Adding Insult
The surprise wasn’t that the governors on Wednesday unanimously rejected Balsillie’s official application to become an NHL owner. That was like an “election” in a dictatorship – you didn’t really need to tally the ballots to know what the outcome would be. It was a sham process, designed to provide legal cover on both sides – Balsillie had to go through the motions of applying and the league had to go through the motions of suggesting it was following its own rules before giving him the bum’s rush.
What was revealing was who led the attack on Balsillie behind closed doors. – Stephen Brunt
I agree entirely with the first paragraph from Brunt’s column on the BoG meeting, and disagree entirely with the second. In fact I think they are contradictory. Given that it was a sham process, one would expect unanimity. Gillett was the logical prosecutor of Balsillie because he is leaving, and because he apparently has the best claim to be damaged by Balsillie’s actions. (And its a given that claim is clearly bogus.)
The hilarious part of the board’s action is that Balsillie was refused based on his “character and integrity”. This is a Board that approved a veritable rogue’s gallery in the past 20 years – McNall, Rigas, Spanos, Kumar, Samueli, Del Biaggio – and so one really has to wonder what Gary Bettman et al believe the words “character and integrity” mean. (I guess only a lawyer can explain what must be legal jargon. The entire lot of them fail on any common sense meaning of the words.)
The most interesting part of the decision is that the Board chose this route despite the fact that the judge had already indicated he would not look kindly on a decision to reject Balsillie a mere two years after they approved him. I assume the NHL is prepared to appeal it if Baum rejects this BoG decision. Anybody who thinks this mess is going to get resolved soon is nuts.
Finally, the most insulting comment of all comes from Bill Daly:
“Hamilton is a great hockey town with passionate fans. But it may be time for the city to come to the realization that it married the wrong spouse.”
Oh, please. No matter what you think about the Balsillie effort to hijack the Coyotes and move them to Hamilton this is the type of insensitive comment that makes me want to throttle the sleazebags who run the NHL. As if the people in Hamilton have had any choices in this matter. As if it might have worked out differently for the city if it was someone aside from Balsillie who was poking Bettman in the eye with the sharp stick. As if the NHL was ever going to allow a hockey team to relocate to Southern Ontario.
That’s insulting.
Update: The judge isn’t buying it, given that he is allowing Balsillie to bid for the team in the auction on September 10th. How much would I give to be a fly on the wall in Bettmanland when that decision came through. The saga continues.
This has all bee orchestrated by the NHL. As much as denying Balsillie because of integrity and character goes against everything that Judge Baum stated, not denying him had even worse ramifications and denying him because he wanted to move the team to Hamilton was even worse that that.
The truth is, neither Reinsdorf or Ice Edge Holdings have a viable purchase agreement in place. Reinsdorf is the furthest along but he hasn’t reached an agreement with the majority of creditors to restructure their loan agreements and neither Reinsdorf or Ice Edge Holdings have an agreement with the City of Glendale. So in light of this the NHL is now pleading to the courts for more time, by delaying the keep the team in Glendale auction. By rejecting Balsillie they can claim tot he court that there is no need to keep the relocation auction set for September 10th so why not delay the Glendale auction to maximize the ability for Reinsdorf and Ice Edge to finalize their bids. If September 10th comes and goes without Reinsdorf or Ice Edge finalizing an agreement it all works out fine for the NHL anyway because it will give them likely until next spring before another relocation auction will take place and that will give them ample time to find another owner and another location that suits them better than Balsillie/Hamilton.
If they didn’t reject Balsillie at the BOG meetings they would have no arguement to cancel the relocation auction in September. If they rejected Balsillie on the basis of him wanting to relocate the team to Hamilton, Balsillie would file an anti-trust lawsuit and have a legitimate basis for doing so. Not having a bonafide dispute is the primary reason why Judge Baum shot down the Balsillie purchase agreement back on June 15th.
It was no accident that the NHL immediately made it clear that Balsillie was rejected because of integrity and character and not because of the relocation to Hamilton and by telling Hamiltonians that they have married the wrong spouse just emphasizes even more the message that it is Balsillie not Hamilton, whether that is true or not.
The Reinsdorf/Ice Edge Holdings bids are on very thin ice. Neither have put up any cash, including the $10 million deposit required by the bidding process. Neither have the support of either the largest secured creditor (SOF Investments Ltd.) or the largest unsecured creditor (Moyes) and neither have reached an acceptable new lease arrangement with the City of Glendale. Considering that in Reinsdorf’s case they have been negotiating for at least 3 months it seems to me that the chances of an agreement to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix is slim. Nobody it seems wants to risk their own money in purchasing the coyotes.
What irritates me the most about the comments is that they are needlessly personal toward Hamilton. It’s unprofessional and childish to say “you should go in the corner and think about what you did, because you picked the wrong friends” when they could have said “the owners decided they did not want Balsillie as a business partner.” Same result, but they didn’t slam anyone with a petty comment.
I suppose tact is a rarer commodity in the NHL than I thought it was.
If they rejected Balsillie on the basis of him wanting to relocate the team to Hamilton, Balsillie would file an anti-trust lawsuit and have a legitimate basis for doing so.
Maybe, but once the Roberts Court rules on American Needle I think the anti-trust avenue to attack sports leagues is going to be essentially closed off.
This is a Board that approved a veritable rogue’s gallery in the past 20 years – McNall, Rigas, Spanos, Kumar, Samueli, Del Biaggio – and so one really has to wonder what Gary Bettman et al believe the words “character and integrity” mean. (I guess only a lawyer can explain what must be legal jargon. The entire lot of them fail on any common sense meaning of the words.)
I think it’s pretty clear “character and integrity” mean nothing more than “the ability to make us money” to the BOG.
once the Roberts Court rules on American Needle I think the anti-trust avenue to attack sports leagues is going to be essentially closed off.
This link has more discussions and the author doesn’t think the NFL (and therefore all pro sport leagues) will get the single entity ruling. Seriously, if any league is viewed as a single entity legally, the fan perception of teams competing fairly should vanish rather quickly and business would suffer.
We’ll see, granting certiorari and then ruling against the NFL would be inconsistent with everything the Roberts Court has thus far done (side with big business in every possible instance). But anything’s possible, I guess.
Are you implying that Roberts is the sole decision maker in the US Surpreme Court? Aren’t these cases ruled by a vote by multiple judges?
No, I’m saying the Court as constituted with Roberts as Chief Justice. With five individuals (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy) undoing hundreds of years of constitutional law in only a few short years.
In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.
Jeffery Toobin’s take on Chief Justice Roberts certainly squares with yours, Rajeev.
Even if the US Surpreme Court rules in favour of the NFL and therefore all pro sports leagues by declaring the league as a single entity in all aspects, what would happen to the NHL with teams in Canada?