NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[DTConcepts]

23 hours ago, insert name said:

I've never seen a league so obsessed with saving a franchise in a market that's clearly not working. This is an embarrassment to the franchise and to the league. They should not be this proud moving into a community center. 

 

 

I feel awful for the poor social media intern who's being forced to spin this as a good thing.

[Gary]

1 hour ago, monkeypower said:

 

Ownership group is committed to the market because that's how he can run a gambling business under Arizona state law.

The only thing that he’s doing is a sports betting business. Which I have no problem with. It’s legal and it’s his business to burn to the ground if he wants.

[IceCap]

21 hours ago, rams80 said:

The Coyotes are the perfect loss leader to drag down the cap.  Hopefully the NHL isn't dumb enough to have that written down for the next lockout/strike.

It's written on Gary Bettman's left palm.

[Walk-Off]

On 2/14/2022 at 8:47 PM, Dilbert said:

So when do we start calling them the Quebec Nordiques of Arizona?

 

Personally, I think that the answer is ...

 

23 hours ago, JayMac said:

Unfortunately never because Bettman the Jacobs family will never allow them to go north of the border to Le Centre Vidéotron à Québec or any other arena that is not doing business with that family's precious Delaware North company.

 

FTFY, @JayMac.

 

Seriously, though, I think quite strongly that Jeremy Jacobs and his family -- with their ownership of both the Boston Bruins and food service giant Delaware North and their seeming to have a stubborn, fanatical, childish, greed-drenched, mobster-like vendetta against Le Centre Vidéotron or any other NHL-size hockey venue that either keeps concessions operations in house or outsources concessions work to any competitor to Delaware North -- have been, far and away, the number-one obstacle to any return of the NHL to La Ville de Québec, even more so than such factors as the presumably small size of that market, the French language's preeminence in that city and across the whole province of Québec, the Canadian dollar's inferiority in value to the US dollar, the greed of the respective owners of any currently Canadian-based NHL teams, or even a fear of reducing the value of the NHL's US national television contracts.  Furthermore, I believe that the Jacobses have received far too little attention for their actual or supposed role in making and keeping the one-time home of the Nordiques off limits to any NHL franchise and that Gary Bettman, for all of his miscues and misdeeds as the league's commissioner, has been too much of a fall guy on this matter.  As I see it, the biggest (if not only) thing for which Bettman can and should be blamed with regard to this issue is, like the owners of all of the other teams in the NHL, being too cowardly to pressure the Jacobs family to choose between the Bruins and Delaware North.  (Also, all of the other teams in the NHL could have been protesting the Jacobses' conflict of interest by boycotting Delaware North, but, again, they seem to be too gutless to shun that company.)

 

12 hours ago, monkeypower said:

Ownership group is committed to the market because that's how he can run a gambling business under Arizona state law.

 

11 hours ago, Gary said:

The only thing that he’s doing is a sports betting business. Which I have no problem with. It’s legal and it’s his business to burn to the ground if he wants.

 

In that case, anyone who wants the Coyotes to stay alive and keep playing in the Phoenix area and in the State of Arizona in general had better hope that (a) Arizona's sports betting regulations do not get loosened enough to allow Alex Meruelo to hold a sports betting license in Arizona without owning a professional sports organization in that state, (b) Meruelo does not become the investor / operator of an Arizona-based MLS club, or (c) Meruelo does not buy any other existing Arizona-based pro sports operation that holds or at least qualifies for an Arizona sports betting license.  Should any of those things happen, I think that the Yotes could become very expendable to Meruelo ... and even might be very likely to go out of business.

 

Yes, I am of the opinion that if and when the Coyotes run out of ways to stay in the Phoenix market, their most likely fate would be like that of the Cleveland Barons: The NHL and the Yotes' main owner (whether Alex Meruelo or someone else) agree to fold the franchise, the NHL arranges for (or otherwise helps, or at least allows) the Yotes' main owner to buy one of the remaining teams in the league, and the NHL allows said owner to "merge" the surviving club with the Yotes via a cherry-picking of the best players, coaches, and front-office staff from each of those franchises.

[kiwi_canadian]

2 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

 

Personally, I think that the answer is ...

 

 

FTFY, @JayMac.

