Quote:
Originally Posted by Beatle17
And Glendale City Council reimbursed them $25M per year to stay. Maybe what a lot of us don't know was the original lease situation when the NHL took over the team. Maybe, and I don't know, but the lease in existence at the time had huge penalties for moving as the city basically built the arena with guaranties from Elfman and his group years ago when they planned to develop the area. If that is the case then the only way the original lease could be changed was for the team to be sold to new owners who negotiated their own lease, which was done this year.
There are so many factors that we as fans know nothing about it really makes no sense to get upset about the Phoenix situation. And for all of the fans saying Bettman could have moved the team to a places that would sell out every game, where are these places? Richard Peddie was just on OTR and said a second NHL team in Southern Ontario probably wouldn't succeed and specifically mentioned Hamilton. He said they couldn't generate enough revenue to change the leagues financial picture.
One last point, Bettman didn't move the Jets to Phoenix. That was agreed upon before he was hired. If you want to blame someone for the team being there then blame the other owners.
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They lost the $112M after getting the $25M per from Glendale. I think the NHL is still waiting for their last payment.
The lease was ended with the bankruptcy and the team could have been moved at any time since than by the NHL.
Yeah the former CEO of MLSE says that another team in S. Ontario would lose money, how about that. I can't say if a team in Hamilton would work but a billionaire was willing to put his money into it. A study was done by the NHL at the time and it was concluded another team in Toronto would be the third top money maker in the NHL, so there are and were alternatives.
As for who's to blame for the Jets moving to Phoenix, I haven't discussed that. I think it was because of the poor Canadian dollar and the lack of an arena though. What most people wonder, is why a team stays in Phoenix when they have lost money every year they've been there. Sure they've found an owner but they had to lend him money to buy the team.