To recap:
In 1996, shitbag NHL commissioner Gary Bettman permits my Winnipeg Jets to be taken out of the country and placed in suburban Arizona. Part of his "sunbelt strategy" of expanding the NHL's media reach in the US, aided and abetted by the abysmally low dollar which made it impossible to pay rising salaries (all of which were denominated in USD).
12 years later, the Phoenix Coyotes are broker than they ever were in Winnipeg. The league in fact secretly had to give the owners a loan to help them meet payroll over the year. The owner - a local dude (and part owner of the Diamondbacks) by the name of Moyes who stepped in when the previous owner began to bleed too much red ink - started looking to sell.
There was a buyer. Name of Balsillie. Co-owner of RIM, maker of the Blackberry and since Nortel's destruction, the only tech hero we've got left in the NPS. Loves hockey. Tried but failed to buy both the Penguins and the Thrashers in the last four years with the intention of bringing them to southwestern Ontario. But Bettman, either because he hates Canada or because the Maple Leafs want to keep their local monopoly and have his balls in a vice, has vetoed both moves - in one case actively cajoling a local consortium into existence to provide an alternative to a Balsillie bid.
Same deal in Phoenix. Balsillie offers a massive amount of money with the intention of havng the team land in Hamilton. But Bettman gets Jerry Reinsdorf to front a transparently ridiculous bid worth only about half of what Balsillie's offering, only he says he wants to keep the team in Phoenix. What he doesn't say publicly is that this is conditional on getting massive subsidies from the city of Glendale to keep the team there. Glendale don't like this offer, but they like Balsillie less since if he wins it means losing a team they just spent a couple of hundred million on to build an arena.
Moyes doesn't want to sell to Reinsdorf. he wants to sell to Balsillie, who is offering better money. Tough shit, says Bettman. We as a league have an absolute right to decide who gets a franchise and who doesn't, and then calls a meeting of the owners to declare Balsillie unfit to be an owner. Fuck that, says Moyes - you have no right to force me to sell an asset at below market value. Off to bankruptcy court we go.
At this point, Moyes' group "accidentally" releases confidential information from the discovery process - to whit, the fine details of the Reinsdorf offer and his demands on teh city. reinsdorf pulls out of the bidding. Now the NHL is fucked - there was a third bidder with some loopy ideas about having the team play a few games a year in Saskatoon, but nobody took them seriously. So the league puts in an offer to buy the team, totally undercutting the rationale that teams are econmically viable in the sunbelt. It also puts them in a conflict of interest on the whole naming of Balsillie as an unfit buyer thing. This was an act of desperation on Bettman's part, no question.
So we're waiting. The bankrupcy court judge has, in the parlance, ragged the puck for weeks, not making a decision. Team morale is destroyed. Gretzky, who is owed $8 million by the club and is thus a major creditor, just quit as coach/GM.
If I've missed anything, some details can be filled in by reading this wikipedia page.
The Globe and Mail has been absolutely superb on this story for months. I wish they had a microsite devoted to it because Brunt, Shoalts and Duhatschek have done stellar work and it's not getting enough recognition. Today's story on Gretzky's role in bringing the team to its knees is a case in point.
So where next on this? A few key questions:
1) Is the NHL doing all this just to satisfy the Leafs? Balsillie says yes, and even tried getting MLSE management onto the stand (the judge nixed it). The league's position - which the Leafs dispute - is that there is no territorial exclusivity guaranteed in the league constitution. Should this position be reversed, Canada's competition bureau has basically said it may resort to anti-trust legislation to beat up the league.
2) Whose rights are more important - those of Moyes and his creditors to their money, or those of the league to the right to choose who their franchisees are?
3) Owners have been willing to forgive Bettman a lot because he is perceived to have won the lockout on their behalf a couple of years ago. They voted against Balsillie partly on that basis (though partly also because Balsillie was being gratuitously offensive to some of them); but now he's starting to spend a lot of their money. How long do they tolerate this man's clearly failed southern strategy?
4) After the lockout, players agreed to revenue sharing. A team in Hamilton would earn more than one in Phoenix, so this deal is costing he players money, too. How long will they take it?
