NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[Brian in Boston]

On 2/27/2022 at 8:37 PM, IceCap said:

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

 

My thinking was always that it would take a Jeff Bezos/Bill Gates-like figure to pour money into an NHL-to-Winnipeg bid in order for it to come to fruition. Winnipeg local hero Mark Chipman - himself worth a mere half-billion dollars - was able to convince one of the planet's wealthiest people to do just that. Enter media and real estate mogul David Thomson to pony-up some of his $25 billion net worth to make said venture a reality. It strikes me that the primary reasons that the NHL returned to Winnipeg were Mark Chipman's passion and personality, plus David Thomson's mega-wealth. It also didn't hurt that the nearest NHL franchise to Winnipeg was located 391 miles away - as the crow flies - in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Contrast this scenario with that which currently exists in Quebec City.

There, Pierre Karl Peladeau has been heading up the crusade to return NHL hockey to La Vieille Capitale. The problem is that Peladeau is a man as arrogant, brash, and confrontational as Mark Chipman is self-effacing. Further, while Peladeau's $1.7 billion worth is certainly nothing to sneeze at, it pales in comparison to the type of financial heft that the likes of David Thomson brings to the table. There's also the pesky fact that Quebec City is located a mere 143 miles from Montreal, home to the third-most-valuable franchise in the NHL, the Montreal Canadiens.

Said team is owned by the Molson family and headed up by Geoff Molson. If there's an NHL owner who one could convince me wants to keep Quebec City bereft of top-tier pro hockey, it would be Geoff Molson. For starters, he and his family would like nothing better than to protect their pro sports business from an intra-provincial competitor.  Further, Pierre Karl Peladeau and Geoff Molson have loathed one another ever since the former lost the 2009 bidding war to purchase Les Habitants to the latter... and subsequently elected to publicly note his regret that the Canadiens former owner George Gillett had placed financial considerations (the Molson family's money) ahead of true Québécois identity (as represented by Peladeau) when settling upon a buyer for the storied franchise.

For these reasons, I'm of the opinion that comparing the NHL's return to Winnipeg with the potential return of a franchise in said circuit to Quebec City is a bit like comparing apples and carburetors. The devil is in the details and there are enough differences between the two scenarios to convince me that NHL owners could find their way to two completely different final outcomes. 

A final thought. The majority of modern pro sports owners make decisions for a multitude of reasons,  but those reasons almost always have the same bottom-line: protecting what they perceive to be their own individual interests. What can appear from the outside to be a unified front arrived at by pragmatic consensus-building can just as easily be 30 or 32 individual owners (depending upon the league) all arriving at the same final decision for different, self-serving reasons.  

[IceCap]

14 hours ago, Brian in Boston said:

pales in comparison to the type of financial heft that the likes of David Thomson brings to the table

That's the only thing that really matters here, because David Thomson had to threaten Bettman and the NHL with being locked out of every financial institution in English Canada to get them to consent with moving the Thrashers. 

 

Frankly Quebecer doesn't have that sort of leverage. 

 

Which is why the Coyotes are getting ready to play in front of sub-ECHL-level crowds instead of moving to QC to play in front of a packed NHL-sized arena ever night. 

 

14 hours ago, Brian in Boston said:

For these reasons, I'm of the opinion that comparing the NHL's return to Winnipeg with the potential return of a franchise in said circuit to Quebec City is a bit like comparing apples and carburetors. The devil is in the details and there are enough differences between the two scenarios to convince me that NHL owners could find their way to two completely different final outcomes. 

I'll be frank. You spent years telling me and others here why the NHL would never exceed six Canadian teams again. And through a confluence of circumstances you were proven wrong. 

 

Now that the clear financial advantages of Winnipeg over Atlanta as a NHL market have been made clear, I'd just like to say that the constant shilling for the NHL, their idiocy, and their disrespect for the game's most devoted fans is getting old. 

[Brian in Boston]

23 hours ago, IceCap said:

I'd just like to say that the constant shilling for the NHL, their idiocy, and their disrespect for the game's most devoted fans is getting old. 

I don't shill for anyone, least of all the billionaires and millionaires occupying the owners' suites and executive offices of professional sports leagues. I simply leave my emotional reactions to what occurs in the world of sports to what transpires on the court, the field, or the rink. As for the business of sports, I elect to discuss that subject from an emotional distance.

To my mind, the matter of the National Hockey League's expansion or relocation of franchises to Canadian markets falls firmly within the parameters of the business of sports. Team owners are businessmen. Team owners make decisions concerning their franchises - and the leagues that said teams play in - based upon what they believe will most benefit their own individual bottom line. If that happens to sync with the interests of their fellow owners, so be it. However, it strikes me that said alignment of interests is often a happy accident. Self-interest rules all. Cynical? Sure. What of it? This is the real world... and the age of the gentleman sportsman operating a pro sports team as part of a public trust is, unfortunately, over.

