Post by canuck5 on Dec 9, 2010 16:35:16 GMT -5
Phil Foley from the Atlanta Examiner:
www.examiner.com/atlanta-thrashers-in-atlanta/memo-to-canadians-keep-your-hands-off-of-thrashers-they-aren-t-going-anywhere
Memo to Canadians: Keep your hands off of Thrashers, they aren't going anywhere
December 8th, 2010 6:50 pm ET
It seems like just about every time the Atlanta Thrashers get on a roll, those nasty relocation rumors start churning again. Those of us who have been around this team for a while roll our eyes, get a good chuckle and go on writing about what’s happening around the rink.
And then someone in Canada writes something that makes you have to respond.
Our friends up North sense the weakness of the U.S. economy, falling attendance levels in rinks around the league and lack of enthusiasm for hockey in non-traditional markets such as Atlanta.
A cottage industry has emerged of Canadian journalists who will seize on any ambiguity, any misstatement and just about any negative result and tell their denizens in bitterly cold Winnipeg and Quebec’s provincial capital that they are going to bag Atlanta’s hockey team.
The Thrashers’ owners don’t like losing money, claims the Globe and Mail. (Funny, I don’t think anyone really ever likes losing money). The Thrashers are the next team on borrowed time, screams Scott Morrison of the CBC. (Just like that same "borrowed" time as the often relocated-on-paper Phoenix Coyotes).
But unfortunately for those up north clamoring for a second chance at hosting an NHL team, about the only thing these articles do is sell newspapers. The Thrashers are not going moving to Winnipeg or Quebec City, Kansas City or Hamilton, Las Vegas or Seattle anytime soon.
What is overlooked in virtually all of these discussions is what happens to Atlanta’s ownership group and the league if the team abandons the United States’ ninth-largest metropolitan area.
First, let’s take a look at the league.
The NHL is in the market for a new U.S. television contract this season and Atlanta is a Top 10 U.S. media market. It’s bad enough that there is no hockey in Houston, the sixth largest metro in the states (and a market that would probably even get a team ahead of Quebec City and Winnipeg). If you also take Atlanta out of the mix, that contract becomes even less lucrative. Strike one.
Garry Bettman is just simply not going to let any team leave.
"You know, too much is made about franchise issues at a particular point in time,” he told ESPN’s Scott Burnside at the close of the league’s meetings in Florida. “Our goal is to keep all our franchises where they are. That's always been our goal and that's what we try to do.”
Strike two.
Lastly, we take a look at the complicated (and sometimes dysfunctional) entity that is the Atlanta Spirit. It is this relationship that is the most misunderstood by our polite friends in Canada.
I wrote about this topic a little more in depth a couple of years ago and the reasons that the Thrashers were not moving to Hamilton are exactly the same for them not speaking French in Quebec or moving to Winterpeg today. And if you want to see the whole list of reasons, you can so here.
Here’s the Thrashers 101 for who do not know much about the team.
Atlanta Spirit, LLC is the name of the multi-owner holding group that owns the Thrashers, the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and the operating rights to Philips Arena. While the Thrashers and perhaps even the Hawks are losing money and the owners are definitely feuding, the Spirit is making a good chunk of cash from renting out Philips to the two teams, the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, the circus and various concerts and other large gatherings.
Selling the Thrashers is not a simple calculus of – oh, they’re losing $8, $10 or $15 million on the team. Let's move them.
You have to take into account the cost of having the Bulb go dark for at least 44 home hockey dates in lost rent and the breached luxury box leases that were signed in the boom time of the turn of the century predicated on the Hawks and Thrashers playing 90 or so dates there every year.
Most importantly, folks who are not from these parts don’t realize that the Spirit has one of the best naming rights deals in all of professional sports. Philips Electronics plops down approximately $9.25 million per season, which the Spirit pockets in exchange for having the name Philips Arena atop the facade of the downtown Atlanta arena. Those naming rights do not expire until the 2018-19 season. Philips would love any excuse to get out of the naming rights deal. Move the team and that’s exactly what happens.
As you can see, selling the team is not going to come easy or cheaply. If you bake in the lost revenue of the naming rights alone, you’re looking at about a $75 million premium atop a $150 million sale price or so that must be paid to relocate the Thrashers – and that doesn’t include whatever relocation penalty Bettman and the NHL will require to move a team.
Strike three.
Sorry Quebec City. Sorry Winnipeg. I am sure you are lovely cities to visit in the summer, but you’re not getting the Thrashers now or anytime in the near future.
