Twist and turns of Predators soap-opera
 Jim Balsillie TSN.ca Staff
6/28/2007 8:14:33 PM
If you are having trouble trying to make sense of the whole Jim Balsillie-Craig Leipold-Boots Del Biaggio-Gary Bettman-Hamilton-Nashville-Kansas City thing, you are not alone.
Most of this stuff is way beyond my pay grade. I am not as intellectually gifted as some. I don't work for either one of our national newspapers, where they seem to have all the answers all the time on this story. Even if they're occasionally out to lunch.
I mean, when I reported last Friday night on the NHL draft broadcast that Nashville owner Craig Leipold had requested the NHL to no longer consider Research in Motion boss man Jim Balsillie as a prospective owner of the Predators' franchise, I did so because it was my understanding that Leipold was indeed moving in a different direction, even though Leipold put out a crafty little release that suggested he was still open to doing business with Balsillie.
But I had to be wrong about that, I suppose, because when I read both my national newspapers on Saturday, they told me so.
One talked about my "breathless" report and intimated that it was more spinning than reporting, more wishful thinking on the part of the NHL than reality.
The other suggested it was an almost insignificant development prompted only by the desire of Leipold to save some money on legal fees. Much ado about nothing.
Now, like I said, I don't profess to have any of the answers on all of this, never mind all of them, but that legal fee explanation was an absolute beauty. Kind of makes me wonder who's spinning for whom, to be honest.
But I digress.
On Saturday, I suggested on air that this thing could go one of two ways. Either the way our national newspapers had it - Balsillie and Leipold would conclude their sale agreement and Balsillie would battle with the NHL to move the franchise to Hamilton - or the way I had it - that Leipold was only keeping up the appearance of having Balsillie in the picture because he needed the perception of competition as he went out and found himself another buyer for the Predators.
Well, now, look what happened, which only reinforces that theory that even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
The reality now is that Leipold reportedly told Balsillie on Wednesday he is not going to pursue the sale of the Preds any further with him, and has decided instead to negotiate a deal with Williams (Boots) Del Biaggio, a minority owner of the San Jose Sharks who is a pal of Mario Lemieux's and a former part owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins who, in a perfect world, would like to take the Preds' franchise and move it to Kansas City (more on that later).
So now we move into another phase of this pro sports soap opera and poor mooks like me are left to try to make some sense of it.
I suspect my print pals will solve this one incredibly quickly. I figure they will say this is a clear case of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman putting a gun to the head of Leipold and forcing him to take a $40 million or $50 million haircut - Balsillie's reported price for the Preds was $238 million and Del Biaggio's is reportedly between $190 million and $200 million - because the mean, old NHL hates Canada and would rather put a franchise in Kansas City than southern Ontario.
Bastards.
Perhaps that is true. Then again, maybe not. Here's my take as it relates to all involved. Take it for what it's worth:
As it relates to Craig Leipold: In my estimation, Leipold wasn't coerced by the league into potentially taking a lesser offer, he did so because he's a practical man. And if Leipold knew anything, he knew that Balsillie was never going to be approved by the league as the owner of the Predators. Not now. Not ever.
It wasn't always that way. I believe Leipold thought at the outset of his dealings with Balsillie it was possible for Balsillie and the league to find some common ground, but that quickly evaporated when it seemed every move made by Balsillie was an affront to the way the league does business. Leipold said as much in his correspondence to the league last week, when he said, he was "unaware" of Balsillie's singular determination to take the franchise to Hamilton.
Bottom line, Balsillie was not going to get league approval to own the franchise. Forget for a moment whether you think that's the NHL being stupid or Balsillie being brash; just understand it from Leipold's perspective - he was never going to get $238 million from Balsillie.
That check was never going to be cashed. Or if it was, it would only clear after much time-consuming legal wrangling.
So if you're Leipold, do you wait around for $238 million that is coming only in his dreams; or do you move on and take between $190 million and $200 million for a deal that has a somewhat better chance of happening?
