Hage shows the true CFL values

Tonight's Gibson's Finest CFL Player Awards were mostly about performances on the gridiron, but there was one off-field performance that was also recognized. Marwan Hage, a centre with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, picked up the Tom Pate Memorial Award. The award is presented annually to a CFL player who displays qualities that distinguish them from their peers, including sportsmanship and community service. Hage certainly did that this year; he hosted food drives that fed over 2,300 families, brought 1,000 underprivileged youth to a July 18 game and regularly brought 40 local kids to each home game, giving them a meal and a t-shirt and meeting with them personally. That's really impressive, and it shows the true nature of the CFL and how much some of these guys do for their communities. "I always said that once I established myself as a player, I was going to establish myself in the community," Hage said. He's certainly done that.

NHL to Hamilton conference call, part IV: Muddying the waters

The NHL to Hamilton situation continues to get stranger by the day. Yesterday, a new group came forward with their own plan for a team in Toronto [The Canadian Press via The Globe and Mail], which involves a 30,000-seat arena at Downsview Park (with Olympic-sized swimming pool!), a percentage of the profits going to charity and possibly the stupidest name ever proposed for an NHL franchise, the Toronto Legacy. MLS and WNBA clubs laugh at that name. Even the Oklahoma Thunder snicker at that name. Anyway, add them to the list of prospective owners for a GTA franchise. Of course, that list also includes Balsillie and his Hamilton plans as well as the group led by former Leaf Kevin Maguire, who are trying to bring a team to Vaughan.

Even more interesting, though, was today's revelation that Toronto Argonauts owners Howard Sokolowski and David Cynamon are apparently interested in buying the Coyotes and leaving them in Phoenix [Paul Waldie, The Globe and Mail]. Here's the information from Waldie's story, which comes from court filings by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman:

"Bettman said the league has received a “preliminary background application” from four potential buyers for the Coyotes including Howard Sokolowski and David Cynamon, co-owners of the Argonauts. The others applications have come from Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls, as well as current Coyotes co-owner John Breslow and another unidentified Phoenix businessman.

Bettman said each group has “indicated an interest in operating the franchise in Phoenix.”

Bettman did not provide details of the proposals, citing confidentiality issues, and said the league is reviewing each application."

Now, of course, it isn't particularly hard to "indicate an interest in operating the franchise in Phoenix". Clay Bennett indicated an interest in keeping the Sonics in Seattle, and we all know how that worked out. To see if this interest could be at all genuine, we return to some of the material from this week's conference call (earlier posts on the matter are here, here and here), particularly the information dealing with the financial situation of the club in Phoenix.

The application (available via fadoo.ca) to relocate the team that was the subject of said conference call was written by CFL commissioner Tom Wright, but he was retained to do so by both PSE (Balsillie's group) and current Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes. Thus, by working for the franchise, Wright was able to gather complete information about its financial health.

"We had access to all the finances of Mr. Moyes," Wright said. "In its 13 seasons, the club has never approached a profit." Wright added that Moyes had injected $380 million into the team since 2001 without any discernible impact. "The club is not financially viable, and the prospect for it to become financially viable is not there either," he said.

How bad is the financial situation in Phoenix? Wright said the club's studies showed that even if they doubled ticket prices AND increased their attendance by 20 per cent, they would still lose $40 million dollars annually. Clearly, that's not a desirable prospect for any investor focused on the bottom line. Now, NHL franchise values have been increasing, so if that trend continues, the team could still be a worthwhile investment despite operating losses. However, it's doubtful that those values would go up by $40 million a year given the NHL's current struggles, and if losing $40 million a year is the best-case scenario, it's tough to imagine that any smart businessman would want to keep the team in Phoenix for the long haul.

Two of the four prospective ownership groups listed have local connections, though (current co-owner John Breslow and another unidentified Phoenix businessman), so the team could potentially be a loss-leader for them. The PR benefits of being "the guys who saved the Coyotes" might counterbalance the amounts of money they'd have to pour into the team, and they might be able to get a sweetheart deal from the city of Glendale and the other creditors to keep the franchise around. However, it's difficult to see any benefits in owning a team in Phoenix in the long run for either the Cynamon/Sokolowski group or White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, the other prospective owner listed by the league.

