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Post by Habit on May 24, 2005 5:47:15 GMT -5
From TSN:
Starting to get interesting. Maybe this wasn't a publicity stunt like some thought.
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on May 24, 2005 16:42:10 GMT -5
I don't get it, and apparently neither does Bain.
What do they get for the $4,000,000,000.00? A lot of zeros.
Does this include the NHL teams, the arenas, buildings, naming rights, A/R, A/P?
Do they just get the team names, contracts, logos, and the right to negotiate with Mr. Goodenow?
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Post by Doc Holliday on May 24, 2005 19:54:26 GMT -5
...this is really weird.
Bain is too serious a business to be just throwing stuff up in the air like that but why did they suddenly increased their offer by 500mil ?! Why is this public? Why are Gummy bears so darn addictive...
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on May 24, 2005 20:11:35 GMT -5
...this is really weird. Bain is too serious a business to be just throwing stuff up in the air like that but why did they suddenly increased their offer by 500mil ?! Why is this public? Why are Gummy bears so darn addictive... I read that the new offer was $4.3B, an increase of $0.8B. What's a few million among friends? |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 24, 2005 20:15:18 GMT -5
Total 2004 value of 30 NHL franchises (as per Forbes): $4.9B
Total 2003-04 claimed revenues by NHL: $2.1B
value + revenue = $7B (2004)
Bain's latest offer = $4.3B
We know both franchise values and (potential) revenues have been steadily decreasing since the lockout. Does Bain feel that the NHL, as a league, will be worth roughly at least 61% ($4.3B/$7B) of what it was worth pre-lockout, once play resumes?
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Post by Cranky on May 25, 2005 10:20:48 GMT -5
Bain has upped their offer to 4.3 billion and is still pursuing the NHL. Before anyone dismiss it, remember that the entire NHL was valued at $4.9 billion by Forbes Magazine including the arenas. As long as they are offering one deal for all then I think that they are wasting their time but if they start to separate them and offer something like 300 million for the Leafs, 150 million for the Hab's and proportionally more or less for every team, they wont have to go too far past 5.5-6 billion to buy the entire lot INCLUDING the owners share of the arenas. There is no way you can separate the NHL from the WWF mentality if Bain buys them. Yes, you will hear all the right sound bites but ZERO chance of a truly competitive league. New York, Toronto and Chicago are the first three cup champions. We might as well change the Cup into a fancy prancing WWF belt. After the lockout, no one knows how well the teams will be received and in fact, there may be 2 to 4 teams ready to fold by next Christmas. If you were an owner, would you sell now instead of waiting for the unknown? On top of that, they have a joke of a TV contract AND the ratings are FALLING! It is starting to make too much sense for the owners. Most of us thought it was a joke and a NHL tactic when we first heard of it but now, if you think that it can't happen, think again. If anyone is deluded enough to believe that the owners care about the fans, remember this, the owners burned up two billion dollars worth of revenue from the lockout to make sure they make better profits. Besides, if they go through with it they can always blame the players for making it an "impossible business environment" for the poor owners. Yes Belinda, money is what drives the owners, not love of the sport. Are you ready for pre-game banter? Are you ready for staged fights? Are you ready for tractor pull promos before the game? How about half naked woman serving beers and snacks? Are you ready to wait until they decide to make YOUR team the Cup champion? ARE YOU READY TO CRY?  |
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Post by Cranky on May 25, 2005 10:23:43 GMT -5
...this is really weird. Bain is too serious a business to be just throwing stuff up in the air like that but why did they suddenly increased their offer by 500mil ?! Why is this public? Why are Gummy bears so darn addictive... Because they can MAKE MONEY. Because there is a HUGE potential for whoring the sport to make billions. |
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Post by BadCompany on May 25, 2005 11:53:32 GMT -5