All Atlanta needs to do to put these rumors to rest is continue the good times on the ice. With college football nearly done and the Atlanta Falcons winding up their season, folks in the ATL will soon begin to take notice of their young, exciting hockey team. Winning, after all, is the ultimate cure for attendance woes – in any NHL market
www.examiner.com/atlanta-thrashers-in-atlanta/memo-to-canadians-keep-your-hands-off-of-thrashers-they-aren-t-going-anywhere
Memo to Canadians: Keep your hands off of Thrashers, they aren't going anywhere
December 8th, 2010 6:50 pm ET
It seems like just about every time the Atlanta Thrashers get on a roll, those nasty relocation rumors start churning again. Those of us who have been around this team for a while roll our eyes, get a good chuckle and go on writing about what’s happening around the rink.
And then someone in Canada writes something that makes you have to respond.
Our friends up North sense the weakness of the U.S. economy, falling attendance levels in rinks around the league and lack of enthusiasm for hockey in non-traditional markets such as Atlanta.
A cottage industry has emerged of Canadian journalists who will seize on any ambiguity, any misstatement and just about any negative result and tell their denizens in bitterly cold Winnipeg and Quebec’s provincial capital that they are going to bag Atlanta’s hockey team.
The Thrashers’ owners don’t like losing money, claims the Globe and Mail. (Funny, I don’t think anyone really ever likes losing money). The Thrashers are the next team on borrowed time, screams Scott Morrison of the CBC. (Just like that same "borrowed" time as the often relocated-on-paper Phoenix Coyotes).
But unfortunately for those up north clamoring for a second chance at hosting an NHL team, about the only thing these articles do is sell newspapers. The Thrashers are not going moving to Winnipeg or Quebec City, Kansas City or Hamilton, Las Vegas or Seattle anytime soon.
What is overlooked in virtually all of these discussions is what happens to Atlanta’s ownership group and the league if the team abandons the United States’ ninth-largest metropolitan area.
First, let’s take a look at the league.
The NHL is in the market for a new U.S. television contract this season and Atlanta is a Top 10 U.S. media market. It’s bad enough that there is no hockey in Houston, the sixth largest metro in the states (and a market that would probably even get a team ahead of Quebec City and Winnipeg). If you also take Atlanta out of the mix, that contract becomes even less lucrative. Strike one.
Garry Bettman is just simply not going to let any team leave.
"You know, too much is made about franchise issues at a particular point in time,” he told ESPN’s Scott Burnside at the close of the league’s meetings in Florida. “Our goal is to keep all our franchises where they are. That's always been our goal and that's what we try to do.”
Strike two.
Lastly, we take a look at the complicated (and sometimes dysfunctional) entity that is the Atlanta Spirit. It is this relationship that is the most misunderstood by our polite friends in Canada.
I wrote about this topic a little more in depth a couple of years ago and the reasons that the Thrashers were not moving to Hamilton are exactly the same for them not speaking French in Quebec or moving to Winterpeg today. And if you want to see the whole list of reasons, you can so here.
Here’s the Thrashers 101 for who do not know much about the team.
Atlanta Spirit, LLC is the name of the multi-owner holding group that owns the Thrashers, the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and the operating rights to Philips Arena. While the Thrashers and perhaps even the Hawks are losing money and the owners are definitely feuding, the Spirit is making a good chunk of cash from renting out Philips to the two teams, the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, the circus and various concerts and other large gatherings.
Selling the Thrashers is not a simple calculus of – oh, they’re losing $8, $10 or $15 million on the team. Let's move them.
You have to take into account the cost of having the Bulb go dark for at least 44 home hockey dates in lost rent and the breached luxury box leases that were signed in the boom time of the turn of the century predicated on the Hawks and Thrashers playing 90 or so dates there every year.
Most importantly, folks who are not from these parts don’t realize that the Spirit has one of the best naming rights deals in all of professional sports. Philips Electronics plops down approximately $9.25 million per season, which the Spirit pockets in exchange for having the name Philips Arena atop the facade of the downtown Atlanta arena. Those naming rights do not expire until the 2018-19 season. Philips would love any excuse to get out of the naming rights deal. Move the team and that’s exactly what happens.
As you can see, selling the team is not going to come easy or cheaply. If you bake in the lost revenue of the naming rights alone, you’re looking at about a $75 million premium atop a $150 million sale price or so that must be paid to relocate the Thrashers – and that doesn’t include whatever relocation penalty Bettman and the NHL will require to move a team.
Strike three.
Sorry Quebec City. Sorry Winnipeg. I am sure you are lovely cities to visit in the summer, but you’re not getting the Thrashers now or anytime in the near future.
All Atlanta needs to do to put these rumors to rest is continue the good times on the ice. With college football nearly done and the Atlanta Falcons winding up their season, folks in the ATL will soon begin to take notice of their young, exciting hockey team. Winning, after all, is the ultimate cure for attendance woes – in any NHL market