More Anti-Bettman trash

[mudcrutch79]

I'm sure you guys know about Forbes, a magazine that hates ownership and business. They've just posted an article ripping Bettman, if you can believe it.

http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/02/17/cz_mo_0217hockey.html

Hockey's illness is Bettman, a basketball man who is a prodigy of NBA commissioner David Stern. Bettman and the owners he works for trashed the league's identity when they tried to turn a cash-rich, mom-and-pop league into a growth industry.

They don't even mention how everything is Goodenow and the PA's fault!

Finally, the rapid expansion of the league moved the supply-demand curve towards accelerating player salaries while at the same time diluting the talent pool.

What the **** is a supply-demand curve? The greedy players make too much!

Only someone (like the current commissioner) completely unfamiliar with what makes hockey great could not see the likely result: During the 1996-1997 season the 26 NHL teams had an average operating profit (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $2.3 million. Last season they lost an average of $3.2 million.

But then he doesn't say that it's because the players are greedy. What the **** is this guy's problem?

Do Strachan and Brooks write for Forbes?

Click to read more...

 

[ScottyBowman]

Interesting quote in the article

"To meet the growing demand for players, team rosters were often filled with European skaters with only a fraction of the passion for the game that the Canadian players have. The NHL product lost some of its appeal to its rank and file. "

 

[Balej20*]

Interesting quote in the article

"To meet the growing demand for players, team rosters were often filled with European skaters with only a fraction of the passion for the game that the Canadian players have. The NHL product lost some of its appeal to its rank and file. "

oh wow...a little racist?

 

[Lou is God]

oh wow...a little racist?

And wrong...

 

[CarlRacki]

"For starters, the big national broadcasting deal never materialized."

False. Five years, $600 million, more than three times the previous deal of five years, $155 million. When was the last time the NBA or MLB got a TV deal worth 387 percent more than the previous one?

 

[SuperUnknown]

1- The author of the article doesn't even have a bio...

2- Hockey might not be that good of a sport on TV, but it's not worse than soccer or baseball if you compare to the live experience.

3-

Bettman and the owners he works for trashed the league's identity when they tried to turn a cash-rich, mom-and-pop league into a growth industry.

Huh... so they should have decided to stay a mom-and-pop league with $500M revenues? According to this, the players should be licking the owners (and Bettman's) boots for switching the league to a growth industry. They certainly have profited from this (with 75% of the revenues)

4-

By putting franchises in places like Nashville and Atlanta--cities that think the Stanley Cup is some type of athletic supporter--Bettman destroyed the sport's economics.

Easy to say but no reasons listed behind "destroyed the sport's economics". How? Did the traditional hockey markets really suffer from the added franchises? I hardly see anyone complaining in Detroit. The Rags mostly whine because they have a bunch of losers on their team. Toronto and Vancouver are thriving.

5-

people outside the Northeast and Midwest have little interest in hockey. Attendance for the new teams in places like Raleigh, North Carolina, Atlanta, Phoenix and Nashville has been very low.

What about Colorado, Dallas, LA? As far as I know they aren't in the Northeast or Midwest?

6-

at the same time diluting the talent pool. To meet the growing demand for players, team rosters were often filled with European skaters with only a fraction of the passion for the game that the Canadian players have.

So why is there less Canadian players in the NHL now than there was in 1990? Are Europeans really dragging the game down? My guess is that Americans don't like sports where the players aren't from the US more than anything else.

7-

Only someone (like the current commissioner) completely unfamiliar with what makes hockey great could not see the likely result:

I find it strange that someone that doesn't seem to know much about hockey would say this...

8-

If the NHL is ever to recover from the debacle created by Bettman, it must put in place a commissioner with hockey in his blood and tremendous integrity. It needs someone who has enough guts to eliminate some teams in order to make the NHL stronger. Wayne Gretzky, anyone?

Wow... I guess the first thing Gretzky would do is eliminate his own team, Phoenix, cause it's one of the worse right now? Makes a lot of sense to say this, especially after naming Phoenix as a mistake! As well, Gretzky hasn't really been a good businessman (so far failures after failures) and his team Phoenix has had one of the worst management through the whole league so far.

Great article...

Edit: Besides, this article is terrible as all it does is try to play the blame game.

 

[mudcrutch79]

"For starters, the big national broadcasting deal never materialized."

False. Five years, $600 million, more than three times the previous deal of five years, $155 million. When was the last time the NBA or MLB got a TV deal worth 387 percent more than the previous one?