I honestly believe that if I had about $5 billion, I could take engineer a hostile take over of the NHL, and claim it as my own with 5 years (idea vaguely fleshed out here ). That plan hinged on just what you said – buying the league piecemeal, “suspending” operations, forming a competitive league and just driving the NHL into submission. If a couple of the big boys join me as partners, why would the rest of the league hold out? As you point out, they’re in it for money, not for the love of the game. Once they see they aren’t going to make the money without a fight, and that they can make a whole whack of money simply by capitulating, they’ll fold faster than a washerwoman with a hot date. Not sure I agree with this. I don’t think Bain is stupid, and they have to know that a fixed sport is a dead sport. Granted, it won’t be all that good for the league if a whole bunch of small markets keep winning the Cup, but I’d bet on a whole bunch of small markets getting whacked under Bain anyway, leaving 20-24 “good” markets that will be beneficial to the league, no matter who wins. I thought I read somewhere that the New Jersey owner had counseled his co-freres in the ownership family to consider the offer the first time it was made, and that he wasn’t alone in his stance. I could see a few more thinking it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Unfortunately for them, they aren’t getting individual offers, Bain only wants the league as a whole. Otherwise, a bunch would have sold already, I think. I never thought it was a joke. Bain is run by a bunch of accountants. Accountants don’t joke. I also still think it would be the best thing for the NHL. Really? I thought this whole lockout was about restoring competitive balance, ensuring league parity, and giving fans of every team the hope of a championship? You mean the owners would sell out their own grandmothers for an extra buck?? You mean they don’t have the league, and by extension us fans, best interests at heart? I think they already do that in some places. Check out the Molson Zone. And given the state of the NHL these days, expect more, as desperate owners resort to desperate measures, in a desperate attempt to get somebody, anybody, to watch their team. Ah, the cynicism. Michael Buffer doing funerals? So this lockout isn’t about saving the league, its about making billionaires even richer? |
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Post by Doc Holliday on May 25, 2005 12:52:47 GMT -5
Because they can MAKE MONEY. Because there is a HUGE potential for whoring the sport to make billions. uh? So if you take control of the league and can therefore decrease salaries to the level you need you can make a profit? Wow! Who knew...! You actually don't even need to whore it much Cranky. If you change the product too much, not only could you not appeal to the new fan base you're targeting but you'll lose the one you already have. 1- You buy it, get the salaries in line by fixing a salary CAP that the mock GM will have to respect. No fancy high/low tax linkage bull, just your plain old 20mil limit with no floor (of course). Players will freak, whine, go on strike, whatever... They have no leverage. A league ready to spend 20mil per team is still the richest league in the world.... 2- You lower the ticket prices to get the people back in and create huge seasons ticket waiting list... People will be 100% behind your idea of droping salaries if they can save $$$. 3- Hire some hockey wiz like Bowman as commissioner, let him put order in the house and bring back offensive hockey. 4- You make sure you're present in the right markets and absent from the wrong ones. In a matter of a couple seasons you've possibly shrunk the revenues but you've built yourself a lot of profit and most certainly big season tickets waiting lists in every major city you're in. Suddenly you're back in the NHL of the 80's with the money printing machine that the NHL once was. You turn around and sell the goose to buyers that will be on their knees to be part of it. That's one way of winging it. |
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Post by arctic on May 25, 2005 14:22:43 GMT -5
This is too puzzling for me. About the arenas: Not all belong to the hockey owners, and all the hockey owners who also own their arenas use them for nonhockey events. How would this all get sorted out?
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Post by Doc Holliday on May 25, 2005 14:43:15 GMT -5
Rent.
Bain seems to want the NHL. I don't think it wants the Rock concerts, NBA, and etc...