Pretty obvious which way you go and that's what Leipold has done. All we know for sure is that he's disconnected as an NHL owner. He wants out
As it relates to William (Boots) Del Biaggio: At face value, there may not be a whole lot of difference between Del Biaggio and Balsillie. Balsillie wants to buy the Preds and move them to Hamilton; Del Biaggio wants to buy the Preds and move them to Kansas City. That is no secret.
But the key here, if Del Biaggio's purchase of Leipold's Preds goes through, is whether Del Biaggio is prepared to follow league protocol on the issue of relocation. In other words, is he going to make a good-faith attempt to live up to whatever terms and conditions exist in Nashville vis a vis a lease etc.
Balsillie most certainly wasn't. He made that clear from the get go.
Del Biaggio, already part of the NHL ownership club, is a lot less likely to make the kind of seismic waves Balsillie was generating, but Del Biaggio's ultimate goal is no different - get the team out of Nashville. Now, a cynic might suggest he won't have to, that the deal for him to take the Preds and move them to Kansas City is already cooked with the NHL.
Only time will tell on that, but, if so, that puts the next individual on the spot.
As it relates to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman: No matter what happens, Bettman is going to come across as the bad guy in Canada on this one. He will be portrayed as the villain who would rather have a franchise in Kansas City than southern Ontario.
But let me ask you this question: If you were Bettman, what would you do when faced with the following scenario?
You have a franchise in Nashville that has shown signs of not being long-term viable but it is not so destitute that it is an absolute foregone conclusion it can't stay there and, more importantly, there are potential legal roadblocks to re-locating the franchise in the short term.
You have a potential owner who wants to yank the team out of there no matter what and ignore all NHL rules and by-laws on the issue of relocation and territorial rights and has effectively declared war on the way the NHL does business.
If you are Bettman, what do you do?
Well, the short answer is you don't make it easy for someone to turn the rules of your league upside down and potentially leave a market with legal issues in the wake. You follow the process. You follow the protocol. To the letter of the law. Each and every rule.
This won't win me many friends north of the border, but this seems to me a lot less about Canada vs. the U.S. and a lot more about the process and who controls what happens in the NHL.
Legal beagle Bettman is nothing if not a slave to process. I don't know that I've ever met a more by-the-book, follow-the-rules kind of guy. He was that way when franchise issues popped up in Edmonton, Ottawa and Buffalo, amongst others, and he is the kind of guy who plays it by the book, which is pretty much the exact opposite of Balsillie.
Now, if Bettman rolls over and plays dead on the process to allow Del Biaggio to easily skate out of Nashville and into Kansas City, I will lead the charge to condemn him. And he will deserve every bit of wrath that comes flying at him from Canada.
But nothing I have seen from Bettman in his time at the league suggests to me he's going to tell Del Biaggio he's free and clear to move the team to K.C., that the Preds aren't going anywhere until whatever obligations are exhausted in Nashville. I don't think the league is crazed about getting into the Kansas City marketplace and certainly not at the expense of following the protocol in Nashville, but I guess we'll find out soon enough whether I'm naive or not.
Now, if that means Del Biaggio could get left holding a franchise long term in Nashville he doesn't want, one of two things will happen. Either Del Biaggio will back out of the deal for that reason or he'll do what Balsillie wasn't prepared to do and take his chances of owning that franchise in Nashville and eventually finding a way to get it where he wants it to go.
As it relates to Jim Balsillie: The man has been a mystery from the outset. He doesn't do interviews, he doesn't talk, he moves in mysterious ways. We are left to guess his motives and intentions.
He's bright. No, make that, he's brilliant. Rich? No kidding.
But his strategy has been curious from the get go. Here's a guy who pissed off a lot of people in the NHL - Mario Lemieux, Bettman et al - because of his dealings with them on the aborted sale of the Pittsburgh Penguins. So he rides into Nashville with an awe-inspiring $238 million offer for a franchise that appears to be worth much less. The league, obviously a little wary of their prior dealings, tells Balsillie that things will go just fine so long as he plays it straight: Do whatever he is legally obliged to in Nashville, which may or may not keep the franchise there long term, and then take things one step at a time after if he has grander designs. Patience. Step by step.
