Skip to main content

Dirty Boots?

Just when Predators fans were settling in for a comfortable summer of franchise building under stable, mostly local ownership, a scandal appears to be unwinding around William "Boots" Del Biaggio, the second-largest member of Predators Holdings LLC, the group that collectively owns the team.

First, word broke that Del Biaggio is being sued for obtaining a $3 million loan using a securities account as collateral that, in fact, wasn't his. The SEC is also apparently investigating. Here's one distressing snippet from that article:

"he failed to make payment at the end of last month, citing significant financial and other problems."

For someone who is such a key portion of the Nashville ownership, not being in position to make payment on a $3 million loan is a matter of gigantic concern.

Then there's also the news that Boots resigned from Sand Hill Capital, the firm he cofounded, for "personal reasons." Hardly a good sign, that.

This evening, a new piece up at the San Jose Mercury News brings a local perspective, which includes word that "within the past several months, friends and associates say, he has separated from his wife and moved out of the [lavish] home on the hill."

The final words of the San Jose article surely sum up the concerns of Predators fans:

"Just how significant are those issues? Del Biaggio and those close to him won't return calls to say. His old office is dark. The gates at his family estate are closed. And many are left wondering what's to become of a man who always seemed to turn up on the town with a ready smile and a soft spot for a good cause."


Now, what might this mean to the Preds ownership group? Imagining a worst-case scenario that sees Del Biaggio financially wiped out, a buyer would have to found for his 32 percent stake in the team, and given the circumstances, that buyer (or buyers) might be able to leverage a discount. It doesn't appear that on an ongoing basis the group would have used Del Biaggio to help chip in to cover for operating losses, as they obtained a $20 million line of credit to cover such losses as part of the financing of the franchise purchase. Now, is it possible that Del Biaggio's mess could result in some sort of default relative to that financing arrangement? Frankly, I have no idea, but hopefully someone like the Nashville City Paper's Richard Lawson (whose reporting during the franchise sale last year left local and national competitors in the dust) can start digging. Much like that story, this Del Biaggio affair is a business & legal story, not a sports one.

While it wouldn't appear right now that this will impact the team's operations this summer, I have a feeling that we are in the very early stages of an unfolding drama. So stay tuned, but don't panic.

Yet.

For further musings on this unfolding drama, see Tom Benjamin.

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 ...