 

Seriously, though, I think quite strongly that Jeremy Jacobs and his family -- with their ownership of both the Boston Bruins and food service giant Delaware North and their seeming to have a stubborn, fanatical, childish, greed-drenched, mobster-like vendetta against Le Centre Vidéotron or any other NHL-size hockey venue that either keeps concessions operations in house or outsources concessions work to any competitor to Delaware North -- have been, far and away, the number-one obstacle to any return of the NHL to La Ville de Québec, even more so than such factors as the presumably small size of that market, the French language's preeminence in that city and across the whole province of Québec, the Canadian dollar's inferiority in value to the US dollar, the greed of the respective owners of any currently Canadian-based NHL teams, or even a fear of reducing the value of the NHL's US national television contracts.  Furthermore, I believe that the Jacobses have received far too little attention for their actual or supposed role in making and keeping the one-time home of the Nordiques off limits to any NHL franchise and that Gary Bettman, for all of his miscues and misdeeds as the league's commissioner, has been too much of a fall guy on this matter.  As I see it, the biggest (if not only) thing for which Bettman can and should be blamed with regard to this issue is, like the owners of all of the other teams in the NHL, being too cowardly to pressure the Jacobs family to choose between the Bruins and Delaware North.  (Also, all of the other teams in the NHL could have been protesting the Jacobses' conflict of interest by boycotting Delaware North, but, again, they seem to be too gutless to shun that company.)

 

This!! Jacobs has WAY too much pull in the NHL I think. He's the main reason the NHL  did not allow the Houston Aeros into the NHL when they "expanded" and absorbs the Oilers, Nordiques, Whalers and Jets. I also believe that Jacobs is the real commissioner in the NHL  and Bettman is the puppet and does what ever the Jacobs ownership group says.

[SFGiants58]

All the more reason to hate the Bruins, then.

[Walk-Off]

5 hours ago, kiwi_canadian said:

Jacobs has WAY too much pull in the NHL I think. He's the main reason the NHL  did not allow the Houston Aeros into the NHL when they "expanded" and absorbs the Oilers, Nordiques, Whalers and Jets. I also believe that Jacobs is the real commissioner in the NHL  and Bettman is the puppet and does what ever the Jacobs ownership group says.

 

It seems to me that, for a long time, certain ownership groups within the NHL have had excessively and undeservedly high degrees of power and control over the league's affairs.  I agree that Jeremy Jacobs and his family are at the top of that list ... and I think that a clear but close second are the Chicago Blackhawks' owners, the Wirtz family -- who, ironically, deserve most of the credit for St. Louis getting one of the six franchises added in the NHL's 1967 expansion, but also are worthy of most of the blame for the ongoing lack of an NHL team in Milwaukee via a longstanding demand of a massive territorial rights reparation fee from any NHL club that dares to play in the Milwaukee market.

[chcarlson23]

50 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

All the more reason to hate the Bruins, then.

Yeah that and because of black socks…

[The_Admiral]

4 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

 

It seems to me that, for a long time, certain ownership groups within the NHL have had excessively and undeservedly high degrees of power and control over the league's affairs.  I agree that Jeremy Jacobs and his family are at the top of that list ... and I think that a clear but close second are the Chicago Blackhawks' owners, the Wirtz family -- who, ironically, deserve most of the credit for St. Louis getting one of the six franchises added in the NHL's 1967 expansion, but also are worthy of most of the blame for the ongoing lack of an NHL team in Milwaukee via a longstanding demand of a massive territorial rights reparation fee from any NHL club that dares to play in the Milwaukee market.

 

Bill Wirtz was too old and too drunk to be much of a leaguewide power broker by the time Bettman came in. He screwed with the Bradley family in Milwaukee, but that was about it; the St. Louis arena deal is ancient history. I think it was Ed Snider and Steve Stavro who had to go around Bettman to end the first lockout. Mike Ilitch was always very powerful as well.

 

But you see this across leagues. Jerry Reinsdorf and Ted Turner had a lot of power under Bud Selig. David Stern always had his guys, too: Larry Miller, Bill Davidson, Abe Pollin, Donald Sterling -- the ones who didn't try to throw their weight around individually and were good soldiers for the commissioner (which, in this case, excludes Reinsdorf and Turner, who were always trying to go into business for themselves).

[habsfan1]

On 2/14/2022 at 8:07 PM, insert name said:

I've never seen a league so obsessed with saving a franchise in a market that's clearly not working. This is an embarrassment to the franchise and to the league. They should not be this proud moving into a community center. 

