Company offers to buy entire NHL

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

Apparently, a Boston-based finance firm has offered to buy all 30 NHL teams for 3.5 billion dollars. I doubt the deal will go through, because as ESPN said, why would the owners of the Maple Leafs, Canadiens, Rangers, Red Wings, etc agree to the deal. Their teams are actually profitable. That would be crazy though, if it did happen

Freak

Yeah it won't happen because all 30 owners need to OK it. I still think there'd be a large handful who would, but not the owners of the teams you mentioned. Even so, if something else beneficial can transpire from this, I'd be happy.

AudioSavior

Can you imagine how bad Hockey would suck if everyone worked for the same owner? A player wouldn't even be able to work out a trade lol. Players could get moved around like musical chairs and it would be the end of hockey on NA unless a different league got started up.

Freak

Dude, if it were to happen, think of how easy it would be to implement changes and make the game better? And I highly doubt there'd be one GM for all 30 teams -- these guys would probably sell off shares of teams and assign control for each elsewhere. There would be total revenue-sharing I bet, which is already taking one step in the direction of the NFL.

It's never gonna happen but it could be very good for hockey.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

What they could do is just say "OK, we own everything, you 30 GMs have x amount of dollars to spend every year. Go build some teams"

And the GMs would have incentive to build good teams because if they dont, they'll get fired. Hell, you could even make the GM's pay incentive-based, to give them more motivation to build good teams.

There obviously would still be some headaches, but I think its an idea thats worth considering.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

To add to my point above, think about the "new" NHL as a business, lets say its like General Motors.

You have the CEO, and he has people responsible for making the Buicks, Chevys, Cadillacs, etc. Obviously, if sales of Chevys are slipping, the head of the Chevy division is in hot water. And you want all the divisions doing well, because its better for the company as a whole.

The new NHL could be the same way. The one owner is like the CEO, and the 30 GMs are like the heads of the different departments within the company. And the players are like the engineers, mechanics, etc.

AudioSavior

I dunno, I could see it going wrong very fast. Like lets say the owner is losing money with one team so he gets the GMs to trade a few players around so that team generates more wins and revenues. And if the GM doesn't want to do it he gets fired.

Randy Orton

WC's Resident Alchoholic

I agree with IdaMan. It is a bad idea to have one person/company own a whole league. I think it would kill the league(as if it hasn't been killed already).