Believe it or not, 5 years $600 million isn't a big national broadcasting deal. Other leagues have deals bringing at least $25MM per team annually. That deal that Bettman got is nothing.

 

[ttoad4000t]

5- What about Colorado, Dallas, LA? As far as I know they aren't in the Northeast or Midwest?

In Dallas' defense, they went I think it was 2 or 3 season sellout streak, and still sold 98-99% after the streak ended.

 

[CarlRacki]

Believe it or not, 5 years $600 million isn't a big national broadcasting deal. Other leagues have deals bringing at least $25MM per team annually. That deal that Bettman got is nothing.

I hope you're being disingenuous and don't really mean that. I've come to expect better from you.
I mean, it's all relative, isn't it? Bettman went from no national contract, to $31 million a year to $120 million a year before the ratings (or lack thereof) caught up to him. If you want to blame the league for not marketing the sport well enough to boost those ratings, so be it. But to claim the fact he coaxed $600 million out of Disney despite Fox's abyssmal numbers was "nothing" is simply ridiculous. It was fairly remarkable and due largely to the promise of expansion.
Does anyone in their right mind really believe the NHL would ever get an NBA-size, much less NFL-size, television deal?

 

[NewBreed19]

Phoenix doesn't have the worst management in the NHL. They had some bad luck with certain deals (savage deal) , but they have since turned things around. They have a new areana with all the revenue going to them as opposed to being in the AWA . They are now setting themselves up to be more finacially sound , once a new Cba is in place. As a fan of the yotes, it just seems like everyone is mis-informed when it comes to them not doing well. Give it some time , and with the right moves this team might shock the NHL with the way they are building to the future. They are by far, the worst managed team in hockey! That being said, the yotes need a more level playing field through a better Cba.

 

[thestonedkoala]

While he might have got a nice contract, he still didn't market the game right...Especially in the expansion cities.

 

[ResidentAlien*]

oh wow...a little racist?

Wrong perhaps, certainly not racist.
Unless you are overly sensitive politcally correct person, and if you were I imagine you could say that label is racist too!
and that's not directed to anyone here in particular!

 

[Seat16inNJ]

m

mudcrutch..

i dont know how you dont understand this, but when he's talking about
"supply and demand" ... he's talking about how the league expanded so fast..
but the supply of "dominant" players did not grow along with it..

Making it so, teams would pay higher money to get the well known
franchise player into their organization and paying him top dollar to do so..
thus driving up the values of other players that have similar statistics
in comparison to "said player"

IF there are less teams, better talent to go around...

 

[SuperUnknown]

Phoenix doesn't have the worst management in the NHL. They had some bad luck with certain deals (savage deal) , but they have since turned things around. They have a new areana with all the revenue going to them as opposed to being in the AWA . They are now setting themselves up to be more finacially sound , once a new Cba is in place. As a fan of the yotes, it just seems like everyone is mis-informed when it comes to them not doing well. Give it some time , and with the right moves this team might shock the NHL with the way they are building to the future. They are by far, the worst managed team in hockey! That being said, the yotes need a more level playing field through a better Cba.

I know it hurts when it's your team, but the Phoenix management so far has taken bad to worst on-ice and off-ice decisions. Hopefully they've got more experience now and they will turn it around.

Reasons why Phoenix management was bad:
- Awful trades again and again
- Bad UFA signings (actually very bad)
- Getting friends into management (never works well)
- ??? Drafting
- Overspending year after year while having one of the lower revenue streams

Now hopefully with their new arena they'll be better! Best of luck as there is still good young talent and I really hope it works out.

 

[Hockeyfan02]

What the **** is a supply-demand curve?

It's a curve used in buisness to determine the price of something, if I remember right from my personal finance class, based on supply and demand. Basically if supply is high and demand is low prices will drop to get more buyers. If supply is low and demand is high, the price will go up because people will pay more to get that product if supply is low. It's just a curve that measures it.

 

[mudcrutch79]

It's a curve used in buisness to determine the price of something, if I remember right from my personal finance class, based on supply and demand. Basically if supply is high and demand is low prices will drop to get more buyers. If supply is low and demand is high, the price will go up because people will pay more to get that product if supply is low. It's just a curve that measures it.

Yeah? Well the players are too greedy, and that's what wrecked the season.

 

[The Legend]

Not one of you Pro-Owner guys can logically tell me that the last ten years and the subsequent decline of the NHL has not been the fault of Gary Bettman.