 

 

Only 5000 seats.

 

The Nordiques and Jets get one teeny tiny little setback and they're immediately gone from the NHL.

 

This is a shot of a game of Quebec City's minor league franchise:

 

[Walk-Off]

On 2/16/2022 at 8:01 PM, the admiral said:

Bill Wirtz was too old and too drunk to be much of a leaguewide power broker by the time Bettman came in. He screwed with the Bradley family in Milwaukee, but that was about it; the St. Louis arena deal is ancient history. I think it was Ed Snider and Steve Stavro who had to go around Bettman to end the first lockout. Mike Ilitch was always very powerful as well.

 

To add to my own list of hyper-powerful owners of NHL franchises, I have thought for a long time that the Phildelphia Flyers' ultimate parent company, Comcast, had even more clout than did the Jacobs family during the sixteen seasons (2005-06 through 2020-21) that it held at least the cable part of the NHL's US national television rights.  In addition to the Flyers and those national cable rights, Comcast owned the respective regional cable TV outlets for the Flyers, the Washington Capitals, the Chicago Blackhawks, the San José Sharks, and even US simulcasts of Sportsnet Pacific's coverage of some Vancouver Canucks games.  Also, Comcast sponsored many US-based NHL teams that were not carried by Comcast-owned regional channels, but did play in areas where Comcast was the local cable provider.

 

I think that Comcast's influence on the NHL was particularly evident between September 2009 and the middle of March 2010, when a contract dispute caused Comcast's national cable outlet for NHL games, then known as Versus, to be absent from DirecTV.  The NHL was openly encouraging the public to pressure DirecTV to re-add Versus, but the league did not make any similar request to the public to convince Versus to deal more amicably with DirecTV.  That situtation indicated to me rather strongly that Comcast's leverage with the NHL far exceeded the NHL's leverage with Comcast.

 

Finally, of course, Comcast's pull with the NHL reached its apparent peak in 2011, when the company gained majority ownership of NBC, who already held the over-the-air portion of the NHL's US national TV rights ... and Comcast then secured a ten-season-long extension of both the NBC over-the-air network's NHL rights and the cable NHL rights held by what would become known as the NBC Sports Network, or NBCSN for short.  Therefore, when the NHL reached its current US national TV deal with Disney / ABC / ESPN and AT&T / WarnerMedia / Turner, I was very shocked.  That decision by the league came across to me as very much an "Oh, how the mighty have fallen!" situation for Comcast.

[who do you think]

On 2/16/2022 at 7:18 AM, Walk-Off said:

Seriously, though, I think quite strongly that Jeremy Jacobs and his family -- with their ownership of both the Boston Bruins and food service giant Delaware North and their seeming to have a stubborn, fanatical, childish, greed-drenched, mobster-like vendetta against Le Centre Vidéotron or any other NHL-size hockey venue that either keeps concessions operations in house or outsources concessions work to any competitor to Delaware North -- have been, far and away, the number-one obstacle to any return of the NHL to La Ville de Québec, even more so than such factors as the presumably small size of that market, the French language's preeminence in that city and across the whole province of Québec, the Canadian dollar's inferiority in value to the US dollar, the greed of the respective owners of any currently Canadian-based NHL teams,

 

I mean that definitely could be a factor, because it's Norris House League levels of petty and we all know this never really stopped being the Norris House League. But I think the real explanation is just typical tail-wagging-the-dog NHL bulls**t. They need a "safe" hockey market like Quebec City on ice in case one of their multiple existing trouble franchises** finally flatlines and can't be revived, but instead of turning one of these hapless teams into a self-sustaining operation that can actually fill their arena while being the only show in town, thereby crossing them off the recurring-headache list, the owners want these other 5th-team-in-a-4-team-market franchises to keep existing for as long as some sleezeball is willing to bankroll them, because muh salary cap and muh escrow manipulation, even though I don't see any of the other (much more successful) major leagues keeping sham franchises afloat for the sole purpose of saving a few bucks on salary cap manipulation, money that surely just comes right back out of their pockets whenever one of their marks gives back the keys and their financially insolvent team defaults to being league-owned. The closest thing is the NFL/NBA keeping LA/Seattle vacant for so long to try and bully other cities into building new taxpayer-funded stadiums, but fan support has never been the issue in those cases. The NHL owners galaxy-braining to try and screw the players out of $50  by keeping multiple franchises on the verge of financial ruin is on a different plane.

