ramblings that left the panel puzzled and me utterly frustrated. While there were a few interesting tid-bits of information uttered between the cliches from DW and Jamison and awkward pauses from Cheechoo, I left early – I just couldn’t take it anymore. The Sharks must screen these questions – there were people babbling about the 49ers in the 80’s, musing about the power play and inviting Cheech to visit them in Gilroy. The voices in my head – make them stop. Next year, please screen the questions, make the fans write them down and have your moderator ask them.
Now for the interesting info.
1) As predicted, J.R. has resigned for a rumored one year/1M dollar deal. Excellent work by DW. In response to a question challenging whether or not the Sharks have been active in the free agent market in the past, his comments were that the Sharks take care of their own – case in point, resigning J.R. The Sharks have kept Thunder Joe, Marleau, Michalek, Rivet – all before they hit the open market. Looks like we can expect more of the same with DW locking up key pieces like Pavelski and Clowe….and I think Brian Campbell. DW also brought up how the Sharks have been active in the trade market….could this be a clue.
2) DW also stressed that everyone is responsible for Ron Wilson being fired, and that this would NOT be the only change made before next year. Someone won’t be back. Looks like that someone isn’t Cheechoo since DW was heaping praise on him all night – so he can sleep at night knowing he won’t be uprooted this summer.
3) DW dropped a major hint that the Sharks are looking for a hard nosed coach, a “butt kicker”. So, cross Melrose, Granato and my suggestion, Mike Sullivan, off the list. Wilson says they have a list of 40 candidates, people who have contacted them expressing interest including AHL, Junior, College and former NHL coaches. He emphasized that former NHL coaching experience is not a pre-req for consideration. The way he was talking, it seemed as if current assistant coaches, Tim Hunter and Rob Zettler, were no longer in the running. He never mentioned them once.
Unless there are some major changes in the format – I’m gonna skip this event next year. While interesting in spurts – overall the State of the Sharks was a snooze….
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Hahahaha! I just came back from that… I must have stayed about 30 minutes longer, which was dumb on my part. That Gilroy lady… where do these “fans” come from?! UGH! How uncomfortable! “I work for a non-profit organization in Gilroy. Jonathan, will you come and help us?!” Good Lord.
The highlight was the JR video and the fact I got to park at HP for free ha ha.
We left right before the JR video- dammit. You know how when someone makes an ass of themselves in public, and you get embarrassed for them? That’s how I felt through most of it. I don’t mean to begrudge fans their opportunity to ask a question, even one that I may not think is particularly incisive, but allowing each to preamble their question with a 5 minute monologue, including where one went to culinary school, was excruciating.
An object lesson in tragedy of the commons.
Hey Guys, if you want some more points of discussion check out the live coverage I did while I was sitting there laughing at multiple people that were asking questions…
http://www.chompboard.com/showthread.php?t=8438
I didn’t stay for the WHOLE thing. We left at about 9:15
The JR video is on sjsharks.com. There, now we officially didn’t miss anything. I do, however, feel dumber now. Or maybe smarter, as I think I may know more about the team and hockey in general than 90% of the people who asked questions.
Kinda sad when the most interesting question/comment of the night had to do with the airplane that the team charters.
I was really hoping someone would have really tried to ask a question which would make Jamison explain the finances of the team a little better.
I mean how do we have a cap that is increasing, and then have a team with the 4th losest payroll, sell out virtually every game and lose money? I just wanted to understand where the money i going.
I might do a whole post on this sometime in the future, but it at least passes my laugh test. That’s not to say that I believe necessarily that the Sharks are as bad off as they say. That being said, even if the Sharks sell out every game 100%, that wouldn’t even cover payroll, much less the other expenses like travel, equipment, and management. If you look at the numbers reported by Forbes (the same numbers that Jamison disparaged) the wealthiest teams make over 50% of their revenue from corporate sponsorships, not tickets. The Sharks (allegedly) have to share ticket and concession revenue with the city, and they don’t have the sponsors that the Flyers or Leafs have.
I know some other blogger somewhere has made this analogy, but it fits and bears repeating. Owning a team is like owning a house. You buy it, and then pay out every year for expenses like insurance, power, and maintenance. You’re cash flow negative. But the house appreciates (maybe this analogy sucks) and you sell for a profit, which more than makes up for your cash outlay. I’m sure if the Sharks were sold today, they would get more than $200M, which is more than a 100% ROI for the ownership group. Even if they lost $5M a year for 10 years, they’re still making a nice tidy profit.