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 25, 2005 14:59:19 GMT -5
Total 2004 value of 30 NHL franchises (as per Forbes): $4.9B Total 2003-04 claimed revenues by NHL: $2.1B value + revenue = $7B (2004) Bain's latest offer = $4.3B We know both franchise values and (potential) revenues have been steadily decreasing since the lockout. Does Bain feel that the NHL, as a league, will be worth roughly at least 61% ($4.3B/$7B) of what it was worth pre-lockout, once play resumes? May 25, 2005: 9:38 AM EDT NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A $4 billion bid to buy all the teams of the National Hockey League would group franchises into three different tiers to determine the payout for their current owners, according to a published report. The Wall Street Journal reports that the bid would pay $2.25 billion for the 10 most valuable teams, while the next 10 would split $1 billion and the 10 least valuable would split $750 million. The offer from Bain Capital LLC and Game Plan LLC is still seen as a longshot, but the latest offer has garnered support from about a third of team owners, according to the report. A number of smaller sports leagues, including Major League Soccer and the Women's National Basketball Association have common ownership of all teams, which limits competition for high-priced stars. It is not at all clear that the National Hockey League Players Association would agree to common ownership in their ongoing labor negotiations with the league. The 2004-'05 NHL season was cancelled due to a lockout of players by owners, who are looking for a salary cap to limit team payrolls. NHL spokeswoman Bernadette Mansur declined to comment to the newspaper. A valuation of NHL franchises in 2004 by Forbes shows that the most expensive team, the New York Rangers, is worth $282 million, while the least valuable is the Carolina Hurricanes, worth an estimated $100 million. The total for the 30 teams was $4.9 billion, according to the estimates from the magazine, a leading tracker of team values. But those valuations came before the lockout and any drop in value that the loss of a full season may have caused. -http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/25/news/newsmakers/nhl_bid/ |
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Post by arctic on May 25, 2005 15:02:11 GMT -5
Rent. Bain seems to want the NHL. I don't think it wants the Rock concerts, NBA, and etc... This goes over my head. Where would the profits come from? |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 25, 2005 15:07:51 GMT -5
NHL buyout scheme: not so crazy, maybeAfter a year of no hockey, players, fans and a number of owners might be considering Bain LBO offer.May 25, 2005: 1:03 PM EDT By Rob Cox, Breaking Views NEW YORK (Breaking Views) - Professional sports can be a lot like Wall Street. The competition for talent can be so great that most of the value in the business is extracted by the players, not the owners. Anyone who dramatically mitigates that competition could make a killing. That is Bain Capital's bet in its $4 billion offer to acquire the National Hockey League. In March, Boston-based Bain allied with Game Plan, a firm that specializes in corporate finance for the sports industry, and made an offer to the NHL team owners. Now, according to a report by Bloomberg News, the buyout firm recently raised its offer to acquire the 30-team National Hockey League to more than $4 billion from about $3.5 billion. The talks come after the NHL team owners and representatives of players have continued their talks to bridge the impasse that led to the cancellation of the 2004-05 season -- the first ever of a major national sports league. Sure, the deal has plenty of warning signs, not least the perennial problem that occurs when grown men with lots of money let sports fanaticism guide their investment decisions. - the whole enchilada
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on May 26, 2005 4:00:56 GMT -5
NHL buyout scheme: not so crazy, maybeAfter a year of no hockey, players, fans and a number of owners might be considering Bain LBO offer.May 25, 2005: 1:03 PM EDT By Rob Cox, Breaking Views NEW YORK (Breaking Views) - Professional sports can be a lot like Wall Street. The competition for talent can be so great that most of the value in the business is extracted by the players, not the owners. Anyone who dramatically mitigates that competition could make a killing. That is Bain Capital's bet in its $4 billion offer to acquire the National Hockey League. In March, Boston-based Bain allied with Game Plan, a firm that specializes in corporate finance for the sports industry, and made an offer to the NHL team owners. Now, according to a report by Bloomberg News, the buyout firm recently raised its offer to acquire the 30-team National Hockey League to more than $4 billion from about $3.5 billion. The talks come after the NHL team owners and representatives of players have continued their talks to bridge the impasse that led to the cancellation of the 2004-05 season -- the first ever of a major national sports league. Sure, the deal has plenty of warning signs, not least the perennial problem that occurs when grown men with lots of money let sports fanaticism guide their investment decisions. - the whole enchilada I worked for a company that was bought out by Bain. If Goodenow thinks negotiating with Bettman is tough, just wait. |
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Post by arctic on May 26, 2005 9:59:54 GMT -5