 

**Coyotes being number one for obvious reasons, Panthers being number two since fan interest appears to be as sparse as ever and I believe we're creeping up on an opt-out date for the arena lease, the Senators in third place for turning their own fanbase against them due to becoming a mashup of the Jail Blazers and Maloof era Sacramento Kings, Hurricanes fourth for being Panthers lite (Weren't they this close to having the trucks backed up a few years ago?), Houston being an instant candidate if the league is dumb enough to try and force a displaced team there first.

 

(I know this all been covered ad nauseum, I just have too much coffee in me and felt like summarizing the state of the game as I understand it)

 

On 2/16/2022 at 7:18 AM, Walk-Off said:

or even a fear of reducing the value of the NHL's US national television contracts.

 

This has always been a cope by sunbelt defenders. None of the NHL's national TV partners have ever or will ever even begin give a damn about the Coyotes, Panthers, etc. NBC didn't care about losing the Thrashers. If anything, the Canadian teams don't want to cut another slice out of their TV contracts. One reason why the Senators may be Quebec City's best chance.

[The_Admiral]

16 hours ago, who do you think said:

Hurricanes fourth for being Panthers lite (Weren't they this close to having the trucks backed up a few years ago?)

 

Yeah, they were on the ropes at the end of Karmanos's ownership, but now their fans are considered hockey's cultural elite and we'll never be rid of them. 

[SFGiants58]

3 minutes ago, the admiral said:

 

Yeah, they were on the ropes at the end of Karmanos's ownership, but now their fans are considered hockey's cultural elite and we'll never be rid of them. 

I told you to quit r/hockey and HFBoards. They do to you what Mike Tyson did to Mitch “Blood” Green.

[Wings2]

Kind of fitting that Carolina & Florida lead their divisions. OITGDNHL. 

[spartacat_12]

On 2/20/2022 at 1:35 AM, who do you think said:

This has always been a cope by sunbelt defenders. None of the NHL's national TV partners have ever or will ever even begin give a damn about the Coyotes, Panthers, etc. NBC didn't care about losing the Thrashers. If anything, the Canadian teams don't want to cut another slice out of their TV contracts. One reason why the Senators may be Quebec City's best chance.

 

There's not a chance the Sens are going anywhere. If Melnyk decides he finally wants to sell the team, or the league forces him to, there are plenty of potential buyers who would keep the team in Ottawa. And the league would also block any attempt from Melnyk to relocate the team on his own.

 

Ottawa is the 4th largest Canadian market, has one of the highest median household incomes in the country, and has a lot more corporate dollars than QC. The lack of competent ownership & a downtown arena is all that is holding them back, and Bettman knows this.

[The_Admiral]

A southern city plus an arena with a Delaware North contract and Gary would drive the U-Haul to Atlanta/Houston himself

[monkeypower]

The Coyotes, their players and the NHLPA met to discuss the move.

 

Quote

Elliotte Friedman explained what was discussed in the meeting during Saturday's 32 Thoughts segment on Hockey Night in Canada and said Mathieu Schneider, special assistant to NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, was also in attendance.

 

"I was told by a couple of people that it was a really blunt meeting," Friedman said. "The players asked a lot of pointed questions about how we’ve gotten to this point and how the future is going to work for the Coyotes.

 

"Xavier Gutierrez, who is the team’s president and CEO, answered the questions, and I heard he was pretty honest. As much as he could answer the questions — because I still think there are still a lot of unknowns — he answered them and tried to address the players’ questions as much as he could, but the bottom line here is they still don’t have a lot of answers."

 

Although Friedman doesn't believe the NHLPA could block the team's move to ASU's arena, which is a much smaller venue with a capacity of only 5,000 seats, the lack of transparency between the team and players about the situation has Schneider concerned.

 

"One of the things Schneider indicated was, look, 90 per cent of these players aren’t going to be in the Coyotes lineup when the new building is ready, should it get built," Friedman said. "Secondly, the thing he said was, look, they feel really in the dark, and if you don’t build a rapport with these players now, it won’t matter if you get a new building built because the reputation will be out that you keep your players in the dark.