Past history may prove instructive here, though. The NHL takes care of those who play by its rules. One example is Craig Leipold, who famously took less money from a mostly-local (except for noted crook Boots DelBiaggio) ownership group in Nashville to keep Balsillie out of the club. Shortly thereafter, Leipold wound up as the owner of the Minnesota Wild. Would anyone really be surprised if Sokolowski and Cynamon take over the Coyotes, keep them going in Phoenix for a year or two, and then either move them to Southern Ontario with the approval of the league or sell them to local interests at a discount and receive an expansion franchise in Southern Ontario as their reward? From this corner, that's the most plausible explanation for their sudden interest.

However, it's also possible that all of this is an elaborate series of smokescreens. A new ownership group in Toronto with massive amounts of funds that wants to play by the league's rules and promises to donate profits to charity? Hmm; that sounds like an attempt to cultivate an even more glossy PR image in Canada than Balsillie's pulled off to date. One of the big things in Balsillie's favour so far is how he's managed to get large amounts of Canadians onside and play on anti-Bettman sentiment. He's seen as the good Canadian willing to stand up to the evil American commissioner, and Bettman's attempts to paint him as a dangerous rogue threatening the entire structure of the league have failed so far. Those attempts look a lot better if there's suddenly a more palatable group on the scene claiming to want to play by the rules and only stating interest in an expansion team, which would certainly be a long and complicated process and probably wouldn't happen for years given the league's current economic state. Bettman and co. can now shoot down Balsillie but fend off some of the backlash in Canada by claiming to work with a new group for an expansion franchise down the road.

Similarly, Cynamon and Sokolowski don't actually have to be serious about purchasing the Coyotes and keeping them in Phoenix. A big part of Balsillie's case to the bankruptcy court so far has been the idea that his bid is the only reasonable one, the only legitimate offer that would satisfy creditors. In the conference call, Wright said that none of these supposed other bids had ever been received by Moyes and that they weren't offering enough money to keep creditors happy.

It's unclear what the terms of any of these offers are at the moment, but consider this scenario: perhaps the NHL has one somewhat legitimate offer (probably Reinsdorf's, as it's been mentioned before), but it's nowhere nearly as attractive as Balsillie's. To make it look better, they recruit other businessmen and have them submit slightly lower offers. Thus, Reinsdorf's offer goes from being a low-ball bid to keep the team local to a reasonable deal slightly above "market value". Of course, there's no indication that this has happened, but it would help to explain why these bids came in so late in the game. If all of these other groups are just to confuse the central issue of Balsillie v. Bettman, they're doing a pretty good job of it so far.

NHL to Hamilton conference call, part III: Does Canada make a difference?

Continuing in the vein of my first and second posts on this week's conference call about the official application to relocate the Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton, I figured it would be worth taking a look at some of the other aspects of the situation. One element that's particularly interested me is if it makes any difference that the proposed new site would be in Canada, so that's the focus of today's post.

Obviously, there are some major differences to be found in operating a professional sports franchise in the United States or in Canada. The biggest one is the currency. One of the main reasons that the Winnipeg Jets (who became the Coyotes) and Quebec Nordiques (who became the Colorado Avalanche) left for the U.S. in the 1990s was thanks to a slump in the Canadian economy and a correlated decline in the Canadian dollar. There were other issues in both cities, including arena capacity and capabilities, corporate support and television cash, but the dollar's weakness did factor into it. In a league like the NHL, one of your biggest expenses is payroll, and that's in American dollars regardless of where your franchise is located. If you're operating an American franchise, your revenue from seat sales, corporate sponsorships, advertising and television deals all comes in in American dollars as well; if your team's in Canada, your revenues are in Canadian dollars but some of your biggest costs still have to be paid out in American dollars. Thus, while the Canadian dollar was extremely weak against American currency in the 1990s, it put a lot of pressure on Canadian franchises. Winnipeg and Quebec moved, and there were rumours that Calgary and Edmonton would follow suit.

Since then, the Canadian dollar's done much better against the U.S. greenback. That change in the relative values of the currencies, combined with a huge upswing in demand for hockey north of the 49th parallel since the lockout from both average fans and corporate sponsors (allowing for massive price increases in many markets) and a corresponding downturn in many U.S. hockey markets, meant that all of a sudden, it was the Canadian teams supporting the league and many of the American teams in trouble. Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star reported in February 2007 that the six Canadian teams (representing 20 per cent of the league's 30 franchises) were bringing in a disproportionate 33 per cent of the profits. Since then, the situation appears to have perhaps shifted even further in favour of Canada; all six Canadian franchises were in the top 10 in Forbes' year-end list of NHL franchises sorted by annual operating income.

