http://www.theglobeandmail.com/spor...lacks-financial-transparency/article14945914/
An excerpt published on Oct 19 in The Globe & Mail.
Some interesting comments by the man who ran MLSE, although generally supportive of Bettman, the individual.
An excerpt published on Oct 19 in The Globe & Mail.
Some interesting comments by the man who ran MLSE, although generally supportive of Bettman, the individual.
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The Leafs’ operating profits number is a little lower than the figure listed in Forbes – but again that is operating profits, not net income. I agree with the assertion that at least eighteen teams lose money, and again that is at the operating line. The team losses and the total league losses would be much more at net income (after interest, depreciation, amortization and taxes – all legitimate expenses).
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The NFL has a broadcast deal that gives each team about $110-million per year. That money essentially pays for each team’s payroll. By comparison, the NHL U.S. broadcast deal is tiny and distributes only $5-million per team. The impact of this amount of media revenue and the difference between operating income and net income are things that most sports writers simply do not understand.
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For one thing, revenue sharing is not the answer when the entire league is losing money. That would be like moving deck chairs around on the Titanic. For another thing, the NHL simply spends too much on its players. And big clubs such as New York and Toronto have spent millions in capital to generate their high revenues. As I write this, the Rangers are spending $1-billion of their own money redoing Madison Square Garden.
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Some fans want to know what Gary Bettman’s salary is. I actually don’t care what his salary is. I want to know about Phoenix. Why are we as a league keeping that franchise afloat? Should the Toronto Maple Leafs be helping out a chronically losing franchise? What’s happening with the New Jersey Devils? Are they in trouble? The problem is that some 100 people attend when every franchise is invited to NHL meetings, and there are always leaks to the media. Maybe that’s why Gary is not prepared to be fully transparent.
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The other thing Gary Bettman and I disagreed about was the size of the league. A lot of good people are trying to make the Southern U.S. clubs succeed, but I simply don’t think that some of them will ever make it. I remember sitting in Gary’s office about three years ago talking about contraction. I said we should have only twenty-four clubs, but we agreed to disagree. Gary won’t talk about contraction, and to the best of my knowledge it was never fully analyzed – and, if it was, it never came to the board.