Sports? Part 2: Anyone want to buy a hockey team?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Here we have the Ottawa Senators (NHL team). Over the past year or two the owner has been bitching and moaning over our high entertainment tax and is constantly reminding us the team is for sale. (It owes millions in taxes to the federal government which it cannot pay.) (Hell, the cheap seats will run a family $150 for an evening at a game.)

So, finally the govt caves and announces they will provide $20 million (or thereabouts) in aid until the year 2004. The radio stations all broadcast this “wonderful” news. “The Senators are no longer for sale”, announces the owner.

Well, who’d a thunk it - the govt is immediatly swamped with email (12,000 in just one day) from outraged tax payers. How dare they spend their hard earned taxes on a hockey team! Especially when player salaries are in THE MILLIONS. A few years back the Ottawa Roughriders (football) packed it in and called it quits for the same reasons - high taxes and low attendance.

The govt has since cancelled their offer of an aid package and the team is, once again, for sale.

Should the government bail out sport teams? In the office we’ve had numerous debates over this topic with a 70/30 split (70 for the “see ya, bye bye” side).

2

First things first, comparing the Senators to the Rough Riders (or is it Roughriders?) is like comparing apples to steaks. The CFL had been shakey in Ottawa for years before the Roughies folded. The Sen, while a laughing stock for 4 or 5 years is a) a competitive team and b) draws well.

Second of all, the government did not offer a cash handout. They offered to lower the amount of taxes that the Canadian based NHL teams would have to pay. There is a big difference.

The whole issue points to the main difference between Canada and the US. In the US, all levels of governments will do whatever it takes to attract business and keep them. Canada is interested in taxing industry, even if it means they might lose them.

It would be a shame if one more NHL team left Canada, and it is highly likely that the Sens, Oilers, Flames and Canucks will have to move. After the Canadian government said that the offer was off, the NHL announced that it may stop their equalization payments. Who can blam them, why throw good money down a bottomless pit?

If one or more of the above mentioned teams has to move, it will kill the Liberals. Imagine how Cretian will react to the title of “the man who killed the NHL in Canada”.

If I was discussing Lucy Lawless but I wrote Lucy Topless, would that be a Freudian typo?

3

I guess, ultimately, you’re starting down a slippery slope when the government bails out sports teams financially. Gives owners tacit incentive to overspend and mismanage.

I’ve found it interesting how many Canadians have come out on the side of “screw 'em” on this issue. Americans need to realize that hockey is Canada’s national pastime.

This would be the equivalent of asking Americans to use some of our tax dollars to save the NFL or Major League Baseball, with only pro teams in, say, New York surviving if you decide not to. I think Congress would fall all over themselves to do that.

I’ve heard many hockey analysts say the Canadian government’s reversal of its decision to provide financial aid to its NHL franchises will probably mean the only two teams to survive in “Canada’s game” will be Toronto and Montreal. All the rest are destined to head for some Sun Belt, NASCAR U.S. market where there’s lots of money but the fans need to have the concept of ice skates explained to them.

Who’s ultimately to blame?

– The NHL owners, for spending way too much on player salaries, without the lucrative TV contracts that some of the other sports have to back them up. And for needing to build the newest, latest Taj Mahal stadium with all the bells and whistles every 10 years, then strong-arming fans and local taxpayers to finance it. (Now the current course of action in every pro sport.)

– The NHL players, for going for a short-term money grab, refusing to talk salary cap and ultimately causing imbalance in the game and jeopardizing its long-term viability. (This is happening in baseball as well.)

Does the tax revenue provided by having an NHL franchise and spectators willing to go see it offset the amount of government aid the teams would have received? I don’t know.

You heard it here first: Eventually, there will be some kind of second-tier Canadian Hockey League, with a talent level somewhere above the IHL and below the NHL, with franchises in all the old market Canadian cities - Winnipeg, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver - and a few other cities that weren’t quite large enough for NHL franchises.

It will be sort of like the USFL was to the NFL.

“In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” - Ecclesiastes 1:18

4

Truthfully, (from a southern American standpoint) when a hockey team comes to where the average mean temp is 40 above zero, they aren’t likely to do well. Canadians seem to be as passionate about this frozen sport as Americans are about football and baseball. To tax the public in order to keep the team seems on the level of suicide. I suppose it is very American on one level, “its all about the Benjamins baby”. Sad but true, and the Carolina Hurricanes contine to play to partially packed houses. Nuff said.

“Solos Dios basta” . . . but a little pizza won’t hurt.

5

The only remotely cool thing about Hockey - aside from the ice, yuk, yuk - is this:

<center>

http://cgi.cnnsi.com/hockey/nhl/news/1999/03/19/sabres_rangers/t1_satan_ap.jpg

<h2>Miroslav Satan</h2>
<h3>#81 | Left Wing | Buffalo Sabres</h3>
</center>

Yer pal,
Satan

6

Satan is having a bad season. You may need to sacrifice more chickens or something :slight_smile:

BTW, hockey is doing better than good here in Dallas and Phoenix is not suffering either. Karmanos may have made a mistake in his choice .

If I was discussing Lucy Lawless but I wrote Lucy Topless, would that be a Freudian typo?

7

With Canada’s gun control laws, who can “blam” them, indeed! :wink:

8

I’m not seeing the connection, here.

I used to rock and roll all night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I’m lucky if I can find a half an hour a week in which to get funky.

9

Comparatively Satan isn’t having the greatest year but then Buffalo overall isn’t doing as well as they should. Satan has been involved in 16 out of the Sabres last 18 goals and he scored 7 of them. He’s a great player on what just happens to be a not-so-great team this season.

The Top 10 Greatest Things About Procrastination:

10

Aha! A post I can get passionate about!

First things first, $20 mil isn’t that big a deal, considering the $3.9 Billion the Canadian government mismanaged in their (IIRC) unemployment system. They will lose much more than $20 mil if the teams leave (player income tax, tax on the stadiums, misc employee <read ‘Zamboni driver’> taxes et. al.).

The thing is, US sports team backing and Canadian sports team backing are different animals. The Sens owner, Rod Bryden, had to front a lot of dough for the stadium, plus pay for the off-ramp to it. Look at the new LA Kings stadium. The city paid for most of it, and the old season-ticket holders can’t afford to go there any more (or end up with really crappy seats). All the Canadians want is to level the playing field. Don’t get me started about the city financing dumb sports projects; I live in Seattle. We just wasted over half a billion dollars on a darn baseball park, with more coming for a new football stadium! And our teams have never gone to the big one!

But, back to the OP. I feel poorly for the Canadian farmers, and the homeless, but if they can’t get the simple economics of it (spend $20 mil to make $50 mil, or make $zero), I can’t help them.

-sb

They say the Lord loves drunks, fools and little children.
Two out of three ain’t bad.

11

As a long-time Islanders fan, I feel your pain. Good luck