That list is quite interesting. If you add all 30 franchises' operating incomes (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, calculated by subtracting operating expenses from operating revenues), you wind up with a net operating income of $141.5 million U.S. for the entire league. Conversely, if you add just the six Canadian teams' operating incomes (ranked #1, 2, 4, 7, 8 and 10 overall), you get $149.1 million U.S.. Thus, despite the strong performances of American markets like New York, Dallas and Detroit (#3, 5 and 6), the Canadian clubs alone are more profitable than the league as a whole. That doesn't mean that a six-team Canadian league would be more profitable, as it would be much harder to sell advertisers and television networks on. However, it does show how much of the league's income is coming from Canada.

Moreover, much of that income is coming out of the Toronto area, the proposed site for Balsillie's relocated team. The Maple Leafs recorded an operating income of $66.4 million U.S. in 2008, $26.8 million above the second-place Montreal Canadiens. Obviously, a second team in the Toronto area wouldn't put up quite the same numbers given the Maple Leafs' extensive history and massive fanbase. Still, if a new team makes two-thirds as much operating income as the Leafs, they'd be the second-most profitable team in the league. If they make half as much as the Leafs, they'd be the third-most profitable team in the league. Thus, a second team in the Toronto area in one way or another would appear to be a surefire bet from a pure business standpoint.

One thing to keep in mind is the aforementioned currency effects, though. At the moment, the Canadian dollar is hovering right around 90 cents U.S. If it dropped to, say, 60 cents U.S., all of a sudden (not far below the exchange rate in parts of the 1990s), it costs the Canadian franchises an extra 30 cents on every dollar to pay their players. Because their revenues are in Canadian dollars, their expenses shoot up but their incoming cash flow remains largely the same, hurting their profit margins significantly. Meeting payroll costs them 1.5 times as much as it did before if no salaries change.

Now, a second team in the Toronto area would still probably do quite well even under these circumstances. From those Forbes numbers, the Leafs took in $160 million U.S. in operating revenue and recorded an operating income of $66 million, thus making their operating expenses $94 million. We'll assume a second Toronto team would have similar operating expenses. I don't know how many of those expenses are in American dollars and how many are in Canadian currency; payroll, one of the biggest expenses for any professional sports team, is paid out in greenbacks, but many of the other expenses can probably be paid in Canadian currency. However, even if all $94 million is in American currency and the dollar drops to 60 cents U.S. (likely a worst-case scenario), that would raise their expenses to $141 million Canadian. Even if we assume that all of their incoming revenue is in the lower Canadian dollars (which likely isn't the case), the Leafs would still make an operating income of $19 million under this worst-case scenario. If we go by my previous idea that a second team could make two-thirds of the Leafs' income, that would be $106.6 million in revenue. This would lead to a significant loss under the worst-case scenario, but we don't know how much of that income would be in the more valuable American currency and how much would be in Canadian cash, and we also don't know what percentage of the expenses would be in U.S. dollars. Under more realistic assumptions than the worst-case scenario above (which assumes all revenue in $CDN and all expenses in $US), the team could still make a profit even in an economic crisis.

That's also not to predict a sudden massive setback in the Canadian economy relative to the American one. The Canadian economy actually looks reasonably strong compared to that of the U.S. at the moment, but relative currency strength is highly volatile and depends on a wide number of factors. Thus, the prospects of the Canadian economy make a significant difference to the revenue-generating prospects of another NHL team in Canada. Add that in to the laws, taxes, television deals and other such subjects that affect NHL teams and differ from the U.S. to Canada, and it's clear that operating teams in the two countries can be quite dissimilar.

Given those factors, you'd think that several, if not all, of those subjects would be covered in any application to relocate a team. However, that isn't the case. This was a topic I was rather interested in, so I asked application author Tom Wright on Tuesday if there were any parts in the application that addressed the differences between running a team in Canada and the U.S., and he was quite adamant that there were not. "There were no specific provisions that were asked for or provided," he said.

Wright added that the application was a standard one mandated by the NHL for any group that desired to move a franchise, not anything particular to the Phoenix to Hamilton situation.

"The questions are not specifically written for this instance," he said. "They're bylaws that must be considered when transferring a franchise."