It was his decision to expand into non-traditional hockey markets

It was his ineptitude that prevented the league from being marketed correctly.

It was Bettman and the owners who paid the players the outrageous amounts of money.



Any time a business fails, you can't blame the employess, it's always management's fault.

 

[shveik]

I do not see how one can blame only Bettman for the state the league is in.

1. The owners have signed all those ridiculous contracts, not Bettman. Now the owners are so brave they are doing to all the players summarily what they could not do one by one.

2. I think the expansion is good for the league long term. Yes, it temporarily unbalanced the league finances, but if not for part 1, the expansion fees would've been ok to cover that.

One thing that I blame Bettman for is the amount of clutching and grabbing. That kills the excitement of the game. The addicts like us still watch it, just like an alcoholic would drink any crap with alcohol in it, but the general public is turned off by that. Maybe it is better that the NHL doesn't get much TV exposure?

The only positive thing about this article is that it somehow counterbalances all the junk that is thrown Goodenow's way by people who get their opinion from TV.

 

[broman]

According to this, the players should be licking the owners (and Bettman's) boots for switching the league to a growth industry. They certainly have profited from this (with 75% of the revenues)

This is one of the great myths of this whole debate that I have never quite figured out. My understanding is the NHL reported hockey-related revenue of $2.1bn last year. At the same time, total payrolls for all 30 teams amount to $1.33bn. Where does the 75% figure come from? With my figures, the ratio should be closer 63%.

 

[PeterSidorkiewicz]

I heard that the NHL used FORBES to determine the Ducks Franchise value and if it would be too low to sell the team and used FORBES numbers and what not. I found it interesting cause when Forbes contradicted the Levitt report the NHL basically called Forbes incompatent.

 

[djhn579]

This is one of the great myths of this whole debate that I have never quite figured out. My understanding is the NHL reported hockey-related revenue of $2.1bn last year. At the same time, total payrolls for all 30 teams amount to $1.33bn. Where does the 75% figure come from? With my figures, the ratio should be closer 63%.

They normally say player expenses are ~75% of revenues, not payrolls. You'ld have to do a search to find out exactly what is included, but I thin the player expenses included the NHL payroll, minor league players under contract, and other things such as insurance on those player contracts.

 

[zeppelin97]

Does anyone in their right mind really believe the NHL would ever get an NBA-size, much less NFL-size, television deal?

Yes, so maybe i'm not in the right mind. Consider Racing pulls in 5+ in tv ratings. Thats actually more than the NBA. No disrespect to racing fans, but what your watching is cars circling an oval. Thats apparently more interesting than hockey(?) Golf is getting better raings and they basically stand around 99% of the time. And isn't poker pulling in better ratings than hockey?

Come on, theres definately room to improve, when you compare the tv ratings with other venues. If the slow boring trap can be broken i think the NHL has great potential.

 

[Riddarn]

Interesting quote in the article

"To meet the growing demand for players, team rosters were often filled with European skaters with only a fraction of the passion for the game that the Canadian players have. The NHL product lost some of its appeal to its rank and file. "

Reading stuff like that seriously pisses me off. This isn't the 1970's anymore. I think Börje Salming, the Stastny brothers and Jari Kurri proved quite well that europeans can have every bit as much passion for hockey as anyone else

 

[Mess]

This is one of the great myths of this whole debate that I have never quite figured out. My understanding is the NHL reported hockey-related revenue of $2.1bn last year. At the same time, total payrolls for all 30 teams amount to $1.33bn. Where does the 75% figure come from? With my figures, the ratio should be closer 63%.

because hockey related payrolls numbers you are seeing do not include other payroll costs to the team like Contact Insurance, Medical, Dental, Payroll taxes UIC, CPP etc, MRI's etc .. which for all 30 teams adds up to millions in cost to the NHL ..

 

[Poignant Discussion*]

I'm sure you guys know about Forbes, a magazine that hates ownership and business. They've just posted an article ripping Bettman, if you can believe it.

http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/02/17/cz_mo_0217hockey.html



They don't even mention how everything is Goodenow and the PA's fault!



What the **** is a supply-demand curve? The greedy players make too much!



But then he doesn't say that it's because the players are greedy. What the **** is this guy's problem?

Do Strachan and Brooks write for Forbes?

I really hope this whole post is sarcasm

If you think you know more than any writer on Forbes when it comes to business, then this is the funniest post in the history of message boards.

Thats all that needs to be said for this "post"