NHL buyout scheme: not so crazy, maybeAfter a year of no hockey, players, fans and a number of owners might be considering Bain LBO offer.May 25, 2005: 1:03 PM EDT By Rob Cox, Breaking Views NEW YORK (Breaking Views) - Professional sports can be a lot like Wall Street. The competition for talent can be so great that most of the value in the business is extracted by the players, not the owners. Anyone who dramatically mitigates that competition could make a killing. That is Bain Capital's bet in its $4 billion offer to acquire the National Hockey League. In March, Boston-based Bain allied with Game Plan, a firm that specializes in corporate finance for the sports industry, and made an offer to the NHL team owners. Now, according to a report by Bloomberg News, the buyout firm recently raised its offer to acquire the 30-team National Hockey League to more than $4 billion from about $3.5 billion. The talks come after the NHL team owners and representatives of players have continued their talks to bridge the impasse that led to the cancellation of the 2004-05 season -- the first ever of a major national sports league. Sure, the deal has plenty of warning signs, not least the perennial problem that occurs when grown men with lots of money let sports fanaticism guide their investment decisions. - the whole enchilada Where would Bain expect to recoup its purchase price and then go on to make future profits? Only in the United States. That's where the money for luxuries such as sports is to be found. But is this a sensible business model given the history of hockey in the U.S. and the competition it faces from other sports that people are more familiar with and that don't require maintaining a uniform ice surface that doesn't melt or chip? |
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Post by BadCompany on May 26, 2005 12:01:55 GMT -5
Where would Bain expect to recoup its purchase price and then go on to make future profits? Only in the United States. That's where the money for luxuries such as sports is to be found. But is this a sensible business model given the history of hockey in the U.S. and the competition it faces from other sports that people are more familiar with and that don't require maintaining a uniform ice surface that doesn't melt or chip? If I had to guess, and based on my experience with venture capitalists like Bain, I would say their ultimate goal is to take the company (i.e. the NHL) public, issuing shares. If they were to issue say, 500 million shares, at $10 a share, they’d rake in a cool $5 billion, more than recuperating their initial costs. |
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Post by arctic on May 26, 2005 13:13:25 GMT -5
Where would Bain expect to recoup its purchase price and then go on to make future profits? Only in the United States. That's where the money for luxuries such as sports is to be found. But is this a sensible business model given the history of hockey in the U.S. and the competition it faces from other sports that people are more familiar with and that don't require maintaining a uniform ice surface that doesn't melt or chip? If I had to guess, and based on my experience with venture capitalists like Bain, I would say their ultimate goal is to take the company (i.e. the NHL) public, issuing shares. If they were to issue say, 500 million shares, at $10 a share, they’d rake in a cool $5 billion, more than recuperating their initial costs. It doesn't seem realistic to me, sounds more like a Ponzi scheme. I can't see anyone buying substantial numbers of shares. I might buy one share at $10 just to be able to make a pest of myself at stockholders meetings. |
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Post by BadCompany on May 26, 2005 13:39:31 GMT -5
It doesn't seem realistic to me, sounds more like a Ponzi scheme. I can't see anyone buying substantial numbers of shares. I might buy one share at $10 just to be able to make a pest of myself at stockholders meetings. Bain Capital has somewhere in the neighborhood of $15-20 billion in assets, more than a few of the world’s poorer nations. They wouldn’t be making the offer(s) if there was no hope of making any money. |
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Post by arctic on May 26, 2005 17:21:55 GMT -5
I can't wait to get a hint of their business model, but I'd bet a box of Tim Horton's donuts it isn't going to be a public offering of 500,000,000 shares. Of course I'd love to handle the venture capital business for Bain on either the buying or the selling end.
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Post by blny on May 27, 2005 7:27:46 GMT -5
Some people aren't just hard of hearing. They're hard of listening. There is no way you get thirty distinct entities, and the union, to agree to be sold off as one unit. The league isn't at the point of bankruptcy, a la the WHA, where another entity can pick and choose which teams to absorb.
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on May 27, 2005 7:47:44 GMT -5
Some people aren't just hard of hearing. They're hard of listening. There is no way you get thirty distinct entities, and the union, to agree to be sold off as one unit. The league isn't at the point of bankruptcy, a la the WHA, where another entity can pick and choose which teams to absorb. Not so fast. Excerpted from a post higher up on this page: NHL bid values teams in 3 groupsReport: $4B bid would pay $2.25B for top 10 teams, $750M for 10 least valuable teams.May 25, 2005: 9:38 AM EDT NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A $4 billion bid to buy all the teams of the National Hockey League would group franchises into three different tiers to determine the payout for their current owners, according to a published report. The Wall Street Journal reports that the bid would pay $2.25 billion for the 10 most valuable teams, while the next 10 would split $1 billion and the 10 least valuable would split $750 million. The offer from Bain Capital LLC and Game Plan LLC is still seen as a longshot, but the latest offer has garnered support from about a third of team owners, according to the report. -http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/25/news/newsmakers/nhl_bid/ * I'd say that an offer which has gone from $3B and a polite 15 minute audience with the NHL BOG, to $4.3B and support of 10 NHL owners, in the space of a couple of months, is hardly dead in the water. |
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Post by Cranky on May 27, 2005 7:54:15 GMT -5
Some people aren't just hard of hearing. They're hard of listening. There is no way you get thirty distinct entities, and the union, to agree to be sold off as one unit. The league isn't at the point of bankruptcy, a la the WHA, where another entity can pick and choose which teams to absorb. The union has no say in a sale. If they have a CBA then the CBA remains in effect. If they don't have a CBA then they might as well throw in the towel because their collective "power" just fell off a cliff. A two million dollar salary will look like a mountain of money with Bain at the helm. The average NHL salary will probably plunge to well below a million. The only thing that the union can possibly do is go to court in a antitrust suit but I would not put any money on them. Players may find this hard to believe that they have no "right" to make millions. Like in trhe real world, the owners can pay what they want (above minimum wage) and it's up to the individual to accept or deny his services. They don't need all thirty owners to agree. There is a critical mass of about twenty teams. Once those twenty teams are ready to jump then the owners of the remining teams are not going to have a choice. One cna NOT operate a league with ten teams and have a giant right next to you competing. Bad business. |