At first glance, it seems incredibly foolhardy of the NHL not to include anything on the different regulations or economic circumstances that might be involved in this kind of a franchise transfer. Of course, the part of the application laying out the future business prospects for the team in Hamilton was extremely vague, as mentioned earlier. It didn't appear to ask for even a projected profit estimate, so perhaps country-specific regulations are less of an omission. Still, franchises in the two countries work under very different circumstances, and pretending that those differences don't exist or glossing over them appears to be a recipe for trouble.

However, there is one logical explanation as to why nothing on the subject is in the NHL bylaws that govern relocation procedures. It's a simple, but elegant one; they never expected it to come up. As mentioned above, when Winnipeg and Quebec fled south, hockey in Canada appeared to be struggling. Even in the much better economic climate at the moment, there still aren't any major Canadian cities that currently don't have a team and would be a guaranteed success if they did get a team. Winnipeg and Quebec are in better shape than they were, but both face significant hurdles with respect to arenas, corporate sponsorships and television deals. They might not even be successful at the moment, and a return to economic malaise would certainly hurt them substantially. That's not to say that they can't work; I actually think both cities would be better for the NHL than some of the current money-draining franchises. Neither is a surefire sensation in pretty good times, though, so it's fair to say that the NHL certainly never envisioned going back during the darker times.

The one absolutely can't-miss spot to put a new NHL team is in Southern Ontario. As mentioned above, a new Southern Ontario team would likely be in the top two or three franchises in the league in terms of profitability at the moment. Even in a more dire economic situation, the team could still be profitable. Thus, it would be logical to think that the NHL would consider that this situation would come up at some point and include some sort of guidelines in their standard bylaws that would take Canadian circumstances into account. However, the league doesn't appear to have done that, suggesting that they didn't expect another team to pop up in the Toronto area at all, and certainly not through relocation.

Why is that? It's not driven by business interests, and I don't buy the nationalistic explanation that it's all due to Gary Bettman's hatred for Canada. Part of it is due to a genuine desire to grow the game in the States and gain a substantial television contract, but that still doesn't tell the whole picture. No, the real answer lies with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres, and their supposed "territorial rights" over Southern Ontario. As Jim Kelley pointed out in a Sports Illustrated column Thursday, the Leafs in particular are the real eminence griese behind this situation. It's been made quite clear that they aren't going to give up their lucrative monopoly in Southern Ontario without a fight, and their financial standing gives them considerable influence with the league's other clubs.

Moreover, keeping Balsillie out preserves not just the Leafs' monopoly, but also monopolies for all of the other NHL clubs in solid markets and monopolies for NFL, NBA and MLB clubs. Those leagues aren't supporting the NHL in this one out of any love for Bettman or any high ideals of solidarity; they're doing so because it supports their business model. This is why Balsillie likely felt he couldn't try and go in through the league's front door again, and instead had to gamble on a risky all-or-nothing play in bankruptcy court. There's more to it than just this one omission in a set of bylaws governing relocation procedures, but it's indicative of the league's general attitude. For the NHL, Canada is apparently a place to leave, not a place to contemplate moving struggling franchises. That isn't a productive attitude at this moment in time, and they may need to rethink it as more and more of their teams begin to run into trouble.

New group enters the second NHL team in Toronto fray

Very interesting stuff here from The Globe and Mail. Apparently, a group led by Paul Pellegrini and Andrew Lopez has lined up $1 billion in financing and scheduled a news conference for Friday to discuss application for an expansion franchise, a potential arena site and a name. I wonder if this group is at all related to the one that provoked the earlier Vaughan rumours I covered back in April?

If Vaughan is indeed the plan, that would make a lot of sense. Vaughan is a better site than Hamilton in my mind; it wouldn't affect the Sabres as much, and there are more people within close range of the arena. Plus, an expansion franchise (especially one with this amount of cash) would allow Gary Bettman and co. to cut Jim Balsillie off at the knees and maintain their control of where franchises are placed. Furthermore, a generous payment could stifle any potential objections from the Leafs and Sabres and prevent what could be a nasty antitrust fight in court. If these guys are serious about coming in through the front door, the NHL may be tempted to go with them to keep Balsillie out. In any case, it will be interesting to watch. In my mind, we will see another NHL team in Southern Ontario relatively soon, as the market's just too desirable to neglect. The questions are where it will play, when it will arrive, and who will be involved. I'll have more on this one as details come out.

