First off, sorry for the long absence, but work is work and sometimes it decides it wants to take over your life. A lot has happened in this year and One story is particularly important to me: the ASGs charade of trying to sell the Thrashers.
Now before I go into this lets look at the Thrashers history. Perennial finishes in 10-15 place in the East, one division championship and a swift sweep in the playoffs that year. So obviously their track record is not on their side, but then agin is it really all the team's fault?
The Atlanta Spirit Group have claimed that they lost over $130 million on the Thrashers over the years, but the funny thing is when Ted Turner owned the team they made small profits every year. Now granted small profits are nothing to write home about but what I want to point out is even though the team was in the bottom 5 of the league there were adament fans and supporters of a better future. The real drop in money is when the Spirit group took over in 2003 thats when things starting going south. We're talking noticible cut backs in staffing at the arena, an ability to neglect a GM that needed to be fired or promoted (which eventually happened), and a lack of caring toward the fan base in general.
Over all the years of increased ticket sales and raising costs for consessions, the team kept the payroll as close to the bottom of the price floor as possible. As fans became annoyed and starting retaliating back at the owners they simply said, "show up and well put a better product on the ice". But being a fan, why do I want to watch a team that I know is going to get killed because you won't pony up the money to get the players we need and are constantly fighting with yourselves on who is the next best free agent in basketball... THEN if its worth it to sue a guy over it. Oh wait, thats how we got to this position in the first place. The ASG really just know basketball and bought the hockey team to offset its gains.
Now, the ASG are back in court again to sue the firm that helped them get the Thrashers and made the team "unsellable" by the way the contract was written. Now, not to be rude or take personal shots at anyone, but how are you stupid enough to think that you can sell someone else's assets without them concenting? Belkin personally was a majority investor which mean they needed his good graces to relieve themselves of this burden (as they would say). By taking him to court and freezing his input of course you can't sell because he has leverage to hold against you in court. This is obviously something no one can really say is competely true, becuse lets face it, no one is in the ownership group and is in the court room hearing the arguments.
Now, people say that there are problems everywhere in this organization but I don't think thats entirely true. The ASG knew Waddell couldn't handle everything alone and leaving him out there to dry and take the heat from the fans was the ASGs way of staying out of the spotlight and letting themselves battle among themselves for who has the better idea of what a good purchase is (Kind of of ironic they ened up this way now isn't it?). Now, I am not saying Waddell is all to blame here because most of the players that leave Atlanta say its a beautiful city and this team is just not run well. Thats interesting, the players know the ownership is a problem, they say the MANAGEMENT is the issue and not the coaching (OK, Kovalchuk and Kozlov voiced it was a problem but thats about the only whispers you heard of that).
Ok, so now we have two parties mad at the ownership: players and ticket holders.
Now, as all this comes out that they they don't have the money to take the losses anymore. Let me get this straight... you sign a tier II star in the NBA to a 6 year $120 million contract and you cant fund a hockey team where you have successfully ruined any fan base by keeping the payroll at $40 million. You just payed one individual half that amount and he isn't worth that at all. How can you justify that? I mean, that's just like saying to a friend I don't have any extra cash and then buying something at the next store with cash with them there. The hockey team is losing you money because you built it that way.
Now that they have successfully run this team into the ground we get the daily rumor mill grinding that Atlanta is going to Winnipeg, done deal, etc. Funny thing is the ASG get more out of the sale if the team stays here in Atlanta. Out of the deal that is proposed by Canadian Media Outlets, the sale is $170 million, of that $170 million, 60 goes to the NHL for relocation. Now, if a local buyer takes it at $110 million, then ASG still gets rent checks for the 41 dates and will keep getting that till they sell the rights to the bonds on the arena. So as messed up as this scenario is, the ASG actually shouldn't sell to the True North Sports because that is the worse deal they could sign.
That is just my take, so do as you may with it.
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