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| Probably an avid hockey fan |
If you are going to fix an organization then you really
should look no further than the man that is in charge of that organization. In
this case, it is small-statured man that was born and raised in Queens, New
York of the name of Gary Betmann. Well what does his physical size and where he
is born have to do with any of this I am sure you are asking. Well it has a lot
to do with one’s upbringing and exposure to sports which the last time I looked
ice hockey was in fact a sport but is quickly becoming more of a struggling
business from what I have experienced during Mr Betmann’s tenure as the NHL
Commisioner.
Now what do you think the chances are that Mr Bettman ever
donned a pair of ice hockey skates with gloves, stick and helmet all positioned
in the right place? I think the answer might be probably never. And imagine
somewhere around the summer of 1960 when the local Queens’ kids were picking
sides in any game you can choose that kids played in those days. Who was most
likely to be in the last two kids still left to be selected reluctantly to play
the game? In any of your games you probably left all the future politicians,
lawyers and chief financial officers to the very last since they could only
talk a good game and very seldom could actually play any sport with any level
of competency. And when those kids got the ball they weren't giving it up for
anything since no one was going to give it to them willingly.
And that is where the NHL owners made their first mistake.
Due to the conditions of the time, they gave the ball to someone they thought
that could resolve some basic labour issues, expand the league and get better television
rights particularly in the United States. Seems to me that you would want a guy
with marketing skills and the ability to talk some sense into all parties
involved in the future development of the NHL. Well they chose the lawyer and
you get what you get when you do that. I heard he makes something in the neighbourhood
of $8,000,000 a year for not doing such a great job.
But he is only part of the problem and I will try to list
what I think is wrong and how it might be changed. I spent some time working as
a sales representative calling on various professional hockey teams when there
were two “professional” leagues running known as the NHL and WHA. So I saw the
first iteration of the Atlanta NHL franchise (Flames) in operation and various
other teams in Birmingham, Alabama, Houston, Phoenix, Cleveland, Cincinnati,
San Diego and several other cities that you not would not call hot ice hockey
markets although the outdoor temperature was in fact quite hot normally.
So here is the first thing I would do to correct the NHL’s
problems. If you do not shovel snow at least twice a year in your city then you
do not get an NHL franchise. You may have a minor league/farm team if you have
enough Canadian visitors during hockey season to support that team. It is
simple really when you think about it. The future of any sport depends on the
kids that play it in pick-up games in and around your city and the last time I looked;
outdoor hockey rinks are quite rare in those southern US cities. So Tampa Bay,
Phoenix, Dallas and the other Florida team will be moved as soon as they show
any signs of failure which three easily qualify for now.
And if the Flames move to Calgary didn't convince anyone
then maybe the Thrashers failure in Atlanta might be a second lesson on what
don’t work when it comes to pro ice hockey. I think future teams will end up in
Quebec City, the Kitchener-Waterloo area of Ontario, an additional team in the
Chicago market and maybe Seattle but it rains a lot there and outdoor ice doesn’t
do well there I would think. The Quebec team would be the Nordiques of course
since that will now work with a proper rink and just stock it with lots of
French-Canadian players and watch it succeed. The KW team might be called the
Farmers since that area of Canada is a lot like Saskatchewan is the CFL team.
There are lots of farmers with lots of money with not a lot to do in the middle
of winter so they will flock to the arena to watch their heroes and I would
stock that team with mostly south-western Ontario farm boys. And Chicago might
be the White Eagles and Seattle the Scary Raindrops. OK so the last two need
some work.
But the intent is to try and keep the 30 team number in
place because they finally have a sort of workable plan for that number. But the
schedule would include only 60 regular season games. I think we learned a lot
from the 48 game season last year that the only people that didn't like that
were the owners and Mr Bettman. I think if the season started when it normally
does and the playoffs followed right after, we would get even more interest in
playoff hockey since a lot of folks might still actually have to shovel snow
out of their driveways during the finals.
Television would probably be happy with that as well
since more people would likely watch regular season games then since they might
actually mean something in the playoff hunt. I still have to put my head around
how to get the games to be more meaningful and maybe playing games in
neighbouring cities or towns that could handle medium sized crowds might make
that more workable.
Now I would like to offer the owners my services and they
wouldn't have to pay me a big salary like they do Mr Bettman. I’m thinking that
they could pay me a by period played at home fee so there would be 30 home
games and with 3 periods, each of the 30 owners would pay me like a $2,000 a
period consulting fee. It would still work out cheaper than Mr Bettman’s salary
and probably could come out of concession stand earnings so they would never
miss it.
And I think the players might actually like the fact that a
season is shorter but in fairness to the owners they would have to take a pay
cut. Since the average player career could probably be longer, then it might
actually all come out in the wash. But if that isn't good enough, we could work
out some sort of remuneration schedule for making the playoffs and winning the
cup which would be an incentive program for all parties. I off course would
require a similar piece of the action for my part in developing the program.
And I could help all players take better care of their
financial planning by making them invest a specified portion of their annual
income in mutual funds so they have something left when their careers end. And
that is a simple fee structure that I would propose for my suggestions on where
to invest since I don’t have any of the approved licenses to do that—just good
common business sense. So they might have to pay someone to actually do the
online transactions that need to be done from time to time. So my fee would be
based on how much actual ice time they get in a season. I would only want a
portion of their salary based on 1 minute of ice time for the whole season to
do that task.
So, as an example, let us use Martin St. Louis as a model
for this calculation since he is the first name on the list for ice time in
NHL.com. (You Google it). Based on last years shortened season Marty played all
48 regular season games and was on the ice for an average of 21.98 minutes. His
annual salary for that season is listed at $6,500,000 so if you do the
calculations, my fee would be $6161.14, but being the nice guy that I am, we
can just round that out to $6,000 and that will work for me. And Marty you will
get 3 suggestions annually for that small sum of money since it represents only
.09% of your annual contract salary. But the kicker is I have to have at least
one player per team or its no deal.
And yes you can get all of that information right off of the
NHL website. Seems they have no problem with sharing that stuff but if you ask
a team about a player’s injury they will just say that it is either an upper or
lower body injury. It sounds to me like a lot of lawyer and bean counter
influence to me and players are more like numbers than valuable assets to the
organizations at hand.
And the NHLPA site only talks money in simple terms and
shows the NHL teams with just the total compensation that each team pays to its
players. I think that might be for the benefit of any union member or future
member to help decide who they would prefer to sign with for a future contract.
Now I would also like to offer my services to both parties
and we can work out some sort of fair compensation for that job as well. And my
overall concept will be “Stop killing the golden goose you bozos!!!!” And it
goes equally for owners and players alike. I would just get them in a room and
start giving them all the complete and unedited version of the “behind closed
doors” coaching clinic on how you make the NHL work for both of you. That is a
language they all understand and that is how you get both parties to
understand.
And sadly my concept would never happen because it is based
on common sense and that seems to be the basic problem in all sports' businesses
nowadays. You would think that bottom-line thinking would drive these programs
first but it seems that stubbornness, brattiness and single-minded thinking
come into play, just like the last two kids in the choosies line for your
pick-up games of days gone by.
Gary, give me the ball
please
No I don’t wanna’
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