NHL to Hamilton conference call, part II: Vagaries of the application

One of the interesting things that came out of yesterday's media conference call on the filing of the official application to move the Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton was the information about the NHL's application process. The application covers the territory required by NHL By-Law 36.5, and there are some curious inclusions and omissions there.

First, the application includes substantial information about the Coyotes' financial picture in Phoenix. Here are four of the key points made in the application, excerpted word-for-word from the media backgrounder I received:

"- Since inception the Club has recorded cumulative EBITDA losses in excess of $316 million.

- The Club has been unable to generate a significant fan base in Glendale demonstrated by a lack of interest in attending a game live, with the Club ranking 5th in attendance interest in that market behind the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NCAA Football. Historic support is weak, attendance is low, ticket sales continue to decline and broadcast ratings are low.

- Management of the Club has attempted to restructure its operations in an effort to increase revenues and decrease costs to reduce operating losses, and bring a greater probability of financial sustainability. Even with the most optimistic of planning assumptions the five-year horizon in Glendale projects further losses of over $40 million.

- In an effort to secure additional investors or a buyer to help meet responsibilities towards all creditors, current owner Jerry Moyes engaged an experienced adviser and retained Citibank’s Private Banking Group. There was not one expression of interest or an offer of any magnitude that would pay most of the creditors and keep the Club in Phoenix/Glendale."

There's enough material in those four points for a whole series, and some of it will be discussed in greater detail in my upcoming posts on the matter. However, the key thing to notice for the moment is the specific numbers included: cumulative EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization) losses of $316 million and projected future losses of $40 million under "the most optimistic of planning assumptions."

What are "the most optimistic of planning assumptions"? Application author Tom Wright (whose role I explored in more detail here) had some interesting comments on the Coyotes' past and future financial prospects on the conference call, including those details.

"We had access to all the financial details of Mr. Moyes," Wright said. "In its 13 seasons [in Phoenix], the club has never approached a profit. ... The club is not financially viable and the prospect for it to become financially viable is not there either."

Wright stated that "the most optimistic of planning assumptions" case considered almost doubled ticket prices and an attendance increase of 20 per cent, both of which would be highly unlikely to succeed on their own but appear ludicrously unbelievable in combination. "Even then, the club is projected to lose $40 million dollars," he said. If anyone still believed that the Coyotes were viable in Phoenix in the long run, those details probably crushed that idea.

What's interesting is that the application goes into nowhere near as much financial detail about the new market. Here's some excerpts from the part concerned with Hamilton:

"Research clearly demonstrates Hamilton is a vibrant and viable hockey market. Based upon population, demographics, and the result of quantitative research conducted in May 2009, the support for an NHL team in Hamilton will be strong and substantial.

- Hamilton and the surrounding area have 1.4 million people and favourable demographics to support a team. While by itself, Hamilton and surrounding area is a large enough hockey market to viably sustain an NHL franchise, this specific market area is situated in Southwestern Ontario, a market area of more than 7 million where hockey is deeply entrenched and widely supported.

- The median after-tax income of Hamilton Area Residents is 14% above the Ontario average and is a key indicator of residents’ ability to spend for sports events and merchandise.

- The Club will play its home games in Copps Coliseum. A complete renovation plan has been prepared by Stadium Consultants International (SCI), of Toronto, a subsidiary of BBB Architects. The fully renovated arena will comply with the design requirements set out in the NHL’s Facility Standards.

- The owner of PSE is Jim Balsillie. Mr. Balsillie is the Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIM.) He is a businessman, philanthropist, community leader, and passionate hockey fan. He has been recognized throughout North America and internationally as a visionary entrepreneur, influential CEO, and an extremely competent business leader. His roots in Southwestern Ontario are deep and his community contributions exemplary.

- Under Mr. Balsillie’s direction, PSE has represented, to the extent that it would even be required, its willingness and ability to sustain losses during the initial years of operation."

It's curious that the application involves so much detail about the financial history and prospects of the team in Phoenix, but only includes data about the Hamilton market and arena without any concrete estimates of the team's profitability. The last point about "a willingness and ability to sustain losses" is also interesting. Wright and Balsillie spokesman Bill Walker made some good points on that subject, and indicated that the last commitment there was mostly a pro forma one expected by the league rather than a prediction that the team could lose money initially.

"Mr. Balsillie thinks the team would be profitable immediately," Walker said. "Mr. Balsillie's view is that the team in Hamilton would be an immediate success, a sellout or close to sellout."

