On the Forecheck: Bouncing Balls – NHL Statistics, Analysis, and Opinion

On the Forecheck: Bouncing Balls – NHL Statistics, Analysis, and Opinion:


Thanks again to Richard Lawson at the Nashville Post, we have word that Jim Balsillie is still working hard to purchase the Nashville Predators, this time by sending a note to the Nashville Sports Authority that claims that if he owned the team, “the existing arena operating agreements will require no changes whatsoever unless they benefit the Authority and the residents of Nashville.”

Is this an effort to undermine the current Freeman/Nashville negotiations, or indeed a genuine change of heart on Balsillie’s part? His representative also wrote in that note,

Okay, anyone who thinks the Balsillie offer is on the up and up, please raise your hand. I have a bridge for sale. Cheap. One owner. Only drove it to church on sunday.

This offer is perfect for Balsillie’s long-term goal of getting this team to Hamilton. It’s designed to screw up the local ownership’s push for fixes to the deal by giving the local politicos an easy out for avoiding looking like they’re subsidizing the team to people who don’t want to invest in it. After all, Balsillie will take it without changes or subsidies.

Of course he will. it leaves him with a lease trivially easy to break in a year or so, after the “white knight” comes to the realization it’s not going to work. His protestations to try to make it work notwithstanding, he doesn’t have to screw this stuff up to make the lease breakable, he can do it merely by doing a good faith effort, suck up the losses for a couple of years, and then break the lease.

Given this second round in is something like $25m less in the price for the franchise? that’s a nice chunk of change he can invest in letting the team lose money, no? And in the end, the money he pputs in is about the same, but he has a free pass out of town.

His offer to bring in local owners? Sure — they’re just as easy to buy out again later. It’s nice eye candy, but it doesn’t mean anything.

And that assumes a few things.

First, it assumes that once he gets them to nuke the deal with the locals, he doesn’t come in and start negotiating. And what leverage do you have once the other owners get told to stuff it and leave?

Second, it presumes he’s actually going to follow through on his offers. What if he doesn’t? Or if he does them badly?

Third, it assumes the NHL will approve him as an owner. Given you can pretty much bet that Balsillie as an owner will someday lead to a lawsuit over moving the team to Hamilton, I think it’s far from given the NHL will let him join the club at this point.

We aren’t even talking about whether moving a team to Hamilton is good for the league. that’s an entirely different argument…

If Nashville falls for this gambit by Balsillie, they WILL lose the Predators. Maybe not for a couple of years, but they will. And they’ll deserve to. Now, with the other ownership group, will the Predators be saved? Maybe. Maybe not. But with Balsillie in the house, you KNOW you have no chance.

You might also want to read:

  1. On the Forecheck: Back in the saddle again – NHL Stats, Analysis, and Opinion On the forecheck on Del Biaggio: Back to the Del Biaggio story; there are many out there jumping on Gary Bettman and the NHL for...
  2. How to Help Mailing Lists Help Readers (Results of Recent Data Analysis) How to Help Mailing Lists Help Readers (Results of Recent Data Analysis): This second, independent experiment reinforced my conviction that: Although mailing lists and newsgroups...
  3. On the Forecheck: Stanley Cup Finals: A few thoughts On the Forecheck: Stanley Cup Finals: A few thoughts: One intermission appearance by Don Cherry won’t do anything to build a nation-wide American TV audience...
  4. On the Forecheck: NHLPA spying details come out On the Forecheck: NHLPA spying details come out: There are so many bombshells here it’s hard to tell where to start – obviously monitoring the...
  5. On the Forecheck: Back in my day, we didn’t call ‘em “Bloggers…” On the Forecheck: Back in my day, we didn’t call ‘em “Bloggers…”: Then I remembered the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, a handy way of peeking...