And Balsillie, in a matter of days, goes out and does precisely the opposite. First, it was the announcement of his re-affirming his rights to Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. Then it was announcing the exclusive right to put the NHL in Hamilton and a declaration that Hamilton would be the permanent home, that it wasn't going to be a stop-over destination for the franchise until an arena was built in Kitchener-Waterloo, which immediately suggested Balsillie has no regard whatsoever for the territorial rights of the Toronto Maple Leafs or Buffalo Sabres. And then came word the Competition Bureau, an arm of the federal government, was investigating NHL by-laws on territorial rights and franchise relocation.
Balsillie could not have been more blatant or obvious. He didn't even try to mask his intentions. He was showing no regard whatsoever for the NHL's rules, which is at the very least a curious way to go if the guys who make those rules and have to live by them are the ones who decide whether you get in the club or not.
So there are only two plausible explanations for Balsillie acting this way.
One, Balsillie fervently believed that his excessive offer of $238 million was so impressive that the other club owners couldn't possibly turn him down and that establishing that level of worth for an NHL franchise could be the thin edge of the wedge that would lead to a palace revolt of sorts, where NHL governors would overrule Bettman in his desire to keep Balsillie out.
Or, two, Balsillie never expected to get approved, never expected to close a deal with Leipold and went through this entire song and dance only to establish what it is that he's after and how he was prevented from acting on it by an arbitrary, closed-shop NHL and that the remedy to all of this is a law suit to challenge the very foundation of the NHL on the issue of territorial rights and franchise relocation rules.
If Balsillie were to win that legal challenge, he could buy any NHL franchise he wants and move it to wherever he sees fit, including Hamilton. If he were to lose it, well, that's the way it goes.
It's possible, I suppose, that Balsillie was operating under assumption No. 1 - that he could beat Bettman within the confines of the NHL boardroom - but it seems much more likely the end game is scenario No. 2 - the legal challenge against the league - is where we are ultimately headed.
If not, then the NHL has likely heard the last of Jim Balsillie and, quite frankly, I'm not buying that and I suspect the league feels the same way.
Epilogue: This is an easy story to get caught up in because it preys on everything that makes us Canadian. Altruistic rich guy Canadian wants to take NHL team out of a weak U.S. market that epitomizes, for many, everything that is wrong with the NHL today. And to varying degrees, that may be true.
But, for me, it's more a story about control. Who runs the NHL? Who calls the shots? Who determines where a franchise can be located? An individual owner or the collective of 30 owners, as represented by their commissioner?
For what it's worth, I personally would like to see another NHL franchise in Canada, specifically southern Ontario. I think it's a can't miss proposition, a far better bet than a dozen U.S.-based NHL cities that already have franchises or a bunch (Kansas City, Las Vegas et al) that don't.
But I'm not sure it should be in Hamilton because I think it could have a negative impact on the Buffalo Sabres and as much as I like to wave the flag, I'm not sure a second team in southern Ontario should come at the potential expense of a small-market, American franchise that has battled hard to survive over the least 37 years.
As for the Leafs, it's hard to like the Leafs and fear for them. They are a money-making monolith who have consistently shortchanged their fans for a long, long time, but all that aside, I'm not sure it's anyone's best interests in the league to invade a team's territory without some kind of indemnification, not unlike what the New Jersey Devils paid to the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers once upon a time.
If Balsillie had wanted to buy the Predators franchise, settle up with the city fathers in Nashville to do what was necessary to get the team out of there, wine and dine the league to get the green light to go into Kitchener-Waterloo, staying outside the territorial rights of Buffalo and Toronto, I suspect that in time he would be there with his team. But that's clearly not the plan. Balsillie never wanted to take that chance of getting hung up in Nashville long term; he didn't want to have to finesse his way with Bettman and the other governors to try to get to southern Ontario. He doesn't want to own an NHL team at some point; he wants to own an NHL team in Hamilton now.
Beyond all that, though, we're back to guessing at what happens next.
Well, all I know is this: For the next four days, I'm fully invested in the beast that is NHL free agency. On Monday, I go on a nice, long vacation, where the extent of my involvement in this story will be to "breathlessly" pick up our national newspapers each day and see if they've got it all figured out.
If all goes well, it's all sorted out before I get back. ;-)
|