"We know it's a large market, we know hockey is the number-one sport in that market," Wright said. "There's every indication the team will be profitable right from the get-go."

That's what I'd certainly imagine too. Even Bettman's NHL recognizes the value of the Southern Ontario market, something I've written about a lot. It is interesting that their application doesn't appear to require specific financial estimates, though. Obviously, those would be difficult to make before ticket prices are set, broadcast deals are made and arena renovations are complete, but I would still have expected to see a few more details.

This series will continue tomorrow with more information gleaned from the conference call.

Hamilton conference call, part I: Tom Wright

Photo: Former CFL commissioner Tom Wright authored the Balsillie group's official relocation application. From daylife.com.

Thanks to Brenna Flynn of Jim Balsillie's media relations team, I was invited to take part in a media conference call this afternoon on the Balsillie group's official application to the NHL(filed yesterday) to relocate the Phoenix Coyotes. It was a highly informative discussion featuring many of the usual suspects who have been covering the story, including Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star, Ken Peters of the Hamilton Spectator and friend of this blog Norm James of A-Channel London. I've got plenty of material to discuss from the call, so I'll spread it out over several posts. First up, a piece on the man who wrote the relocation application, former CFL commissioner Tom Wright.

It was perhaps an unusual situation for Wright to be speaking in favour of moving a franchise. Only three years ago, he was still the CFL commissioner and probably would have been espousing the Gary Bettman position of protecting franchises in their current location at almost all costs. Unlike Bettman, Wright did know when to cut his losses, though, as he folded the Ottawa Renegades in 2006 after four straight seasons of losing money. That situation was likely more due to appalling ownership from the Gliebermans than the kind of market problems faced in Phoenix, though.

In any case, Wright has been a high-powered business executive as well in the past. He was the president of adidas Canada before his stint as the CFL commissioner and also served as the president and CEO of Salomon North America, a famed ski manufacturer. He's currently the Managing Director at LEVEL5 Strategic Brand Advisors and was contracted to draft this application for Balsillie's group (PSE Sports and Entertainment) and the Coyotes; more on that later.

Wright said his diverse experiences qualfied him for the role. "My experience in business and in sports league management is highly relevant to this document," he said. That goes without saying; over the course of the call, Wright demonstrated a detailed understanding of exactly what topics are covered in said document and how they fit into the NHL's bylaws.

More importantly, though, having Wright involved appears to give the bid a sense of legitimacy and respectability that it hasn't always been portrayed as possessing. His experience on the other side of the fence as a league commissioner makes it seem less likely that he would get involved with a maverick move, an impression he reinforced with his opening comments about how he thoroughly studied and followed the subsections of the league bylaws pertaining to this kind of move.

"I am a play-by-the-rules kind of guy," he said. "The application that was submitted yesterday responded very specifically to the questions outlined in those subsections. ... I have the utmost respect for the commmissioner's role in reviewing this application."

Wright's also a well-known and generally well-respected figure in Canada, and don't discount the importance of that to a bid that's been very concerned about its image from the get-go. There's a reason Balsillie's investing so much in his website and his extensive PR team, as well as lining up sponsors such as Labatt Blue and Home Hardware and producing merchandise; a big part of this bid has always been to try and get the Canadian public as a whole to strongly support bringing another team north. Wright's involvement will likely aid that cause as well, certainly more than just hiring a law firm or consulting agency to get the needed information and fill out this form would have.

However, don't assume that Wright's involvement and skillful application suddenly makes Balsillie's bid palatable to Bettman. For one thing, he's a hired consultant now, not a current league commissioner. In fact, when he was asked by a CBC-TV reporter on the call about how he would have responded if a similar relocation proceeding covering the Hamilton Tiger-Cats had come up during his time as commissioner, he adroitly dodged the question, saying "This is about the application that's been submitted."

For another thing, the CFL and NHL are quite different leagues. The CFL has eight teams; the NHL has 30. Their franchises have many things in common, but their revenues and expenses are substantially disparate. Also, there's the NHL's powerful allies: I doubt that Bettman's too worried about a former CFL commissioner's opinion when he has MLB, the NFL and the NBA in his corner on the relocation front.

Still, Wright's involvement is probably a good sign for the Balsillie bid overall. He's a capable businessman and did an impressive job on this application, and there are the aforementioned image benefits of his involvement as well. He also did a strong job of answering most of the media questions today and represented the group well. They picked a good man for the job.

I'll have more on other aspects of the call over the next couple of days.