Wamsley01 Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 (edited) they are not logical. I mean, there is a TON of baseball and basketball teams in the South... as there should be. why, in hockey, do they try to even up the numbers of north vs south?!! they should concentrate in the North and have 1/5 teams in the south. I mean it's way more logical to LOAD the places where people are "naturally" interested... and THEN try to seduce new markets.. they are putting "la charrue avant les boeufs" LOL (french expression -> they are doing things upside down/ in reverse order as they should be doing them) Is it because the North is not populated enough? I mean Washington State, some place like Maine, Wisconsin... I'm no pro of US geography, but there are a lot of northern states without a Team... and if I knew nothing about NHL, I'd guess that there is a team in Maine way before saying that there is one in Arizona... or one in Wisconsin way before thinking of Tennessee, Georgia or Florida (heck at this rate, when will they have a franchise in New Mexico!!). EVEN Texas is a stretch. so is there someone who knows the States well enough to explain me why there is not more teams in northern US?! Bettman went where he thought the TV deals would be. The reason he is in Phoenix is because it is the 5th most populous city in the US and has a major league footprint. A place like Columbus was a much better decision, outside of Ohio State, it is the only PRO game in town. But this was all about landing a monster TV contract, one which he got in the mid 90s. That and all the extra $$ that the owners received in expansion fees resulted in payroll going through the roof, add in a low CDN $ and he caused the monster problems for Quebec, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Montreal at the turn of the century. He then hides behind the idea that the Jets couldn't find anybody to buy the team, and therefore he was ok with moving it. He was one of the causes behind the Jets demise, a factor that is regulary IGNORED. So when everybody says the Jets couldn't support NHL hockey, it couldn't support the false market the NHL created in the mid 90s. Why in the world was a league with 1/4 of the revenue of the NFL and MLB paying out $10M salaries? This lead to everybody needing a new building with luxury suites and jacking up ticket prices. Bettman created all the problems by expanding to fast. He diluted the talent and destroyed the game, he ripped it from it's grassroots in the hope to create grassroots elsewhere. The whole thought process is bizarre. If you want to sell your product to new markets, why dilute it? Why market the monstrosity of the "dead puck" era? Who the hell wanted to buy that? The only reason the Avs/Stars/Canes had success was because they had great teams. Even the Panthers got an immediate boost out of the gate with an unexpected Cup run in 1996. When the CDN $ rose to a regular level (and .60 US was not a regular level as the CDN $ has traded at above 80 cents US for 40 of the last 50 years) the CDN teams would have been fine without the spike caused by the expansion $$ and big ESPN contract. Bettman is an opportunist, it is no coincidence that he took the opportunity to move the CDN franchises out west and expand his sunbelt agenda. The guy has tunnel vision, and he is proving it by doing EVERYTHING in his power to deny a billionaire a place in his league while accepting con artists and owners whose portfolios disappeared over night last fall. This is all about Bettman being a control freak, from his back end manipulations to his constant lies to the media. Regardless of the good things he has done, he has run the product into the ground. He has been OWNED in every collective bargaining agreement and I for one, cannot wait until he is gone! Edited May 22, 2009 by Wamsley01 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
habs rule Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 Bettman went where he thought the TV deals would be. The reason he is in Phoenix is because it is the 5th most populous city in the US and has a major league footprint. A place like Columbus was a much better decision, outside of Ohio State, it is the only PRO game in town. But this was all about landing a monster TV contract, one which he got in the mid 90s. That and all the extra $$ that the owners received in expansion fees resulted in payroll going through the roof, add in a low CDN $ and he caused the monster problems for Quebec, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Montreal at the turn of the century. He then hides behind the idea that the Jets couldn't find anybody to buy the team, and therefore he was ok with moving it. He was one of the causes behind the Jets demise, a factor that is regulary IGNORED. So when everybody says the Jets couldn't support NHL hockey, it couldn't support the false market the NHL created in the mid 90s. Why in the world was a league with 1/4 of the revenue of the NFL and MLB paying out $10M salaries? This