Quick Note On the Phoenix Debacle
May 8th, 2009, 7:42 am
If you read only one thing about it (besides this post of course), read this. There so much speculation and confusion about this whole RIM-Jim Phoenix cluster-<ahem> that I couldn’t make heads or tails of it until I read that article.
From my perspective, there are two major reasons why Balsillie will not end up owning the Phoenix Coyotes:
- Gary Bettman will do everything in his power, and several things outside of it, to maintain the illusion that hockey can be an American entertainment powerhouse.
- Gary Bettman hates Jim Balsillie.
You can’t get this kind of analysis just anywhere.
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Nice and Concise!
Nail, meet head.
I haven’t yet dug around for info about the vote last time Jim tried to buy a team, but I wonder how close he is to the needed 23. If he was only a few short, the poor ecomony, and financial disaster of Phx may get him his needed total. Or how close he is to the needed 16 to move.
Could the court force the NHL to vote on the move, and if the move were accepted, force the league to accept the new ownership?
Actually, I think the state of the economy hurts Balsillie. If he moves the team to Hamilton, league revenues will definitely go up, driving the cap up, and putting further financial pressure on the low to mid market teams.
It appears that it never got that far, from this article – the owners never even got to vote on it.
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/story/2007/06/22/balsillie-nashville.html?ref=rss
Good analysis there and thanks for the link.
Personally, I’m on Baisillie’s side. I own a Blackberry, and on top of that I’ve been to a game in Phoenix (that one game when Ovy scored THE goal on Bouch) and it was worse than watching a game at a completely empty KHL arena. Besides, I’d love to get a new opponent in the Pacific division – Canucks or Avalanche is my guess.
Oh yeah, and I also hate Gary Battman.
PS – how about that Ron Wilson guy. It all looked too familiar – all that confident talk before the game about how many times in his career he beat Russia, and then a familiar site in the end of the game.
Thanks for the link guys.
As much as I think another team in Canada makes sense I just can’t see Bettman being in power and Baisillie having a team. Yet the NHL seems at least interested in considering past failed markets (ie. Kansas City) or a place like Vegas were I don’t see the results being much better. Did the Coyotes not get shut out of revenue sharing this year? If so was it not for failing to meet attendance/revenue related criteria? How viable can this team be long term, sure as Mike said they probably don’t want to drive revenues up to high but losing 10’s of millions of dollars seems like a terrible alternative.
Can you imagine the road trip that sees the Sharks go from Los Angeles, Dallas and then to Hamilton (2633 miles away) which is the near equivalent of having the Buffalo Sabres in the Pacific Division (2699 miles).
So, naturally, we would think that Hamilton would be moved to the East and a team from the East would get moved to the West…but what a mess.
My hunch is that Balsillie will get the team and decide to stick it out in Phoenix until he can pull an “Al Davis”. This is his dream to have an NHL franchise, and possibly his only shot since this is more or less up the court system, and not the NHL.
I think they could stay in the West but they would have to move to the Central Division and then shift a central team to the Northwest followed by moving a team from the Northwest to the Pacific. But yeah I agree what a mess.
The logical choice in that scenario is Vancouver moving to the Pacific, which would be terrible news for the Sharks.
Doug –
I don’t think it’s an issue for any West Coast teams who often fly coast to coast anyway to play in the East. My guess is that Hamilton team will stay in the West. It’s easier logistically than having have to realign conferences, but if maybe there is a way to somehow bump Detroit to the East as they remap the league, I’m all for it. Take Hawks too – they look like they’ll be good for a while.
But then think of what if you’re Bettman. So say you won the battle, and Coyotes stay. You bail them out with another loan, but then what? In order for that team to get profitable, they need to start selling games, and they need to go deep into playoffs. I doubt they make money unless they go all the way. Is that going to happen? Neither of these two things have a remote chance of happening.
How long will Bettman allow this dead man to walk? And how do the players feel playing in a city that just doesn’t care, and under the NHL ownership who saw winning that battle as a matter of principle rather than hockey or business sense?
I’d rather see Sharks play better teams on a more regular basis than beating up on Kings and Coyotes and then collapse when faced against serious opposition in playoffs.
As long as he is the commissioner. Finding rich guys (like Jerry Reinsdorf) who want to own a professional franchise aren’t myriad, but they’re around. If Reinsdorf gets tired or it, he’ll find the next fool to sell it to. Sooner or later, Bettman will be out of office and will be able to say with a straight face that hockey succeeded in America while HE was the man in charge.