Bettman puts Boots to Balls

I squish you!

According to the National Post, Jim Balsillie's US$238-million bid to purchase the Nashville Predators is about to be rejected by Predator's owner Craig Leipold. The Post's sources say that Leipold is planning to accept a less lucrative offer from California businessman William "Boots" DelBiaggio that would move the team to Kansas City. The last official offer from 'Boots' was in the US$190-million range.

Okay, enough of the bare facts.

First off, what kind of responsible businessman would seriously consider accepting an offer that is almost $40 million LESS than the one currently on the table? Not to mention one that is led by a guy named 'Boots'? It makes you wonder what kind of pressure is being applied to Leipold and by whom.

Anyone who has been following this story knows that Gary Bettman had his bluff called by Balsillie over the Pittsburgh Penguins deal earlier this year (which reportedly cost the Penguins $300,000 in legal bills from the NHL's lawyers). Balsillie followed that up by steaming ahead with plans to move the Predator's to Hamilton, even going so far as pre-selling seasons tickets through Ticket Master (7,200 season ticket sales in one day).

To put it mildly, Bettman is pissed. Bettman has been using every piece of leverage he has to slow down the Ballsy juggernaut and this latest development just looks like more gamesmanship to me. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we later learn that Ballsy does end up buying the Predators and moves them to Hamilton, but only after he commits ritual seppuku in public by kowtowing to Bettman. Oh... and agreeing to some sort of financial penalty to the Leafs and Sabres for moving into there market.

I do have just one other question...

Is there anyone in the entire universe (other than Bettman) who thinks that Kansas City is a better hockey market than Hamilton? To help out you folks south of hockey central, Hamilton is less than an hour away from Toronto in Southern Ontario and the surrounding population is larger than that surrounding Kansas City. Oh... and about 90% of them are hockey mad. As opposed to the 9% around KC who may be able to spell 'hockey'.

Does this confuse anyone else?

Major League Baseball trying to ruin the NHL

You said what now?

The CBC sued MLB and won, but MLB is appealing this ruling and if they win you can say goodbye to Fantasy Hockey.

First off, CBC is not the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (not in this lawsuit anyway) and the implications of this lawsuit will directly affect the very existence of all Fantasy Sports Leagues, not just hockey.

CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc. last year won a lawsuit that they had filed against MLB when their license to run a Fantasy Baseball game was rescinded by the Major Leagues. CBC decided to take one for the team and sue MLB to prove that they (CBC) did not have to pay a licensing fee to MLB for the rights to use player names and statistics. Last year they won their lawsuit.

MLB is, of course, appealing this ruling. The NBA, NFL and NHL all participated in the original lawsuit and any ruling in this case will essentially hold true for these leagues as well. A U.S. Federal Appeal panel is currently ruling on MLB's application and it's implications are huge.

If Baseball is successful in appealing this ruling it would essentially give MLB (and the three other major sports) the ability to monopolize Fantasy Sports. Over the last few years MLB has reduced the number of licenses it has granted to Fantasy Sports game providers from over 50 to less than 8. If they so desired, MLB could refuse to grant any licenses whatsoever and keep full control of all the traffic and revenues derived from Fantasy Baseball to itself.

The most recent estimates place the total revenue from Fantasy Sports at over $1.5 Billion with as many as 8 million participants on a yearly basis. That's a pretty big piece of pie.

So again, what does this have to do with Fantasy Hockey?

Two things.

1) If MLB is able to control Fantasy Baseball do you think that the NHL will be far behind in taking complete control of Fantasy Hockey? Bye bye Yahoo, the NHL won't grant you the rights to use their statistics.
2) Speaking of statistics, you can forget looking in the newspaper (or the internets) for daily box scores. Unless someone is paying a fat licensing fee anyway.

Hmmm... speaking of which, if anyone happens to own any Yahoo stock I would suggest you keep an eye on this appeal. Yahoo has estimated that approximately 40% of it's total site traffic is a direct result (or derived from) it's Fantasy Sports products. If MLB decides to take away their Fantasy Baseball traffic Yahoo will take a serious dive.

