You should already have known the Bruins weren't for
sale, first of all, and second: come on!
I had thought that anyone who was down on Jacobs and
Bruins' management would have changed their way of
thinking around by now.
Last season, for example: splurged on the big name in
the trade deadline pool, Sergei Gonchar, and had,
without a doubt, the pieces in place to compete for a
championship which was lost, ultimately, by the
players. Our ownership certainly fielded a better
paper team than Montreal's ownership did. What
happened?

But the big thing that I see and maybe others don't is
that if all the NHL teams had been as fiscally
responsible as teams like the Bruins and Devils, we
wouldn't be in this mess: we'd be watching the teams
battle out their playoff spots right now, in a league
of relative parity. But the deep pockets in
Philadelphia, New York and Detroit, among others, have
contributed much more than their fair share in what
has been ruined for all of us.

And remember, this is the same owner that made Ray
Bourque the highest paid defenseman in the history of
the game on more than one occasion, bankrolled squads
that were, on paper and in line at the bank, near the
top of the league at least three times (remember that
1995 group with Iafrate and Stevens?), made Joe
Thornton the highest paid freshman in the history of
the game up to that point (his deal was better than
Lindros' deal, AFTER the rookie cap was instituted)
and paid Martin Lapointe about three million dollars
more per year than he had any right to expect or
deserved.

In a 45 million dollar salary cap, the Bruins would
have about 15 million to play with that isn't tied up
in three or four players.

>
> Two weeks after the National Hockey League canceled
> its entire season
> for the first time ever, top officials of the sport
> assembled Tuesday
> to consider the previously unthinkable: selling all
> 30 hockey teams
> to a single buyer.
>
>
> In a half-hour meeting on Tuesday afternoon, three
> Boston executives,
> including Bain Capital partner and Boston Celtics
> co-owner Stephen
> Pagliuca, laid out for hockey's owners and governors
> a proposal to
> purchase the league for $3.3 billion and change the
> economics of a
> game left in crisis by years of losses and a 2004-05
> season in which
> no puck touched the ice. They received polite
> applause after the
> meeting. But the richest teams in hockey, including
> the Boston
> Bruins, are saying no deal.
>
> ''I don't think it's realistic," said Jeremy M.
> Jacobs, owner of the
> Bruins, noting that he can't fathom such a deal in
> his
> lifetime. ''The Bruins are not for sale, plain and
> simple."
>
> It's a long shot by any measure, even the architects
> of the proposal
> concede. And the price -- which the owners complain
> is low at an
> average of $117 million per team -- is only one of
> many hurdles.
>
> ''Any time you're trying to acquire 30 companies
> from 30 different
> owners, and they happen to be sports teams, I don't
> think anybody
> would think that's an easy thing to do," said Robert
> L. Caporale,
> chairman of Game Plan, the Boston sports advisory
> firm that conceived
> of the buyout idea last spring and brought Bain
> aboard when the NHL
> expressed interest six months ago. But after a
> season with no games
> and a stalemate with the players, Caporale said,
> hockey needs to
> consider a radical solution ''from a business and
> financial
> standpoint -- and for the good of the sport."
>
> The proposal was first reported yesterday by the
> Toronto Star.
>
> Hockey is plagued with many problems, including
> anemic television
> appeal, a lack of marketing cooperation among teams,
> and high player
> costs as a percent of revenue. All told, the league
> produces $2
> billion in annual revenue, 75 percent of which goes
> to cover players'
> salaries and benefits. In the other major
> professional sports, player
> pay runs from 50 percent to 68 percent of revenue,
> according to Marc
> S. Ganis, president of Sportscorp, Ltd., a Chicago
> investment banking
> firm that focuses on sports teams.
>
> Meanwhile, hockey is sorely testing its fans. Unable
> to strike a new
> collective bargaining agreement with the players
> union, the NHL
> Players' Association, the league on Sept. 15 locked
> out the players
> for the second time in a decade. Even today,
> management and the
> players continue to battle over setting salary caps,
> which the owners
> insist is essential to getting expenses under
> control. The league has
> proposed a $42.5 million ceiling, per team, on
> spending for salaries
> and benefits; the union has asked for $49 million.
>
> Ganis called Bain Capital's buyout offer a culture
> shock in the
> sports world. Bain Capital was founded by Mitt
> Romney in 1984, long
> before he was governor of Massachusetts (he left the
> firm in 1999 and
> no longer has a financial stake in it). Bain makes
> its money by
> acquiring companies like Burger King and KB Toys,
> cutting their
> costs, and reselling them or taking them public in
> stock offerings.
>
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
> When Bain does a large deal, it generally enlists
> other private
> equity firms to chip in. The hockey proposal is
> attracting interest
> not only from other investment firms, according to
> people involved in
> the offer, but from investment banking firms that
> help raise capital
> from Wall Street firms.
>
> Given hockey's financial woes, a buyout is not as
> outlandish as some
> might suggest, Ganis said.
>
> ''As the labor situation continues, and the
> economics of many of the
> individual teams deteriorates, there may be a number
> of team owners
> that are more receptive than they are today," Ganis
> said. Still, he
> noted, ''Jerry Jacobs may never change his mind."
>
> A buyout of all the teams in the league would
> require the agreement
> of all of the owners as well as league officials.
> NHL commissioner
> Gary Bettman was open to the proposal, according to
> people involved
> in the meeting, and invited the Boston executives to
> make the
> presentation before the owners earlier this week.
> But owners of the
> richest hockey teams -- such as Cablevision Systems
> Corp., which
> controls the New York Rangers, and Comcast Corp.,
> which owns the
> Philadelphia Flyers -- will almost surely reject the
> buyout at this
> price.
>
> The Rangers last year were valued at $282 million,
> according to
> Forbes magazine. The Toronto Maple Leafs were ranked
> second, at $280
> million, while the Flyers were valued at $264
> million. The Bruins
> ranked number seven, at $236 million.
>
> Under the proposal presented by Game Plan and Bain
> Capital, there
> would be a formula to determine the sale price for
> each team. The
> more valuable teams would fetch higher prices than
> the less
> profitable teams. Game Plan's Caporale said team
> values have fallen
> substantially this year because of the lockout. Last
> month, Walt
> Disney Co. sold its Mighty Ducks hockey team for $80
> million, 28
> percent below the team's $108 million valuation in
> 2004.
>
> Harry L. Manion III, a Boston lawyer who worked on
> the sale of the
> bankrupt Pittsburgh Penguins in 1999, said, ''What's
> a franchise
> worth right now, without a season?"
>
> The NHL yesterday declined to comment on the
> possible buyout of the
> league, which would be unprecedented in the major
> North American
> professional sports. Ownership by a single entity is
> not entirely
> new, however. In Major League Soccer, all the teams
> are owned by a
> group of investor-operators, and player contracts
> are controlled by
> the league office, rather than by each team.
> Shifting hockey from a
> traditional structure to single ownership, however,
> would be
> difficult, sports specialists said.
>
> There would be something in this deal for players,
> people involved in
> the offer said -- an equity stake in the team. That
> means players
> could reap gains as the value of the enterprise
> rose.
>
> Caporale of Game Plan said even the naysayers, like
> the Bruins'
> Jacobs, have to address the woes of the weaker
> franchises. ''It's
> fine to say, 'My team doesn't have financial
> problems,' " Caporale
> said. ''But you can't play yourself."
>
>
>
>
>
>





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