Journalism Research and Random Meanderings

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Forbes.com: "Bettman never understood--still doesn't understand--that hockey isn't basketball." 

I was considering writing my own anti-Betmann diatribe when I came across this. Mr. Ozanian not only gets the sport he gets the business. I'm biased because I agree with him but Mr. Ozanian has hit the nail one the head here.

Blame Bettman

Sports Feature
Blame Bettman
Michael K. Ozanian, 02.17.05, 3:00 PM ET

"NEW YORK - Hockey is a sport whose lifeblood has always been the arena. Unlike football, baseball or basketball, hockey is not a made-for-TV spectacle. You have to go to a game to understand the sport--feel the cold, hear the clank of the puck, see the blood, calculate its speed.

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While the media has focused on the NHL's operating losses ($96 million last season) and player salaries (an average of $1.8 million), the truth of the matter is that league's bloody P&L statement is the symptom, not the disease.

Hockey's illness is Bettman, a basketball man who is a prodigy of NBA commissioner David Stern. Bettman and the owners he works for trashed the league's identity when they tried to turn a cash-rich, mom-and-pop league into a growth industry.

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Only someone (like the current commissioner) completely unfamiliar with what makes hockey great could not see the likely result: During the 1996-1997 season the 26 NHL teams had an average operating profit (in the sense of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $2.3 million. Last season they lost an average of $3.2 million. In November the average NHL team was worth $163 million. With $2.3 billion in league revenue wiped away forever, that figure is now down to $140 million. And big sponsors like MBNA and Anheuser-Busch may be lost forever.

If the NHL is ever to recover from the debacle created by Bettman, it must put in place a commissioner with hockey in his blood and tremendous integrity. Someone who the fans can identify with and trust. It needs someone who has enough guts to eliminate some teams in order to make the NHL stronger. Wayne Gretzky, anyone?"