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Post by Cranky on May 27, 2005 8:29:55 GMT -5
I honestly believe that if I had about $5 billion, I could take engineer a hostile take over of the NHL, and claim it as my own with 5 years (idea vaguely fleshed out here ). That plan hinged on just what you said – buying the league piecemeal, “suspending” operations, forming a competitive league and just driving the NHL into submission. If a couple of the big boys join me as partners, why would the rest of the league hold out? As you point out, they’re in it for money, not for the love of the game. Once they see they aren’t going to make the money without a fight, and that they can make a whole whack of money simply by capitulating, they’ll fold faster than a washerwoman with a hot date. Not sure I agree with this. I don’t think Bain is stupid, and they have to know that a fixed sport is a dead sport. Granted, it won’t be all that good for the league if a whole bunch of small markets keep winning the Cup, but I’d bet on a whole bunch of small markets getting whacked under Bain anyway, leaving 20-24 “good” markets that will be beneficial to the league, no matter who wins. I thought I read somewhere that the New Jersey owner had counseled his co-freres in the ownership family to consider the offer the first time it was made, and that he wasn’t alone in his stance. I could see a few more thinking it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Unfortunately for them, they aren’t getting individual offers, Bain only wants the league as a whole. Otherwise, a bunch would have sold already, I think. I never thought it was a joke. Bain is run by a bunch of accountants. Accountants don’t joke. I also still think it would be the best thing for the NHL. Really? I thought this whole lockout was about restoring competitive balance, ensuring league parity, and giving fans of every team the hope of a championship? You mean the owners would sell out their own grandmothers for an extra buck?? You mean they don’t have the league, and by extension us fans, best interests at heart? I think they already do that in some places. Check out the Molson Zone. And given the state of the NHL these days, expect more, as desperate owners resort to desperate measures, in a desperate attempt to get somebody, anybody, to watch their team. Ah, the cynicism. Michael Buffer doing funerals? So this lockout isn’t about saving the league, its about making billionaires even richer? Sheesh.....did some of my cranky dandruff infect you? Like I said in the above post, a hostile takeover is not necessary if they get a critical mass of owners signing on. The rest will capitulate. Another thing we should not forget, all the owners will have to sign non-competitive contracts. This alone diminishes any chance of a competitive league forming in the near future. After all, there is a finite amount of wealthy people who care enough to own a hockey team. There is even fewer who are stupid enough to take one a deep pocket league. Someone mentioned something about the Canadian government stepping in. BULL. The government is absolutely powerless to do anything about it. If they so much a joke about legislation limiting the teams ability to function freely, they will be sued to submission. At best, all they can do is make sure that the league/teams are taxed to the maximum without appearing that they are discriminating against them. The rule of thumb for buying a small to medium business is that you pay three times gross return plus 80% on the real estate plus 50% value of salable assets. How much profit do the Hab's have? 15 of 70 million a season? That's 45 million in three years. Let's say you expect to easily cut salaries by 10 million thus a 25 million gross profit. That's 25 million times three years for 75 million. Now what is the merchandising value? 5 million? Now we are up to 90 million. TV contracts? Other directly related sources of income? Another 10 million? Now you are up to 120 million. Spin offs? If the above simplified version is true then anything less then 120 million for the team alone is a bargain. It use to be that owners did not make much of a profit or accepted losses as long as the value of the team skyrocketed. However, now that it's no longer true for many of them, they are going to make sure that the teams are profitable. If Bain buys them, then in few years they will have restructured the teams and they will be a model of $$$$$ performance. Then they can make a public offering or offer the teams for sale AGAIN. Believe it or not, potential owners will forget what happened before and they will plunge head long into the "newly minted profit centers". It will not take too long or too much effort to make the league into a mini NFL. A 30%++ gross profit margin is around the corner if Bain buys the league. Let's not forget the benefit for the willing sheep. The sheep that can let themselves be fleeced the most are going to have the benefit of a Cup coming their way. NOW is the time to convert to a Leaf or Ranger fan and save yourself the aggravation and worthless hope of waiting for a cup in Montreal. Can you say Baaaaaa? |
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Post by BadCompany on May 27, 2005 10:37:46 GMT -5
I agree with a lot of what you say. On the “hostile takeover” idea, I agree that it might not be necessary, but if Bain REALLY, REALLY wanted to, I think they could do it. Especially if say, Toronto and Philadelphia jumped on board. Then they could make the NHL an offer they can’t refuse. They also wouldn’t get stuck forking over $75-100 million for lame-duck franchises that’ll probably fold anyways. They could just say “sorry Carolina, no soup for you” and buy the teams they want.
