As Gary Bettman and Jim Balsillie prepare to take the stand on Friday, the experts weigh in on the outcome of this week's auction of the Phoenix Coyotes in an Arizona bankruptcy court:
..Yet at the core of the Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy auction is whether the NHL controls its own properties and whether its bylaws can legally determine who can and can not own them.
In essence, Judge Redfield T. Baum is going to tell us if Gary Bettman and the Board of Governors must bow to a higher authority, now and going forward, regarding one of the one of the most seemingly inalienable rights of pro sports leagues.
Richard Powers, dean of the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto, told Damien Cox that"the repercussions on professional sport could be monumental." But Stephen Ross, a law professor at Penn State University, told David Shoalts of the Globe & Mail (in a great column) that Jim Balsillie's bid for the Coyotes should win, and that the NHL should have its bid knocked out and no longer be a gatekeeper for franchise ownership.See the original article from Puck Daddy at Yahoo News: Experts opine as Coyotes auction arrives; future of Gretz cloudy
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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1 comment:
I don't think it is as bad as they make it out to be. The team, as such, is an asset. It's tangible and has value - there is no reason the league should be able to prevent its sale. However, membership in the league is intangible, and not something one can buy. While Balsillie can purcahse the team, this does not disenfranchise the NHL (imho) since the NHL could turn around and eject the team from the league if they so desired and if such rules existed in their bylaws. (Which I am sure there are provisions for such in there somewhere.)
So a ruling in favour of Balsillie really only gives Balsillie control of the tangible assets. Should the NHL want to cut off its nose to spite its face, then they would be within their legal right to remove the Phoenix team from the league. Balsillie would own a team, but it would not be a part of the NHL.
However, something tells me that even though Bettman is petty, he is not *that* petty to slice a limb off the league without giving it a chance to work.
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