In 1996, shitbag NHL commissioner Gary Bettman permits my Winnipeg Jets to be taken out of the country and placed in suburban Arizona. Part of his "sunbelt strategy" of expanding the NHL's media reach in the US, aided and abetted by the abysmally low dollar which made it impossible to pay rising salaries (all of which were denominated in USD).
12 years later, the Phoenix Coyotes are broker than they ever were in Winnipeg. The league in fact secretly had to give the owners a loan to help them meet payroll over the year. The owner - a local dude (and part owner of the Diamondbacks) by the name of Moyes who stepped in when the previous owner began to bleed too much red ink - started looking to sell.
There was a buyer. Name of Balsillie. Co-owner of RIM, maker of the Blackberry and since Nortel's destruction, the only tech hero we've got left in the NPS. Loves hockey. Tried but failed to buy both the Penguins and the Thrashers in the last four years with the intention of bringing them to southwestern Ontario. But Bettman, either because he hates Canada or because the Maple Leafs want to keep their local monopoly and have his balls in a vice, has vetoed both moves - in one case actively cajoling a local consortium into existence to provide an alternative to a Balsillie bid.
Same deal in Phoenix. Balsillie offers a massive amount of money with the intention of havng the team land in Hamilton. But Bettman gets Jerry Reinsdorf to front a transparently ridiculous bid worth only about half of what Balsillie's offering, only he says he wants to keep the team in Phoenix. What he doesn't say publicly is that this is conditional on getting massive subsidies from the city of Glendale to keep the team there. Glendale don't like this offer, but they like Balsillie less since if he wins it means losing a team they just spent a couple of hundred million on to build an arena.
Moyes doesn't want to sell to Reinsdorf. he wants to sell to Balsillie, who is offering better money. Tough shit, says Bettman. We as a league have an absolute right to decide who gets a franchise and who doesn't, and then calls a meeting of the owners to declare Balsillie unfit to be an owner. Fuck that, says Moyes - you have no right to force me to sell an asset at below market value. Off to bankruptcy court we go.
At this point, Moyes' group "accidentally" releases confidential information from the discovery process - to whit, the fine details of the Reinsdorf offer and his demands on teh city. reinsdorf pulls out of the bidding. Now the NHL is fucked - there was a third bidder with some loopy ideas about having the team play a few games a year in Saskatoon, but nobody took them seriously. So the league puts in an offer to buy the team, totally undercutting the rationale that teams are econmically viable in the sunbelt. It also puts them in a conflict of interest on the whole naming of Balsillie as an unfit buyer thing. This was an act of desperation on Bettman's part, no question.
So we're waiting. The bankrupcy court judge has, in the parlance, ragged the puck for weeks, not making a decision. Team morale is destroyed. Gretzky, who is owed $8 million by the club and is thus a major creditor, just quit as coach/GM.
If I've missed anything, some details can be filled in by reading this wikipedia page.
The Globe and Mail has been absolutely superb on this story for months. I wish they had a microsite devoted to it because Brunt, Shoalts and Duhatschek have done stellar work and it's not getting enough recognition. Today's story on Gretzky's role in bringing the team to its knees is a case in point.
So where next on this? A few key questions:
1) Is the NHL doing all this just to satisfy the Leafs? Balsillie says yes, and even tried getting MLSE management onto the stand (the judge nixed it). The league's position - which the Leafs dispute - is that there is no territorial exclusivity guaranteed in the league constitution. Should this position be reversed, Canada's competition bureau has basically said it may resort to anti-trust legislation to beat up the league.
2) Whose rights are more important - those of Moyes and his creditors to their money, or those of the league to the right to choose who their franchisees are?
3) Owners have been willing to forgive Bettman a lot because he is perceived to have won the lockout on their behalf a couple of years ago. They voted against Balsillie partly on that basis (though partly also because Balsillie was being gratuitously offensive to some of them); but now he's starting to spend a lot of their money. How long do they tolerate this man's clearly failed southern strategy?
4) After the lockout, players agreed to revenue sharing. A team in Hamilton would earn more than one in Phoenix, so this deal is costing he players money, too. How long will they take it?
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