There is a fear among North America’s major sports leagues. It’s a fear we’ve discussed before at rivercitysportsblog.com. If Gary Battman and the National Hockey League lose in court this month and if the Phoenix Coyotes are allowed to re-locate to Hamilton, Ont., the dominoes will start to fall.
And every other major sports league knows it.
For if the Coyotes’ owner, Jerry Moyes, is allowed to sell his team to the highest bidder in order for that bidder to move the franchise without the permission of the league, struggling franchises all over pro sports will just get in line.
In hockey, that could mean the Islanders, Florida, Tampa, Atlanta, Nashville, Columbus or even Dallas.
And that’s why the NBA, Major League Baseball and the NFL filed a joint court document on Friday warning that by allowing Moyes to do what’s right — get the most money possible for his asset in order to pay off the debts on a failed business — “it has the potential to undermine the business of professional hockey and other major league sports.”
Officially, the three other leagues joined in an “amici curiae” brief in U.S. Bankruptcy Court supporting, “the NHL’s right to determine where a team is located and who owns it.” But if Moyes has his ownership stripped, his ability to do with his business what he feels he must and to receive a $212.5 million offer instead of an alleged $130 million offer from a very reluctant suitor (there is still no reason to believe that the NHL has an actual buyer), then anyone who would enter into an agreement with the NHL’s cartel, is always in a position whereby he could lose every penny he’s ever had.
Just ask one of the men who purchased the Winnipeg Jets, Steven Gluckstern. Gluckstern is said to have lost half his personal fortune on ownership gambles with Phoenix and the Islanders. Hockey is a pretty questionable investment.
The judge in this case, Mr. Redfield Baum, set a deadline of midnight last night for the filing of all briefs in the distpute between the NHL and Moyes. Moyes wants to sell his team to RIM CEO and boring Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie (Did you hear that speech in Winnipeg? ZZZZZZZZ!), who wants to buy the bankrupt Coyotes (although the NHL says they aren’t bankrupt) for US$212.5 million and move them to Hamilton.
Now, according to tsn.ca, the NHL has blamed the Coyotes’ financial problems on a lack of success on the ice and believes that with a new lease agreement and solid management a franchise in Arizona still could be successful. If that’s true, why would ANYONE want to be involved with the NHL?
The National Hockey League has said — legally and on the record, no less — that one of it’s most popular spokespersons, Wayne Gretzky, is an incompetent boob who has driven one of its precious franchises into bankruptcy. It’s also claimed that President Doug Moss and a handful of GMs are idiots who couldn’t run a one-car funeral.
And into all of that, Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz told our Shaw Channel 9 TV audience, between innings of a Winnipeg Goldeyes-Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks game on Friday night, that it would be possible to have the NHL return to Winnipeg in “two-to-five years.”
“It’s possible,” Katz said, “but I believe it isn’t imminent, it’s down the road.”
When asked, “How far down the road?” Katz repsonded, “I believe it’s possible that it could happen in between two and five years.
“It would take an available team (and there will be available teams if Phoenix is allowed to move), and an owner who wants to risk the losses to bring a team here, plus the involvement of Mark Chipman and the people who own the MTS Centre. It’s complicated and it will be a difficult negotiation, but it’s possible.”
If Winnipeg gets a team, I wonder who would want to run it? If he’s working for Gary Bettman and the current cartel, he’d better have a thick skin. After all, these guys aren’t afraid to blame Wayne Gretzky for their problems — and then publicly call the Great One an idiot.
Related posts: