BlackBerry Billionaire Has the N.H.L. Buzzing | Hacker News Reader

BlackBerry Billionaire Has the N.H.L. Buzzing

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21 pointsomnivore14 comments

Balsillie is quite the hokey nut. When I was at RIM, the co-op committee would organize these talks where senior people would talk about what they do, how they got there etc. They were all pretty interesting, except Balsillie's talk, which involved hokey.

Anyway, I'm no hokey fan, but the politics behind this are actually pretty interesting. The NHL commisioner has been in power for a long time and runs the league with a heavy hand, and his primary push over his time has been trying to expand the game to the southern US, which involved moving teams from places like Quebec City and Winnipeg to Phoenix and Nashville. Of course, there is no base for hockey there and so a lot of these teams have very poor attendance and lose lots of money. Due to revenue-sharing, more successful teams have to pay for the loses for less-successful teams, which irritates lots of team owners, who are also governors of the NHL.

Now, Balsillie comes along and tries to buy a team. First The Penguins, then the Predators. The first time he balks after some last-minute addenda to the contract, while the second time he is judged to be too brash and not respectful enough of the established order.

Now comes this attempt. Clearly the Coyotes are a failure of a business - amongst the lowest sales in the league, massive financial loses every year. In order to survive, Bettman must convince team owners (who must approve any move within the league) that his southern strategy is worth perusing, that Balsillie would be an irresponsible and undesirable owner, and that they must keep subsidising the Coyotes for the good of everyone. Balsillie, OTOH, is using three strategies: first bankrupcy court to where he picks up the Coyotes by offering a very good price for a very bad business, second a lawsuit that alleges the NHL promotes anti-competitive practises (trying to keep Hamilton from getting a team, since its close to Toronto and Buffalo) and lastly, appealing to other team owners' business sense, his this move would make the league better off financially.

I think they're going to eventually cave in. The NHL needs any success stories it can cultivate. Copps in Hamilton isn't exactly a modern arena and it would certainly leave Glendale with an empty arena with no major league team in it...and I can understand Bettman not wanting to alienate a market that built a facility for his (poorly thought out) southern strategy, but I think Team Canada will eventually prevail in this one, as to the casual fan, there's little reason to keep teams in places that aren't successful.

I hope it's the domino effect necessary to remove a few other teams in bad markets over the next few years. Couple that with a TV deal that actually makes sense or gives the league more exposure and I think NHL could solidify itself back into somewhat of the mainstream.

It's still more popular than MLS and that's the only fringe threat for 4th major sport status and I doubt that'll change given MLS will never be the home to the best players in the world unless a lot of rich people start buying MLS franchises and decide to turn the league into their version of the EPL.

I've worked in the league offices of Major League Soccer. While it's not one of the big four, all the high executives are from one of the big four.

Balsillie has a number of issues: first, Hamilton's clearly in both the Leaf and Sabre territories. Second, the arena in Arizona is brand new and better than anything in Ontario by a wide margin. Third, even if they were going to move the team, Kansas City has a new arena that's perfect for hockey as well. Fourth, moving a team back to Canada doesn't help get the NHL back on ESPN (which is apparently their "Master Plan" to rebuild the league in the States).

Lookit, as a sports fan, I'm in favor of putting teams where fans want them and can afford them. (i.e. the Jacksonville NFL team is a mistake of incredible proportions.) In particular, it makes more sense for the Coyotes to end up in Hamilton than any of the other teams in the NHL (maybe the Preds). But it's not just Bettman's ego that's keeping a team here in the States. There are all sorts of structural issues at play as well. And we haven't even gotten into the "Balsillie is the Mark Cuban of hockey" argument.

I'm all for moving a team to Kansas City over Hamilton, just given the economics of it, coupled with the whole brand new building in a downtown area thing.

For outsiders of the region, Hamilton is basically a suburb of Toronto. Certainly it is it's own place, but it's fair to say there's a lot of back-and-forth between the two, ie. commuting and fan loyalty. It's also a hour away from Buffalo, so there are ties there as well. They question is, what effect does giving this area a new team have on the league overall. Obviously there are fans there, but these fans are already probably going to games in Toronto and Buffalo. Are they expecting to make fans in the area? That seems unlikely. So you are cutting into the bases of 2 other teams in the league for what?

