A lot of people complaining in here. Seems like most of you don't understand simple economics. Ottawa is in debt. Ottawa can't afford nice things anymore. Ottawa's arena is too small so they can't make enough profits from the games and therefore they can't get those big Money players that will win you games. This isn't Melnyk's fault. He's doing all that he can under the circumstances. Ottawa fans should just be happy as long as the team doesn't relocate...
Everything that I have read over the years is that the sens have run pretty close to balance if not a bit positive on operating income. If you need I can provide quotes from the team on this, or just do some googling of Senators Operating Income.
Sens Budget Issues:
What costs Melnyk is interest on the team debt, which was way to high for the value when he bought the team, but he wanted to have his cake and eat it too at the time, and so instead of selling off some of his 1.5 bil of biovail stock at the time to bring down the dept, he left it at near 50% of the team value. Which is obviously not sustainable for any business because you are not going to cover the operating costs and interest on 130 mil dept, every single year in a small market.
So if buying a 230 mil hockey team, but only actually buying 50% of it, and then expecting the fans to pick-up the other 50% over time, is his view of saving the team financially, well then, I guess that's what he did.
Melnyk Financial Issues:
Meanwhile his personal fortune went in the crapper because he sold his stock at the utmost low point, re-invested in start-ups that have failed, got divorced, and now has found other things to try and invest what's left of his fortune (Casino, Lebreton, Soccer Team, etc, etc)
At some point the buck has to stop at EM. Put aside the on-ice performance, he has failed in the role of owner...which I view as being able to provide a solid enough financial foundation for the team so peaks/valleys of team income do not impact the on-ice operations. Is this really too much to ask? Provide me with another team (that doens't also have ownership issues, ie: arizona) where if the team revenues go up/down by 5% it has an impact on the long-term on-ice plan for the team.
Billionaires can absorb 5-10 million dollar losses from year to year if there are chances to make it up over the long-term from positive years, or make it back in team value, sponsorships, etc. And to Melnyk's credit, this is exactly what he used to do when he still was a billionaire.
Billionaires can also build up a war-chest of cash reserves to cover the 20-30 mil of out of pocket dollars that may be needed in 20/21 to cover the lockout protected contracts that Karlsson, Duchene and Stone will likely be asking for.
But just like Anderson hasn't lived up to being a number 1 goalie this year, Melnyk over the past 5 years has not lived up to being a billionnaire. He cannot, or worse will not, support the team like he used to. Fact.
Why Fans Are Pissed - Nothing to do with being a budget team:
He still owns the team, and it's his prerogative how he wants to run it. But there are other owners (Desmarais backed Lebreton group) that could step in and fund the team like Melnyk used to and other owners do. This still means Ottawa might be a budget team, but a long-term on-ice strategy to build towards a cup can be executed that doesn't get derailed because Melnyk can't afford to float the team 10 million on a down year.
Therefore, it's totally valid for fans to be fuming that this guy is willing for the team/fans to suffer just so that he can fill the giant hole in his ego that needs to own an NHL team...especially when it results in a player like Karlsson being traded, but even more so because it means that this team will never have more than a 1-2 year window to compete for a cup, because as soon as we ramp up the salaries for a run, half a season of bad performance and we are back into a rebuild. (Again, show me another team full of guys in their prime that is going into a rebuild).
Sad.