ESPN – Burnside: Did Bettman tell Preds to back off Balsillie talks? – NHL

ESPN – Burnside: Did Bettman tell Preds to back off Balsillie talks? – NHL:

Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie has accused NHL commissioner Gary Bettman of forcing the owner of the Nashville Predators to break off discussions about the sale of the team to Balsillie, ESPN.com has learned.

The Canadian ownership group also alleges Bettman directed Predators owner Craig Leipold to focus on closing a deal with William “Boots” Del Biaggio III, who is the front man for a group trying to bring an NHL team to Kansas City.

“We were advised by Mr. Leipold that the commissioner had found out about the existence of the negotiations and ordered him to immediately cease any further communications with us,” Balsillie’s legal representative, Richard Rodier, told ESPN.com this week.

Maybe Bettman did. Maybe he didn’t. Probably did, but not in the way Balsillie is portraying it.

In this case, I tend to side with Bettman, also. It’s no secret that Balsillie’s intending to move Nashville — no matter what the league wants — to Hamilton. it’s been clear since early on that he’s not unwilling to try the “Al Davis” gambit, either, of basically moving the team and throwing it into the courts and seeing how much money he can cost the league along the way.

So, if you’re Gary Bettman, and you’re hearing from the Board of Governors about it, OF COURSE you’re going to go to Leipold and say “hey, this guy’s not going to be approved, don’t bother”. Remember: Leipold owns the team and can sell to anyone he wants, but the buyer has to be approved by the league for the sale to finalize. If the league’s decided that’s not going to happen, the right thing to do is tell Leipold so he can stop wasting time on something that’s going to be tossed out.

The scenarios for the league to get into nasty legal fights here is just stunning. Which lawsuit do you want the league to be involved in? the one where Balsillie sues the NHL for rejecting his purchase? The one where Balsillie sues the NHL for rejecting his move to Hamilton? Or the one where Bailsillie sues the NHL for having moved the Predators ANYWAY and trying to force the NHL to accept it?

The league doesn’t need this kind of fun. And that, I think, is the message Bettman took to Nashville. And he should have. Of course, so many folks want to see Bettman as the root cause of all of the league’s real and perceived problems — but in reality, he’s the messenger for the Board of Governors, and I think it’s clear the Governors decided the Balsillie was nothing but trouble and decided he wasn’t going to be approved, no matter what. And that’s their privilege, as the owners of the league.

Many players have told ESPN.com they believe a new team in Hamilton would generate significantly more revenue than a team in Kansas City. Governors and GMs have told ESPN.com in the past year they believe a second team in Southern Ontario would be a surefire success. Phoenix Coyotes coach Wayne Gretzky, still one of hockey’s most influential figures, recently said he thought a team in Hamilton would be a success.

This, of course, is actually irrelevant, and when did the players become better businessmen than the owners, anyway? or sit down and study the deal and the numbers?

Ultimately, I think Balsillie blew it here. He could have played the game, made all of the proper noises about nashville, and structured it to make sure he could break the lease — heck, given how low the average ticket price is in Nashville, he could use the “we have to run this as a business” argument, jumped the ticket prices 20% in two seasons, killed the season ticket sales and be in Hamilton in four years.

But instead, he opened up ticket sales in Hamilton before actually owning the team — and made it clear what his intentions were and what he intended to do, with or without league support. His history of solving things with lawyers is well-known. And that — ultimately, his lack of patience for playing out the end game in Nashville — is what killed his chance of owning an NHL team. At this point, he’s never going to get one, and his continuing attempts to badger the league is only going to hurt his chances further, not help them. He’s going to win the battle for the hearts of Canadians — and lose the war, which is getting a team into Southern Ontario.

I’m not surprised at this, either. That’s his style. And the league clearly doesn’t want a team in Hamilton at this point. Not only will the Leafs never go for that (and don’t minimize the power of the #1 revenue team — and revenue sharing contributor — and their ability to convince other teams to support them here), but I’m sure Buffalo wasn’t thrilled, either. If you start looking at realignment if Nashville moves to Hamilton, and how that affects team travel issues, you can easily find six or seven teams that would see Hamilton as a really bad thing; say, everyone west of St. Louis has a reason not to encourage this.

I’m wondering, in retrospect, whether the league tossed an olive branch at Balsillie and had it trampled. Remember back around the All-Star game where Bettman suddenly came out and talked about how Winnipeg was starting to look attractive to the league? I’m now wondering whether this was the start of an attempt to encourage Balsillie that if he really wanted to move a team to Canada, that the league wouldn’t get in the way of a move to Winnipeg. That would be a useful compromise position for both sides: the team moves back to Canada, but not to Southern Ontario.

Balsillie pretty clearly rejected that; he wants what he wants, and isn’t interested in what might be the interests of the rest of the league. And that’s why the league has decided that his money’s no good here. Think about it: Balsillie has never tried to work with the league to find common ground. He negotiated with Leipold in secret, he started the move to Hamilton early and without permission, he brought lawyers and threats about the possible move into the discussion, and now that he’s been frozen out, he’s playing the “let’s fight in public” game to try to make the league and Bettman look as bad as possible.

Imagine being one of the other 29 owners of an NHL team and having to work with this guy for the next ten years. Is that the kind of owner you want around? Money isn’t everything, and while the various owners aren’t necessarily friends, or even friendly competitors, there HAS to be some common ground of cooperation for the good of the league. Seen any inidication that Balsilie recognizes that (or cares) anywhere? Neither do I.

So in this case, the league is right to exclude someone like Balsillie. Hey, for all Mark Cuban rips on the NBA and the league — he’s doing it to improve the league, and he works within the league to get it done. You can’t even say Balsillie would be that cooperative.

In other words, he’s not Mark Cuban. He’s not even Charlie Finley. he’s Al Davis. And can you see any league, anywhere, at any time, willingly adding an Al Davis to their ownership group? I can’t.

We need to be realistic, unless this local ownership group can rally significant money into the deal: Nashville is done. it’s all about when and how gracefully and to where now. Balsillie’s strategy backfired, and he’s now no longer an option; I think he was offered Winnipeg and rejected it, and that ended the discussion. So now, it’s giving Nashville a fair chance to make it work, and if/when it fails it has to go somewhere. If Balsillie had played even a marginally cooperative “go through the motions” strategy, he’d have gotten his hands on the Preds, and then the league would have had a fun fight keeping them out Hamilton. By playing the game so bluntly — Balsillie played himself out of the game, and gave the league the ability to save themselves from that disaster.

So the reason Balsillie doesn’t have a team — and now, never will — is all his fault. Because he took a group of 29 guys who are all successful businessmen who didn’t get there by being bullied, and tried to bully them. And it didn’t work.

Talk about a misread on how to play this….

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