There are multitudes of under-served fans in the region. Yes they go to Sabres and Leafs games. But the Leafs have the longest waiting list and the highest prices of any team (all while serving up a very sub-par on ice product). Tickets are largely locked up by corporate season ticket holders and the "regular fan" has enormous difficulty obtaining an over-priced ticket. Hockey is, by far, the number one sport. There would be no need whatsoever to create new fans. The existing market would buy anything and everything a new team would be selling.

See, you're thinking from the fans' perspective. That's just about the last thing anyone at the NHL is thinking about. If they let in a Hamilton team, the NHL would be sued so fast by both the Maple Leafs and Sabres. (Yes, franchisees can sue their franchisor.) Territory rights are golden to sports franchises - it's their one sustainable asset, even more valuable than their logo/brand.

Again, the $750 million payment to Glendale, the KC arena, and the desire to be on ESPN are all issues that would have to be resolved before we even get to a territorial rights fight. Balsillie is hoping that bankruptcy court solves these issues - and court certainly does help him overcome these actors - but they're huge, huge issues.

I was just addressing a single issue raised in the prior comment. I was not offering an opinion on the merits of a move or other issues (from any perspective). Of course there are other issues.

(It is not guaranteed the Leafs would sue. NHL territory rights have never been tested in court and it is probably to everyone's benefit that they never are - in order to ensure that value is maintained).

The New York Metro area has 3 teams. All have had varying degrees of success and the Rangers are the dominant team, but New Jersey plays in an arena too close to New York and the Islanders play too far from the city.

The Hamilton-Buffalo connection is overrated. People in Hamilton don't support the Sabres and you see lots of Habs fans there, simply because they hate the Leafs.

Giving them a team would create an instant rivalry and allow fans who have wanted their own team since forever.

It's akin to people saying Devils fans only support the Rangers and Flyers. It's just not true. New Jersey teams don't play close to the majority of the state's population, so fans go where it's easier to get to.

The Newark arena helps that a bit, but there are some problems with that city and people's perceptions, which don't help anyway...plus it's still not close to most of Central Jersey on most game nights.

Hamilton would be successful and it's not going to hurt the Leafs or Sabres, as much as they'd like you to believe.

Southern Ontario could probably support 3 or 4 teams.

The issue is that the NHL wants to expand in the US market, and get more TV contracts there. As a result, they are willing to have teams lose huge amounts of money in garbage hockey markets just to satisfy that.

If you wanted strong teams, move one to Ontario. If you want to lose a whole bunch of money for a while and potentially do better in the US market - continue on this path.

The 5 worst drawing teams in the NHL are: NY Islanders, Atlanta (Expansion), Phoenix (move from Winnipeg), Nashville (expansion) and Colorado (move from Quebec City).

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/attendance

Denver is a saturated 4-team market and a weak link team. None of these teams made the playoffs this year and each has their own endemic problems, but I'd argue that the Islanders probably need a new building, but that's not going to happen most likely. The others suffer from playing non-traditional markets and Colorado is fickle about anything other than Broncos, though they'll support a team like crazy so long as they're winning.

Florida and Columbus are 6th and 7th worst in attendance and both are expansion teams that have had limited success (Florida made the Cup Finals some years ago..but haven't been good since and Columbus get swept from the playoffs this year)

Contraction shouldn't happen, but...moving some teams around to better markets ought to and I think this Coyotes move will open that door.

If they moved them back to Winnipeg the city would go insane. It seems to me that's a potential alternative strategy.

The problem with Winnipeg is that they built a new hockey arena a few years ago and it's too small for NHL attendance standards( it's around 15,000), as well as having problems with it's luxury boxes( not enough and the existing ones have been sold for a price way to low for having a profesional team there).

They did a study to look into expanding the arena but it came out to almost as much as the original stadium.

By almost all accounts NHL hockey will never return to Winnipeg, the facilities and money just aren't there.

I dunno how a little email gadget made him billions.

His research centre is the exciting thing, not the NHL.

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