Not answering this on moral grounds nor asking the question about right or wrong, but IMO.... in the world of high priced million dollar deals and business, I honestly don't think there are many people in this world that wouldn't have done what IA did.... and that is, when having to negotiate a deal with the CoG, hiring "ex-employees" whom might know the inner-workings of the city, and hence might help me get the best deal.
I think this is done by big business every single day in every business in the world. Why else would we have so many lawyers around who's only job is to push the barrier as far as they can without breaking it OR getting caught breaking it.
So again not saying right or wrong or smart or stupid.... IMO IA did what most businesses would have done. They just made the mistake of thinking nobody would notice.
.... absolutely. And as we know, lots of unscrupulous people selling it in various guises.
I dont take kindly to extortionists, people who quite consciously over-promise & grossly under-deliver. What would you call people like that DyerMaker?
Ya. Excuses. All we've heard from LeBlanc. The domain of amateurs, the disingenuous.
I view the NHL as the extortionists, not IA.
Over-promise is bit disingenuous: All businesses talk about the greatest possible return. I doubt many achieve it. Under-delivery was evident in the market prior to them buying the team, imo.
Generally, I'd call that type of person "a politician".
The CoG really has nobody to blame but themselves. They had deep suspicions about the motives and wherewithal of the NHL and IA, specifically:
1) Concerned that IA has put very little money up to actually purchase the team, so that their $15 million in AMF wasn't actually going to help operate the team, but just to pay off a huge loan to purchase the team.
2) They were understandably concerned with IA's insistence of a 5-year out clause. This largely stemmed from the structure of the deal, which had IA having to pay back the large LOC from the NHL after 5 years. IA had trouble scraping together $45 million to purchase equity in the team, so how likely are they to come up with the money to pay back up to $85 million in loans from the NHL if the Coyotes continued to lose tons of money? They wanted IA to forego the "out clause", but that was rejected.
3) They were worried that IA had no experience or motivation to put a lot of effort into attracting non-hockey events. Without good performance in that area, they knew that they were going to lose big on the AMF. So, they requested a performance clause, which was flatly rejected by IA.
However, also remember that these negotiations weren't all smiles and giggles. The NHL had put a severe threat to Glendale that they would yank the team out unless Glendale met all of their conditions. So much for an amicable partnership.
Now, move ahead a couple of years....
IA is losing money on the Coyotes operation at an alarming rate. The planned investment of new money from Barroway seems to have evaporated. It seems highly unlikely that IA will be able to pay back the NHL for use of the LOC, so the likely outcome is relocation at five years, after Glendale has poured another $70+ million into the Coyotes.
IA's performance on bringing non-hockey events to the arena remain dismal. It's almost as though they aren't trying. So all of the reassurances that they will make efforts in this area seem hollow. Without a performance clause, Glendale has no recourse to balance the equation between the management fee and the revenue generation at the arena.
Glendale is clearly ticked off that they were forced into this deal with threats of imminent relocation, and that IA has been such a dismal failure in their performance of arena management. They looked for a loophole to try to force IA to renegotiate. IA gave it to them by hiring Tindall and Frisoni, and we're off to the races....
