It's nothing new to say that Gary Bettman is a greedy prick. I've never seen him make a public appearance without being greeted by a steady chorus of boos. He deserves it and we all know it. He's not the Commissioner of the NHL because he loves the game, but because he previously had a history of making wealthy sports team owners wealthier. I wasn't aware of him when he worked for the NBA, but one can assume he had a healthy distaste for basketball too. There is one thing we know he does love, and that's crisp green American cash.
Gary Bettman is the Jeff Zucker of sports. Zucker hates TV (why else would you decide to put more Jay Leno on it?) and Bettman hates hockey. This is why Gary Bettman wants to keep the NHL out of future Olympic competition. Okay, Bettman's hatred of hockey is not his motivation-- he's been very clear about that. But it certainly plays into it. His motivation is the same as Jeff Zucker's-- he loves money and wants as much of it as he can get.
Bettman's argument is that losing NHL players to the Olympics for two weeks means that the NHL loses two weeks worth of income. Now, he's a shrewd business man. After all, you don't get to where he is by only having a chubby for big bucks. There's got to be some skill involved. I can only assume there is some logic behind his claim, but I don't see it. You see, olympic break or not, every team plays 82 games in the regular season. That means no matter how they're scheduled, every owner receives all the ticket sale, advertising, and merchandise revenue they can hope to get their hands on every year. So the NHL isn't losing money because of the olympics, it just isn't necessarily receiving all the extra money that's in play thanks to the olympics. Let's be clear about that.
After yesterday's thrilling Canada/USA gold medal game, one can only assume that at least a few of the far higher than usual number of viewers may have been turned on to watching hockey. It was like a global billboard for the NHL that the NHL didn't have to pay for. Seems like that's a good thing. I'm just trying to be on Gary's side here for a second, because I couldn't give a shit if the NHL gains a few thousand more fans. I like the ones who already exist. And they deserve to see the quality of hockey we saw yesterday when the olympics come around once every four years. It's amazing to take a couple of teams full of elite players and have them play for stakes that clearly hit home. It's the fans I want to see pleased. But Gary Bettman has no interest in pleasing the fans. Obviously.
Assuming Bettman succeeds at keeping NHL players out of Sochi (excluding at least Alexander Ovechkin, arguably the best player in the game and someone who clearly won't be kept out of the games when his home country hosts), what does he stand to gain? The NHL continues uninterrupted (except for the all-star break), and as shrewd money-grubbing imp Bettman is surely aware, not having to compete with olympic ratings because of the time zone difference. I guarantee the NHL players who don't jump ship to play for their country don't have their heart in the games they do play in the NHL for those two weeks. But I don't think this is happening. I don't think the players will be kept from playing in the next olympics. This is all a ploy by Bettman to try to gain a little extra revenue. He's bluffing by saying he'll withhold the players from the games until he gets some delicious money, and the only reason anyone believes him is that he has shown time and again how much he hates the sport of hockey.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment