It basically summarizes that the reason for many teams losing money is not because of the previous CBA, but because of the owners own actions. I, of course, understand there are some holes in his arguments, but I generally agree with most of it.
One thing I never understood is why there are so many hockey teams in the Southen states. Two in Florida still boggles my mind. I know some of the small markets teams have other sports (like Phoenix w/ Cards and Suns) so Hey! why not throw in Hockey because sports fans will just flock to a sport they know nothing about. Is that the logic they thought of when making that business decision? I assume that more people play hockey in the colder states than in the warm ones. Sounds crazy, I know, but it has to be relatively true right? And if kids are not playing the sport and not growing up with it, then why do we expect them to jump to arenas to watch pro hockey? I don't get it! I know I'm dumbing this down too much, but I feel like that is the root cause. The Leafs has been bad for several years now, yet I want to say Toronto is most valuable franchise (Rangers were 2nd) from the last Forbes ranking I saw during the past season. What does that tell us?
I don't get it! I know I'm dumbing this down too much, but I feel like that is the root cause.
d3xd3x, I don't think you're dumbing it down at all. To me it's perfectly logical to draw that very simple conclusion. In my opinion, it's Bettman's greed (and whoever else's) that blinded them to COMMON SENSE. They expanded the league to small markets and now claim they're losing money. Gee, what a surprise!
The league expanded too quickly to begin with, and mostly to southern climates. I call this "Bettman's Folly". That's what you get when you hire a league president that knows nothing about the sport or its fans. He's a lawyer, and despite what he says I doubt he ever had interest in any sports. He's the kid that struck out in kickball. He was hired specifically to expand the league in raise revenue and it backfired in the owners faces. Everybody knows he's their sock puppet, the guy who takes the boos for the owners while doing their bidding.
If the players won't accept salary rollbacks, as they shouldn't, the answer is contraction, relocation, or both.
Problem is, the NHLPA is against contraction and losing players jobs. And hiring Donald Fehr, who has no problem shutting down a pro league or two, was a show of players' willingness to sit out another season.
And almost all involved are multi millionaires. The only losers are the fans.