Here's the reality. The NHL's reluctance to return top-tier pro ice hockey to Quebec City is considered by the league's owners and executives to be a business decision. The league's owners - all of them, including those who own and operate the Canadian-based franchises - apparently aren't inclined to return NHL hockey to Quebec City. After all, when the league deferred Quebecor's expansion bid for Quebec City in 2016, the vote to do so was unanimous.

Why was that last vote unanimous? I'd wager it's because each team's owner asked themselves how returning  NHL hockey to Quebec City would concretely benefit their bottom line... and not just in the short-term (a share of the expansion fee), but over the long haul. I further suspect that Geoff Molson shared his concerns for how allowing an ownership group (with ties to an individual he loathed no less) to set up shop just 143 miles from his Montreal Canadiens had the potential to cut into his bottom line. Which had the knock-on effect of causing all of the other NHL owners to ponder how they would want the vote to go down if expansion or relocation to a market within what they perceived to be their team's territory was suddenly on the docket. In short, they each  voted with an eye towards protecting what they perceived to be in their own best interest.

Might the attitude of current NHL owners towards Quebec City as a market change? Only time will tell. What will it take to change the minds of each owner who voted against returning NHL hockey to Quebec City last go-around? Who knows? However, given that the last vote was - as noted - 30-to-0 against, it would seem there's going to have to be a profound change in owner sentiment on the subject. 

My take on this issue has nothing to do with shilling. And you won't find me arguing against the notion that the NHL's ownership and executive ranks are chock-full of idiots. That said, if you're waiting for a modern pro sports owner in any league - the NHL most definitely included - to muster up respect for the devoted fans of his/her particular sport... well, that's likely going to be an awfully long wait. You, I, and all of the other sports fans out there are just cogs in the machine that is the modern pro sports industry.

"[T]heir disrespect for the game's most devoted fans is getting old." I don't disagree with you, but I fear that you presuming that today's pro sports owners and executives consistently give a fig for such a quaint notion is setting yourself up for disappointment.              


   

[throwuascenario]

On 2/20/2022 at 5:43 PM, 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. 

Fixed.

 

For real though, the Hurricanes were never even close. Their lease wasn't supposed to end until 2024 (since extended to 2029). Even at their worst, they sold out weekends. There are exactly 2 US teams in the NHL that will fill the stands no matter how bad the team is. The Bruins and the Rangers. Give any other team a 9 year playoff drought and they'll give you the same crowds the Hurricanes had.

[CS85]

 

[Crabcake]

44 minutes ago, CS85 said:

 

Every day The Onion becomes more and more of a reputable news source. 

[spartacat_12]

 

For anyone who doesn't have an Athletic subscription, here are some highlights:

• Melnyk was frequently intoxicated at games, to the point that staff members would try to keep him away from the cameras & the dressing room. After being eliminated by the Ducks in the 07 Cup Final, he tried to give a reassuring speech to the players in the room, but was all over the place. He claimed he used to be a goalie and started miming saves, and apparently didn't recognize most of the players, aside from stars like Alfredsson, Spezza, and Heatley.
• When Alfredsson left to sign with Detroit, Melnyk openly called him a prick & an a**hole when the front office discussed how to handle his departure. He didn't want the team promoting Alfie's first game back in Ottawa, and suggested tripling the ticket prices for that game.
• In 2019 the team released a marketing campaign for their Valentine's Day game using the slogan "Love is Love", which featured images of same-sex couples embracing each other. Melnyk was not consulted about this beforehand, and snapped on the executives who were behind it. Melnyk sneered at the images and derided the campaign: “We are the laughing stock of the NHL right now!” Melnyk’s rant continued, lumping in previous marketing efforts involving pet rescue missions: “They think we are so desperate that we have to advertise to gays now. Dogs and gays.”
• Also that year, Melnyk sent a threatening email to a female employee who had not responded immediately to an email Melnyk sent her. When she finally wrote back, reminding Melnyk she was on a scheduled vacation, he responded in all caps: “YOU :censored:ING C – – T – WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? WHEN I SAY CALL YOU DO IT. WHEN I TELL YOU TO DO SOMETHING YOU DO IT. YOU ARE DONE!”
• During “Blackout Tuesday” not long after the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota in May 2020, Melnyk sent an email to some senior staffers instructing them not to post a blank black page that many teams had posted in support of Black Lives Matter: “No social media today. People are posting completely black pages and it is some type of social distress that is causing this,” he wrote. “Let’s just not post anything today, but I would not bother posting a black screen. Check to see whether any other NHL team is doing it.” This didn't sit well with Anthony Duclair who was the team's lone black player at the time.
• Front office staff made several comments about the toxic nature of the workplace. Compensation was referred to as "a grey area" and "a crapshoot every year". Melnyk would sometimes hand out bonuses at his sole discretion and create arbitrary reasons to justify withholding them. CEO Jim Little was fired less than a year into the job after apparently getting into a heated discussion with Melnyk.