lead to everybody needing a new building with luxury suites and jacking up ticket prices. Bettman created all the problems by expanding to fast. He diluted the talent and destroyed the game, he ripped it from it's grassroots in the hope to create grassroots elsewhere. The whole thought process is bizarre. If you want to sell your product to new markets, why dilute it? Why market the monstrosity of the "dead puck" era? Who the hell wanted to buy that? The only reason the Avs/Stars/Canes had success was because they had great teams. Even the Panthers got an immediate boost out of the gate with an unexpected Cup run in 1996. When the CDN $ rose to a regular level (and .60 US was not a regular level as the CDN $ has traded at above 80 cents US for 40 of the last 50 years) the CDN teams would have been fine without the spike caused by the expansion $$ and big ESPN contract. Bettman is an opportunist, it is no coincidence that he took the opportunity to move the CDN franchises out west and expand his sunbelt agenda. The guy has tunnel vision, and he is proving it by doing EVERYTHING in his power to deny a billionaire a place in his league while accepting con artists and owners whose portfolios disappeared over night last fall. This is all about Bettman being a control freak, from his back end manipulations to his constant lies to the media. Regardless of the good things he has done, he has run the product into the ground. He has been OWNED in every collective bargaining agreement and I for one, cannot wait until he is gone! let us all remember that Gary does not run the NHL he is the face of it. The board of governors approved all the stupid moves you are talking about. Gary is the commissioner not the dictator, in actual fact I would say he has the least power of any commissioner in pro sports. I hate having to sound like i am defending the little prick_ly faced pimp but while he was a factor in these decisions he had no vote. So you need to hate the owners and gm's who seem to all have their collective heads up their asses. At least a majority of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wamsley01 Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 (edited) let us all remember that Gary does not run the NHL he is the face of it. The board of governors approved all the stupid moves you are talking about. Gary is the commissioner not the dictator, in actual fact I would say he has the least power of any commissioner in pro sports. I hate having to sound like i am defending the little prick_ly faced pimp but while he was a factor in these decisions he had no vote. So you need to hate the owners and gm's who seem to all have their collective heads up their asses. At least a majority of them. Isn't that like saying that the CEO of AIG doesn't really make the decisions? That really the shareholders do? He is not a mediator. He doesn't sit at the front of the room and try to extract what the owners want. The owners hired him with a mandate, he then completed the mandate. But I am sure the owners didn't sit down and say "Gary, we want you to inflate salaries through expansion, get a new TV deal, increase exposure to the US markets, and if that costs us all the Canadian teams, then so be it. Do you think he went to the board of governors and said "I have this millionaire who wants to buy the Predators, but I think that I can work some illegal loans between a couple of you, flip the Preds to a fraudulent criminal, then flip the Wild to the owner of the Preds, and then we can move the team to KC." Who needs this guy Balsillie, he is nothing but trouble. Do you think he went to the board and said, In 4 years the salary floor is going to be higher than the top end of the cap this season? He sold them on linkage instead of the flat $45 M the players were going to settle for. He continually SELLS these things to the owners, he told them what they wanted to hear. Just like he sold the markets he expanded to, he sold them on a TV deal that is NEVER going to come, he sold them on 3 collective bargaining agreements that have been exposed as brutal by the players and his OWN owners. Bettman is the sheppard, the owners are his sheep. He takes their greed and manipulates it to meet his agenda. The owners have ZERO vision, you place a cheque under their nose and they don't look 3 years down the road. They were more than happy to cash 9 expansion cheques even though it diluted the talent and destroyed the flow of the game. That decision caused them to have to change the rules 10 years later. These type of decisions are repeated year after year after year. He does answer to them at the end of the day, but this mess is his vision. Edited May 22, 2009 by Wamsley01 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fanpuck33 Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news;_ylt=AnYC...p&type=lgns Looks like the Coyotes are staying, at least for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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