Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
Yep ... never claimed it was mine.
Certainly not celebrating anything.
Being pretty straight forward. Understand the reasons behind the no at any cost crowd, but there is a "would like to have a new arena" crowd too. And a "makes the most economic sense to share the costs" crowd.
As I said ... nobody that owns a hockey team is getting a good return on investment. Hopefully the line of people willing to tie their capital up doesn't run out. The building would make it pretty rough to stay in the mix.
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There's also a "this deal is close, but could be a lot better - let's push for it now while we still have all of the leverage" crowd.
Can we stop with the 'owning a hockey team is a hassle' rhetoric though? (not directed only at you, it's been a common refrain in these threads). Franchise values have exploded across the Big 4. Could you generate a better return elsewhere? Probably. You could also generate less, or lose money altogether.
At the end of the day, this is one of the most exclusive assets to own - 124 in North America, only 9 of them in Canada. Most are generating annual dividends in the form of net income (the Flames certainly are, despite what King & Bettman may want us to believe). And this doesn't even begin to mention the personal experience returns (ie. owner's box, and basically being a little kid playing with real-life hockey cards) and ego play. Some art lovers may know which rich dude bought the latest Van Gogh or Banksy up for auction, but almost everyone in your local community knows who owns their sports club...perhaps more importantly, Murray & co. own something that a lot of their other rich friends don't own and can't own.
It's not a hassle. It's a super rare, vintage Ferrari, but we're being asked to subsidize the garage.