[The_Admiral]

29 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

Dogs and gays.

 

Name a more iconic duo, I'll wait

[CS85]

REDACTED

Fellow mods, feel free to take this down if it's in too poor taste.

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by IceCap
probably for the best to not go there

[IceCap]

18 hours ago, CS85 said:

 

This Arizona Coyotes crap has been going on for so long that G-d Himself is sending plagues to try and stop the madness.

[DEAD!]

1 hour ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

For anyone who doesn't have an Athletic subscription, here are some highlights:

• Melnyk was frequently intoxicated at games, to the point that staff members would try to keep him away from the cameras & the dressing room. After being eliminated by the Ducks in the 07 Cup Final, he tried to give a reassuring speech to the players in the room, but was all over the place. He claimed he used to be a goalie and started miming saves, and apparently didn't recognize most of the players, aside from stars like Alfredsson, Spezza, and Heatley.
• When Alfredsson left to sign with Detroit, Melnyk openly called him a prick & an a**hole when the front office discussed how to handle his departure. He didn't want the team promoting Alfie's first game back in Ottawa, and suggested tripling the ticket prices for that game.
• In 2019 the team released a marketing campaign for their Valentine's Day game using the slogan "Love is Love", which featured images of same-sex couples embracing each other. Melnyk was not consulted about this beforehand, and snapped on the executives who were behind it. Melnyk sneered at the images and derided the campaign: “We are the laughing stock of the NHL right now!” Melnyk’s rant continued, lumping in previous marketing efforts involving pet rescue missions: “They think we are so desperate that we have to advertise to gays now. Dogs and gays.”
• Also that year, Melnyk sent a threatening email to a female employee who had not responded immediately to an email Melnyk sent her. When she finally wrote back, reminding Melnyk she was on a scheduled vacation, he responded in all caps: “YOU :censored:ING C – – T – WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? WHEN I SAY CALL YOU DO IT. WHEN I TELL YOU TO DO SOMETHING YOU DO IT. YOU ARE DONE!”
• During “Blackout Tuesday” not long after the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota in May 2020, Melnyk sent an email to some senior staffers instructing them not to post a blank black page that many teams had posted in support of Black Lives Matter: “No social media today. People are posting completely black pages and it is some type of social distress that is causing this,” he wrote. “Let’s just not post anything today, but I would not bother posting a black screen. Check to see whether any other NHL team is doing it.” This didn't sit well with Anthony Duclair who was the team's lone black player at the time.
• Front office staff made several comments about the toxic nature of the workplace. Compensation was referred to as "a grey area" and "a crapshoot every year". Melnyk would sometimes hand out bonuses at his sole discretion and create arbitrary reasons to justify withholding them. CEO Jim Little was fired less than a year into the job after apparently getting into a heated discussion with Melnyk.

Basically Melnyk was just one of the guys...

[heavybass]

Just waiting for the new owner to relocate the Sens to Quebec.... Ottawa deserves closure.

[DTConcepts]

I knew Melnyk was a s#!t owner, I guess it helps knowing he was a s#!t person too.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

5 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

Name a more iconic duo, I'll wait

 

Nuts and gum, duh.

[The_Admiral]

4 hours ago, IceCap said:

This Arizona Coyotes crap has been going on for so long that G-d Himself is sending plagues to try and stop the madness.

 

The Lord's staff will transform the Gila River into blood (and then they'll skate on it). 

EDIT: I missed Ten Commandments on ABC?!? It was on last Saturday?!? Why?

[LMU]

As similar as the story arcs are, I don't think Yul Brynner can pull off Gary Bettman.

[LMU]

 

[IceCap]

They have the gall to ask for $89, at minimum, for people to see the Arizona Coyotes?

 

 

Sure, let's move the Coyotes into an arena that seats 5,100 people- after threatening Winnipeg with relocation on day one for having an arena that seats 15,000- and charge luxury lifestyle brand prices for tickets for a team that both sucks and has historically had a hard time drawing. That'll do it! 

 

So much better then just letting them play in a modern NHL-calibre arena in Quebec City. 

[who do you think]

Forget Quebec City... moving 1/5 of the home slate from Gila River to Saskatoon's 15,000 seater was a completely unacceptable idea because muh optix, but this is okay.

[Sport]

Those prices are probably in line with lower bowl seats throughout the league, but when you're playing in an arena that is only the lower half of a lower bowl then you can't price things the same way.

 

It's going to be really embarrassing when they still don't fill it.