Professional Sports Franchises
 

The NHL Phoenix Coyotes are at the heart of an interesting process going on right now.

They are in bankruptcy proceedings, having lost 380 million over the last 12 years. They have been actively pursuing a buyer, and they have a buyer, a Canadian Billionaire who wants to move the to Ontario, Canada.

"FOUL!" cry the NHL owners. They don't want the Coyotes to move to Ontario (not exactly sure why). The bankruptcy court may rule that the sale is permitted because it will result in the creditors being paid off (well, largely or at whatever percentage the bankruptcy court rules or however exactly that works), but the league is saying that the sale would violate league agreements on the owners of teams in the league having control of where franchises are located.

The NBA, MLB, and NFL have also weighed in on this and are against the sale for the same reason.

I am somewhat torn, to be honest. The creditors have rights, but so do the owners who have contractual agreements with the Coyote franchise, and so do the taxpayers of Arizona, who voted to publically fund the arena in which the Coyotes play (I voted against it and hate publically funded sports arenas, but that's a different story).

I don't know if this results in the death of pro sports leagues, as has been the rhetoric from the prop sports leagues.....I don't really even know if it truly harms them.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Don't know the specifics of the situation but it seems to me that if the other owners want to maintain control over location, even in the face of failed ownership, then they need to be willing to step in and buy the team (or have league rules that allow them to take control) and manage it until they can stabilize the situation to their satisfaction.

Isn't that essentially what happened with the Montreal Expos?

Don't know the history of that, but now that you mention it it sure sounds familiar.

Given that, to avoid antitrust concerns, recent leagues like the MLS have come into being as single entities rather than as an alliance of individual owners, I would say that the trend is towards more group control rather than less.

However, if the Ontario Coyotes wanted to fly solo and do a barnstorming tour like the Cincinnati Redstockings or the Kansas City Monarchs, I would probably pay several dollars to watch them have a go at the Snoopy rink against the local teenagers.

That was my understanding of the situation.

Yeah, and that worked out great. Just ask Moonliner.

Refreshing myself on the history it is essentially what happened. Though when MLB took control of the Expos they were expecting the close down the franchise.

However, the trouble with that is that MLB can't close just one team, because of the density of the schedule they would need to close two to keep an even number of teams and they couldn't pick another team to close so eventually they gave D.C. the franchise.

And it did highlight one bad aspect of league control (at least in the context of a league where that isn't the norm) in that they were completely unwilling to spend more than they needed to. Refusing to even fill the extra 10 roster spots available in September even though, one year, the Expos were in the wild card race.

Regardless, I'm not a hockey fan so this is merely a symbolic feeling on my part but I am of the view that there should be no professional hockey teams in locations where frozen water is almost never seen in nature. So no Phoenix, no LA, no San Jose, no Florida. So I'm completely in favor of the Phoenix team moving to Canada.

I think one of the issues the NHL has is that is messes up the Pacific division and Western/Eastern Conference division. They don't oppose a move to Winnepeg though.

Or you have some Senators worried that moving them will mess up the Sabers fan base

Hear, hear!

I'll second that "hear, hear!"



I'm always sad when the last Canadian team is eliminated from Stanley Cup contention every year. Especially when a team from Carolina or Florida or California is still playing for the Cup.