Sporting Madness

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...

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 weaknes...

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 dec...

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 proba...