Hamilton Predators sell 7,200 seasons tickets

TSN.ca is reporting that Ticketmaster yesterday accepted deposits for close to 7,200 seasons tickets beginning at 10:00 AM yesterday morning. In contrast the Nashville Predators reportedly have a seasons ticket base of 8,500 and have dipped as low as 6,532 seasons tickets during the 2003-04 season.

The ticket sales include almost 60 $5,000 deposits for corporate boxes, 4,700 $1,000 deposits for lower bowl seats and almost 2,500 $500 deposits for upper bowl seats. By my calculations that means the Hamilton Predators have already gathered $6.25 Million in seasons tickets revenue and these are just deposits.

In my humble opinion both the city of Nashville and the NHL can say goodbye to the Predators franchise in Tennessee. The NHL cannot simply ignore this obvious demonstration of interest in a hockey franchise in Southern Ontario.

Mr. Balsillie has put the NHL in check, with mate coming in two moves.

In an intersting side note TSN.ca is also reporting that Buffalo is not 'at this time' opposed to a team in Hamilton. Is this Balsillie's next move? Or just a feint. It will be interesting to see if the Sabres become involved in Balsillie's pitch to the NHL in the near future.

Mighty Ducks headed to Disney Land

Despite the fact that Daniel Alfredsson stepped up to the plate in game 5 for the Ottawa Senators it wasn't enough as the Anaheim Ducks rolled overtop of the Sens last night to win their first Stanley Cup.

Last Nights Recap:

Ottawa Senators 2 (1) at Anaheim Ducks 6 (4) : The no longer Mighty Ducks of Anaheim are now mighty again. They completely dominated the Ottawa Senators from the first drop of the puck last night and only Daniel Alfredsson seemed to show up for the Sens in game 5. The game of hockey breaks down into some fairly basic pieces, scoring, checking, defense and goal tending. Ottawa was beaten in all 4 areas in this series. J.S. Giguere downright outplayed Ray Emery (as expected) and the defensive core of Anaheim completely outclassed the Senators blue line corps. Wade Redden in particular was ineffective in the final round. Andy McDonald, Teemu Selanne and the rest of the scoring forwards for Anaheim soundly out performed the Senators scoring lines and except for standout Daniel Alfredsson the vaunted scoring touch that Ottawa displayed all season long disappeared against Anaheim. That is a strong testament to the power of the Ducks checking line. Travis Moen, Rob Niedermayer and Sammy Pahlsson completely dominated Ottawa's top line by both holding them off the score sheet and directly outscoring them.

2007 NHL Playoffs Video Highlights

2007 NHL Playoffs Recap and Video Highlights - June 6th

Work has been insane as of late, we had a bunch of layoffs and I have been busy trying to survive that and then pick up the slack from all the workers we no longer have. Good thing that tonight will be the last game in the NHL for a few months.

Last Game Recap:

Anaheim Ducks 3 (3) at Ottawa Senators 2 (1) : The Senators came out in the first period in a dominating fashion and pretty much carried the play for the entire period. With Chris Pronger out of the Ducks lineup it looked like Ottawa was poised to even up the series with a first period flurry. Apparently J.S. Giguere didn't get the memo and he ensured that the Senators got very little for their superior effort. Ottawa managed to squeak a goal in with only 3 seconds left in the first but came out in the second as a completely different team. The second period was all Anaheim as they pushed the Sens all over the ice prompting Daniel Alfredsson to take a cheap shot at Scott Niedermayer at the end of the second period. The fact that Ottawa was tied after a lackluster effort was a surprise, the end result of the game was not. Ray Emery was shaky behind an almost completely absent defense and the Ducks took a stranglehold on the series with the win.

2007 NHL Playoffs Video Highlights




Tonights Game :

The Anaheim Ducks get their shot at the Stanley Cup tonight at home and with Chris Pronger back in the lineup you have to think that Ottawa is heading to the golf course. Ottawa's top line will certainly show up tonight in an effort to make a series out of it but I can't see them getting any more chances than they had in game 4. Andy McDonald has been a force in the Stanley Cup Final and he will continue that tonight with another stellar effort as the Anaheim Ducks take the Cup in convincing fashion with a 5-3 win.