Coyotes Blog by Steven Arnt

First off I should start by saying I'm a former Winnipeger who has a
Masters in Business and my preference is to have the Coyotes in
Southern Ontario. I do not live in Phoenix and this has likely
allowed me to not get sidetracked by emotions and focus on the
business concerns that I would have as a fan of any franchise
including:

1) Value of the Franchise - $212 is an overpayment for Phoenix but is
a huge underpayment for putting a team in Southern Ontario. Terms and
conditions also include a nice clause that precludes Balsille from
having to pay any sort of transfer payment for infringing upon another
teams territorial rights. Now, excluding the territorial rights issue
as that only really affects Toronto and Buffalo an expansion team in
Southern Ontario is worth roughly double the current bid for the
Coyotes. Assume for the sake of argument even $300 Million. That's a
loss of revenue for each existing NHL team of $10 Million Dollars.
Most NHL teams aren't going to be happy to agree to let go of $10
Million; especially since I believe this revenue falls outside the
salary cap calculations and is straight profit and there are a number
of teams that would desperately love this type of cash infusion
(Tampa, Florida, etc.)

2) Salary Cap Implications - Big ticket franchise is going to make a
pile of cash that is going to significantly increase the salary cap;
especially with the rise in the Canadian dollar. Does that push the
cap up 5%? 10%? 25%? I can't answer that for certain but if there
are a number of teams barely making ends meet now, what happens if
it's at the high level of the extremes? First you lose the expansion
money, now you are locking in a loss of additional millions of dollars
per year.

3) Implication of Territorial Rights - If a bankruptcy court can force
a team into a geographic area that the NHL doesn't want it to compete
in, what does that say about the movement of other franchises? Why
stop with just moving 1 team to Southern Ontario? Why not move the
Lightning and increase their franchise value by a hundred million?
Why not add another team in Philadelphia? Or Vancouver? Pretty soon,
you could be down to the NHL existing in a handful of
states/provinces. It seems far fetched but for those teams that are
eeking out an existance, if this comes to fruitiion they just struck
oil when it does come time to sell. The team can move anywhere. Why,
they could even go to Russia, if you think about it. What does that
do to the future of the game when the league has no control over where
its franchises are located?

4) Cloak and Dagger - Moyes is an hour away for a briefing with
Bettman on the final terms and conditions with a new owner who is
going to keep the team in Phoenix and he decides that he's filing for
bankruptcy and then claims he knew nothing about a forthcoming offer.
I'm not a genius but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't pass a lie detector
test on that statement. This is and has always been a PR campaign by
Balsille to force the NHL to give him a franchise where he wants it so
that he quits screwing with the league. He's going to make life
miserable for the league until they do and he's using the Coyotes as a
weapon and the fans of this team are getting hurt in the process.
He's even draping himself in the Canadian flag to draw attention to
what the real negative implications that exist with this transaction.
People are so wrapped up in "bringing a team back to Canada" that they
aren't asking the tough questions and asking what the implications
are.