Skip to main content

Nashville Post declares Balsillie's bid DOA

Breaking news today at the Nashville Post indicates that Jim Balsillie has basically dropped out of the running to buy the Nashville Predators. According to the Post, the team is continuing discussions with Boots DelBiaggio as well as a group of local investors.

Besides the update that Balsillie is apparently out of the deal, Richard Dawson and Ken Whitehouse discuss an interesting possibility: that of the two competing interests actually joining together in keeping the Preds in Nashville.

Del Biaggio's choice could be to stick it out in Nashville and build on the established base. He still, however, would need support from the corporate community as much as Leipold.

That's where the local group could come in again if it loses the bidding on the team. Clearly, the local group is interested in keeping the team here. It could invest with Del Biaggio, if he's interested, and not spend nearly as much as it would on buying the team. Quite possibly, the group would be interested in such an investment if Del Biaggio wants to keep the team here.


This is a pretty interesting notion, in that as a current minority partner in an NHL team, Del Biaggio is much more likely to play "by the rules" and make a legitimate attempt to makes things work in Nashville before trying to force the issue of relocation. With an organized and motivated business community having come together over the last few months, this path forward looks increasingly more likely every day.

By the way, I would recommend anybody following the Predators sale to keep tabs on the Nashville Post. It's a local business-oriented paper that has regularly been out in front of the general media on this story, and was the outlet that first broke the story of the franchise sale to begin with back in May.

Popular posts from this blog

My goals for 2011: Make sports blogging pay off

In my never-ending quest to figure out a model for making what is currently my hobby & passion into something bringing in at least a side income, I've decided to set a couple goals for myself to complete during the rest of 2011. Simply put, I plan to publish two products over the next few months, which I hope will provide real value to hockey fans, and that they'll be willing to pay for. Will it succeed? Will it fail? The only way to know is to put my nose to the grindstone and get these two things done (I'll keep the details under my hat for now). The important thing to note is that these efforts are in addition to anything I'm doing over at OTF . Taking away what we're doing over there and asking people to pay for it is a surefire lose-lose all the way around, because if there's anything we've learned over the last few years, it's that people love to read about sports, but only for free. I'm also optimistic about Hockey Gea...

My Letter To Gary

Dear Mr. Bettman, When the announcement was made a few weeks ago that Jim Balsillie had entered into an agreement to purchase the Nashville Predators, speculation immediately began that a relocation to South Ontario would come in short order, and many hockey fans in the Nashville area jumped to the conclusion that we'd see a "Major League" scenario, whereby the new owner would deliberately undermine local support of the team so as to trigger the escape clause in the team's arena lease. As for myself, I decided to give Mr. Balsillie the benefit of the doubt - surely as a lifelong hockey fan and player, he wouldn't do such a thing after acquiring one of the best young teams in the game, with the Stanley Cup potentially within reach. I've waited and watched over recent weeks, and was initially encouraged by Balsillie's promise to field a competitive team, giving GM David Poile an ample budget to put together the best team possible. His legal representative ...

Cheer up, it's the holidays...

Why is it that various media outlets continue trying to put their own spin on the "what's wrong with the NHL" story? Our latest example comes from The Hockey News , in a piece by Jay Greenburg entitled, "Excitement Level On The Decline." Take the opening sentence: Attendance is down and yet still up from before the lockout, leaving it arguable whether buildings in New Jersey and Florida are half-full or half empty. It's no surprise that attendance is down from last season, particularly if you compare the first half of 2005-06 to the first half of this year. Coming out of the lockout, there were legions of fans starved to see the on-ice product, particularly in light of the massive rule changes. This year is more indicative of business as usual, so the fact that the league is above pre-lockout levels is a positive. Toss in the projection that overall revenues are increasing despite a 1% decrease in attendance, and I'd say that paying fans have come back ...