If Balsillie were allowed to buy the Predators...

From the Globe & Mail:

If the National Hockey League had played its cards right, one of its most troubled franchises would soon have a new home in a stable hockey market, with stable ownership and a stable future. Instead, having outsmarted itself in blocking the move of a U.S.-based team to Canada, the league has an unholy mess.

Little more than a year ago, Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie was set to buy the foundering Nashville Predators and move them to Hamilton. It was a marriage made in heaven. Mr. Balsillie, the co-CEO of Research In Motion, is a dynamic and deep-pocketed owner of a kind the NHL needs more of. And a team in Hamilton would have thrived; more than 12,000 fans quickly put down deposits for season tickets in expectation of the Predators' arrival.

Read the entire editorial here. (Hat tip to Puck Daddy)

I tend to agree with this editorial. If the NHL was not going to give Balsillie the option of moving the team, why did it essentially give that option to Del Biaggio? Would NHL hockey be more profitable in Kansas City than Hamilton? C'mon.

Bettman under the microscope

From Stephen Brunt of the Globe & Mail:

That "portability" became Del Biaggio's No. 1 marketing plank in trying to attract fresh money.

Unfortunately, the local Nashville ownership and the local politicians who were subsidizing the franchise didn't know a thing about that quiet arrangement.

And just a little bit of due diligence on Boots might have revealed that he was broke, that he may have been securing loans on false premises, that he was a very, very bad risk — before he wound up in bankruptcy protection, being sued from all angles, and under investigation by the FBI.

In any other walk of life, in any other business, bad judgment on that scale would get a chief executive fired.

Read the entire article here.

This story is turning into a disaster for the NHL. Clearly "Boots" should have been nowhere near an NHL franchise. I'm sure Bettman will release a statement in the next day or two containing an explanation for what exactly happened.

Report: Del Biaggio had special permission to avoid review

From Brad Schrade of the Tennessean:

A potential investor in the Nashville Predators says troubled financier William J. "Boots" Del Biaggio III told him the NHL allowed Del Biaggio to bypass some of the league's strict financial background checks for prospective owners.Doug Bergeron, a California-based Canadian investor and entrepreneur and president of DGB Investments, was among those to whom Del Biaggio tried to market a share of the Predators.

Bergeron said Del Biaggio told him in December that National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman's office had given special permission for Del Biaggio to buy a share of the team without being subjected to all the scrutiny the league usually gives to prospective owners. Del Biaggio told him the commissioner's office did not require him to show audited financial statements before it approved him.

Read the entire story here.

This article is worth the long read. Schrade has done a terrific job of breaking news on this story for the Tennessean.

These Boots Are Made For Walking....The Team Right Out of Nashville!

In a disturbing piece in this morning's Globe and Mail, Stephen Brunt sheds some much-needed light on the events in Nashville concerning recently ousted Predators owner William "Boots" Del Biaggio.

According to Brunt, "Boots" initially acquired his ownership stake in the Preds with the express intent to attempt to relocate the franchise to Kansas City. But wait....there's more.

Boots also apparently sought out co-investors with until-now confidential documents that advertized the "portability of the franchise". In other words, he basically said "Come join me in buying this team for the purpose of taking control of it, running it out of Nashville ,and relocating it to KC," which is as close as you can get to a hostile takeover in the context of a professional sports team.

Of course, while this was all going on, Boots was telling anyone willing to listen (including the NHL) that his true intentions were to save hockey in Nashville.

Illegal Curve Analysis

The issues raised by these events go far beyond the context of the Predators franchise (although that franchise can only be described as being in complete financial turmoil in light of these events). The broader concern goes to how well the NHL monitors the actions of its owners and prospective owners. A few red flags have definitely gone up now, and it is really the last thing the NHL could ever want --- more reasons to worry about the viability of franchises in markets that are already highly questionable as is.......

Del Biaggio was interested in moving the Predators

From Brad Schrade of the Tennessean:

The bleak future predicted for pro hockey in Nashville was part of a marketing effort by Del Biaggio's hockey-related firm, Forecheck Holdings, to gain more investors.

A computerized presentation, dated January 2008, featured charts and slides with titles such as "Portability Value" and "Investment Thesis." The document is labeled "strictly confidential" and targeted toward a "limited number of sophisticated prospective investors."

Freeman told The Tennessean last week that he was aware Del Biaggio had been trying to get additional investors into the hockey enterprise, but was not aware that Del Biaggio had told potential investors that they could gain control of the team and move it.

Read the entire article here.

Just when you thought Nashville couldn't dislike Del Biaggio even more, news like this comes out.

Balsillie is in the picture

From Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette:

The National Hockey League has gone to great lengths to keep Jim Balsillie from buying an NHL team, but he may be in a position to buy Williams (Boots) Del Biaggio III's 27-per-cent stake in the Nashville Predators.

Del Biaggio filed for bankruptcy last Friday and his assets include the minority stake in the Predators. He joined a group of local investors as part of a plan to keep the team in Nashville and out of the hands of Balsillie, who offered considerably more money than the local group.

While the NHL head office insists that the board of governors decides who should own a team, the fact is that league officials see Balsillie as a nuisance because he has said he wants to buy a franchise and move it to southern Ontario. This is not considered a desirable outcome because (a) such a team would infringe on the territory of existing franchises in Toronto and Buffalo and (b) it would be a tacit admission that expansion has been a failure in at least one U.S. city.

Read the entire article here.

Hickey raises many good points in his piece, the most important being the fact that Del Biaggio's creditors only care about getting as much cash as possible. It appears Balsillie's may be closing in on finally getting into the NHL circle.