I’m also not so sure the players would be all that screwed either. It might actually be to their advantage. If Bain lops off 5-10 of the weakest franchises, then the average revenue of the remaining 20-25 teams goes up. If revenue is linked, then player salaries go up. Granted, a good 100-200 of them will be out of a job, but it’s the bottom guys anyways. The rest stand to do okay. Add up the revenues of the top 20 teams in the NHL, then slap that 54% linkage deal on the table, and see what the cap is – I betcha its pretty decent.
And if Bain doesn’t want to offer 54%, and wants to offer say, 35-40%, then the players strike. I don’t think Bain wants to fork over $5 billion, and then see its product iced for another year or so.
As for the competition aspect of things, I think it would be just too hard to pull off a conspiracy like that. Do they tell Bob Gainey he has to trade Jose Theodore to the Rangers for a 7th round draft pick? Give Chicago the 1st overall forever? Give LA a $100 million budget, and Montreal a $20 million one? Tell Darryl Sutter he can’t start Kiprusoff, he has to go with his backup? You’d have to get GMs on board, coaches, players, VPs, scouts, referees, etc, etc.. You’re talking a conspiracy of thousands. They’d never be able to do it successfully. And if they tried, the league would lose what little credibility it had. No credibility means no fans. No fans, means no TV, no money, no profits. I’m sure Bain would really like it if the Rangers and Kings met in the Finals every year, I just don’t think they could slant the ice enough to make that a real possibility.
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Post by Cranky on May 27, 2005 11:21:42 GMT -5
Just a quick comment on the players.... What options do they have? Europe? If Bain offers 45%, it's still a lot more money then the European are offering. Plus if they slash 4 teams, it will a lot tougher for any player to refuse a 50% cut on his multi million dollar contract when there are 100 players begging for a job. ALL the power will reside in Bains pockets. On competition.... It does not take too much to slant the ice but tilting is another story. All you have to do is limit salaries to revenue and the net thing you know, Toronto, Detroit and New York have the highest payroll and the best players. This does not guarantee anything but it sure tilts it. Plus you can make sure that the "proper" teams don't go stupid when hiring coaches/managers. When they hired Sather over you for the GM job for New York, didn't them make a mistake? (  ) Don't tell me you couldn't do a better job of scouting and building up the franchise so it became a perennial contender. With their pockets, they should of had a dynasty. "Baa" "Baaaaa" "Baaaaaaaaaa" .........just practicing. |
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Post by BadCompany on May 27, 2005 11:37:44 GMT -5
I disagree. It’ll be the same game of chicken that we are watching now. At what point does Bain say the extra couple hundred million saved in salaries isn’t worth the hundreds of millions lost in fan interest?
That’s what we have now, isn’t it?
With only one owner though, there is no revenue-per-team. Its all in one big pot. And besides, you are still left with the credibility gap – if New York has a $100 million payroll, and Edmonton a $30 million one –mandated by the league, no less – then you’ll just turn people off.
They should have. They didn’t. Same with the Leafs, Blues, Capitals and even the Stars. Always made me wonder where the NHL was coming from with their “we don’t have parity” theory. But I digress.