 

"I heard Gutierrez got the message and I think that he’s going to answer all the questions that he possibly can, but it was really just a tough meeting between the Coyotes and the players, and it’s pretty clear the players feel that they don’t like the situation and they just wish there were a lot of better answers they can get towards it."

 

[Brian in Boston]

On 2/16/2022 at 4:18 AM, Walk-Off said:

I think quite strongly that Jeremy Jacobs and his family -- with their ownership of both the Boston Bruins and food service giant Delaware North and their seeming to have a stubborn, fanatical, childish, greed-drenched, mobster-like vendetta against Le Centre Vidéotron or any other NHL-size hockey venue that either keeps concessions operations in house or outsources concessions work to any competitor to Delaware North -- have been, far and away, the number-one obstacle to any return of the NHL to La Ville de Québec, even more so than such factors as the presumably small size of that market, the French language's preeminence in that city and across the whole province of Québec, the Canadian dollar's inferiority in value to the US dollar, the greed of the respective owners of any currently Canadian-based NHL teams, or even a fear of reducing the value of the NHL's US national television contracts.  Furthermore, I believe that the Jacobses have received far too little attention for their actual or supposed role in making and keeping the one-time home of the Nordiques off limits to any NHL franchise and that Gary Bettman, for all of his miscues and misdeeds as the league's commissioner, has been too much of a fall guy on this matter.  As I see it, the biggest (if not only) thing for which Bettman can and should be blamed with regard to this issue is, like the owners of all of the other teams in the NHL, being too cowardly to pressure the Jacobs family to choose between the Bruins and Delaware North.  (Also, all of the other teams in the NHL could have been protesting the Jacobses' conflict of interest by boycotting Delaware North, but, again, they seem to be too gutless to shun that company.)

The last time I checked, and I'll admit that it was probably four or five seasons ago, Delaware North only handled concessions operations management in the home venues of six National Hockey League franchises: the Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings, Nashville Predators, and Tampa Bay Lightning. Since then, the company has added UBS Arena and Climate Pledge Arena - respectively, homes to New York Islanders and Seattle Kraken - to their portfolio of concessions management contracts in arena's that house NHL teams. So, the company has concessions operations contracts with eight NHL arenas. That hardly represents a stranglehold on the hearts, minds, and pursestrings of the other NHL franchise-owners. The likes of companies like Aramark and Levy are probably neck-and-neck with Delaware North when it comes to the number of concessions operations contracts they hold at arenas playing host to NHL squads.

Far be it from me to sing the praises of the Jacobs Family. Frankly, I think their oversight of the Bruins has bordered on the edge of benign neglect for too much of their ownership tenure in Boston. That said, I think the theory that behind-the-scenes machinations on the part of the Jacobs clan "have been, far and away, the number-one obstacle to" a return of an NHL franchise to Quebec City borders on being the textbook definition of a conspiracy theory. After all, a cursory examination would seem to indicate that at least 75% of the NHL's  current ownership groups aren't actively employing Delaware North's services in the realm of concessions operations management. Short of refusing to allow their teams to take the ice against the Bruins in competitive games, I don't know how said team owners are supposed to force the Jacobs family to sell their NHL franchise.

Bottom line? It's likely that multiple  NHL owners/ownership groups aren't enthusiastic about the prospect of placing a franchise in Quebec City... and, quite possibly, for multiple reasons. Frankly, if a majority of NHL owners were convinced that placing a team in the market would increase the popularity and profitability of the league -and, by extension, their own financial bottom-lines - there would be an NHL franchise taking to the ice at Centre Videotron right now. The notion that a single team's ownership group has had a stooge lackey in the commissioner's office and all of the 29 other NHL ownership groups under their sway on the issue of expansion to Quebec City since May of 1995 seems far-fetched.

Is it frustrating that the league has bent over backwards to preserve professional hockey in the Phoenix market while ignoring the presence of a state-of-the-art arena in a hockey-mad municipality for the past 21-plus years? Absolutely. That said, I sincerely doubt that Jeremy Jacobs et fils are orchestrating said NHL boycott of Quebec City.         

   

[IceCap]

3 hours ago, Brian in Boston said:

Bottom line? It's likely that multiple  NHL owners/ownership groups aren't enthusiastic about the prospect of placing a franchise in Quebec City... and, quite possibly, for multiple reasons.

Like the multiple reasons you insisted meant the NHL would never return to Winnipeg?