You’ve more or less proven my point, though. Even if they were to blatantly tilt the ice in favor of the big markets, not only is there no guarantee of success, but by doing so you would destroy the credibility of your league. As we are seeing in baseball, with the steroid issue, if people don’t think their sports are on the up and up, they freak. Bain can’t afford to have people freaking over hockey, ESPECIALLY if there is no guarantee the thing you are doing that is making them freak is going to work. And even more ESPECIALLY if their ultimate goal is to re-sell the league. Very high risk, very little reward.
Have you any wool?
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Post by Doc Holliday on May 27, 2005 13:12:39 GMT -5
I disagree. It’ll be the same game of chicken that we are watching now. At what point does Bain say the extra couple hundred million saved in salaries isn’t worth the hundreds of millions lost in fan interest? I don't think Bain would have the cold feet that some owners presently have to open for business despite the NHLPA players not wanting to be part of it. As I said, lower ticket prices a bit and lower salaries a lot (and claim you lower salaries because you wanted to lower ticket prices). Public will be behind you. If on top of this you can get a true hockey guy as commissioner (Bowman) and let him do real changes to the game to make more offensive, than you're rockin' even if you don't have the NHLPA players with you. They might strike but for how long? A great many of them haven't had a salary in a year and if they go on strike, they can't turn around and play in Europe. If players feel Batman and the crooked bunch are bad people to negotiate with, wait 'till they try to sit with someone that has ALL the cards in his hands... As for the competition you're right that it would be tough to actually favor teams but the possibility is still present enough to have people doubting... The minute a GM will pull a weird trade à la Jagr for 2 prospects and a pick or Carbonneau for Jim Montgomery, people and media will scream that the league is rigged... The league would have to be incredibly transparent. |
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Post by arctic on May 27, 2005 13:13:00 GMT -5
Bain could lose a tremendous amount of money by buying the NHL for $5 billiion. I don't imagine the investors would just shrug off a drop of $1-2 billion in equity.
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Post by BadCompany on May 27, 2005 14:10:23 GMT -5
I don't think Bain would have the cold feet that some owners presently have to open for business despite the NHLPA players not wanting to be part of it. As I said, lower ticket prices a bit and lower salaries a lot (and claim you lower salaries because you wanted to lower ticket prices). Public will be behind you. If on top of this you can get a true hockey guy as commissioner (Bowman) and let him do real changes to the game to make more offensive, than you're rockin' even if you don't have the NHLPA players with you. They might strike but for how long? A great many of them haven't had a salary in a year and if they go on strike, they can't turn around and play in Europe. If players feel Batman and the crooked bunch are bad people to negotiate with, wait 'till they try to sit with someone that has ALL the cards in his hands... As for the competition you're right that it would be tough to actually favor teams but the possibility is still present enough to have people doubting... The minute a GM will pull a weird trade à la Jagr for 2 prospects and a pick or Carbonneau for Jim Montgomery, people and media will scream that the league is rigged... The league would have to be incredibly transparent. Well the transaction isn’t going to be completed in the next couple of months, if it ever goes through. So for better or worse, the new CBA will be struck between the current set of players, and the current set of owners. If Bain were to buy the league, it could take years to work out the nitty-gritty details of every little clause. So Bain realistically wouldn’t get to impose their will until the next round of CBA negotiations, which wouldn’t be for another 5-7 years, depending on the length of the new deal. By then, the players will have forgotten the hardship, and probably be set for another war. Especially if they see their salaries being cut by another 50% or so. As for the competition issue, I still don’t see it as being a problem. The NFL works essentially on the same model as what Bain would be doing, and nobody seems to think that league is rigged. All the money there goes into one pot, and is then divided up equally. If I’m the owner of a small market NFL team, and I get the same profit as a big market NFL team, wouldn’t it be in my best interests to have my small market team tank, so that the big market team could draw more interest and therefore more fans/TV/money/profit? Bain could lose a tremendous amount of money by buying the NHL for $5 billiion. I don't imagine the investors would just shrug off a drop of $1-2 billion in equity. And yet, they keep making offers. What does that tell you? That this multi-billion-equity firm is run by a bunch of morons? Or that there is an above average chance of turning it into a profit-making machine? |
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) Don't tell me you couldn't do a better job of scouting and building up the franchise so it became a perennial contender. With their pockets, they should of had a dynasty.