Reasons We Hate Gary Bettman...

[mrm7755]

Mine is we've had 3 lockouts under him as the commissioner of the NHL. I WANT HOCKEY!

[13whitebread]

Too many to mention but he is not a sports fan just a lawyer always ready to argue things without one shred of solutions. They could be playing and work out the details later but no only arguments from buttman lets quote him "i am not going to negotiate in the media" No details, then this looks shady to me. Lets reorganize the league so the owners don't waste so much money in airfare. There are tons of ways to save money for the owners but you cannot tell someone who is very wealthy what to do they will not stand for it. I have got football baseball and basketball for my sports fix. It is unfortunate because I was born and bread on Hockey but then BUTTMAN cum along!

[BunnyHardaway]

The Coyotes fiasco made me hate him, this is just icing on the cake.

[SPTO]

He doesn't see the full picture IMO. Let's put it this way, he looks at things purely from dollars and cents which i'm sure every Commish does but in Gary's case he lacks the cultural awareness that a good commissioner needs to have. Look at how he let Winnipeg and Quebec City die on the vine under his watch. The moves to the south with only dollar bills in his eyes may have given the league a cash infusion at first but the lack of cultural awareness rears its ugly head again as Bettman just thinks putting a pro hockey team in any ol' market will work when in fact it's been a slow process and one that's been marred by him giving franchises to cronies.

The Phoenix Fiasco really underlies a lot of the problems of Bettman as he's too stubborn to realize he made a mistake and then when he realizes it instead of taking a great offer from Jim Ballsille that would see the team move to Hamilton he blocks the man from getting the team while at the same time tries to give the Coyotes to "Boots" Del Baggio who was a crony of he, Craig Leipold and Phil Anschutz to move the team to Kansas City. Of course that didn't work out and since then he's fought tooth and nail to keep a terrible franchise afloat when he never did anything like that with the Canadian teams that left.

Bettman doesn't even seem to be a fan of the game now that's not a prerequisite but with the other commissioners I can imagine them actually enjoying a game they take in with Bettman though, it looks like a total Schmoozefest. This lack of care for the game allows him to be so robotic in his thinking when it comes to labor negotiations that he comes off as being unfeeling and not caring about the players. He has also shown that locking the players is not a last resort for him but rather a bargaining strategy which is just flat out crazy IMO.

I will give Bettman credit for one thing and one thing only, at least he's given the league more coverage in the US since the days the league was on ESPN but it's still a far cry from those days in a lot of ways. The league went from being a TV revenue league for the most part to being a gate driven league with strong local TV and very poor national TV numbers. (though last year it looked like they were making progress nationally which is ruined now by this lockout)

Personally i'd like to see someone else given the reigns to run the league. I actually think Bill Daly is a lot more in tune with things despite being Bettman's deputy. He has to do a lot of crap because he's loyal but I think the league would be run a bit differently under Daily.

[cdawg44]

Quote: Originally Posted by SPTO

He doesn't see the full picture IMO. Let's put it this way, he looks at things purely from dollars and cents which i'm sure every Commish does but in Gary's case he lacks the cultural awareness that a good commissioner needs to have. Look at how he let Winnipeg and Quebec City die on the vine under his watch. The moves to the south with only dollar bills in his eyes may have given the league a cash infusion at first but the lack of cultural awareness rears its ugly head again as Bettman just thinks putting a pro hockey team in any ol' market will work when in fact it's been a slow process and one that's been marred by him giving franchises to cronies. The Phoenix Fiasco really underlies a lot of the problems of Bettman as he's too stubborn to realize he made a mistake and then when he realizes it instead of taking a great offer from Jim Ballsille that would see the team move to Hamilton he blocks the man from getting the team while at the same time tries to give the Coyotes to "Boots" Del Baggio who was a crony of he, Craig Leipold and Phil Anschutz to move the team to Kansas City. Of course that didn't work out and since then he's fought tooth and nail to keep a terrible franchise afloat when he never did anything like that with the Canadian teams that left. Bettman doesn't even seem to be a fan of the game now that's not a prerequisite but with the other commissioners I can imagine them actually enjoying a game they take in with Bettman though, it looks like a total Schmoozefest. This lack of care for the game allows him to be so robotic in his thinking when it comes to labor negotiations that he comes off as being unfeeling and not caring about the players. He has also shown that locking the players is not a last resort for him but rather a bargaining strategy which is just flat out crazy IMO. I will give Bettman credit for one thing and one thing only, at least he's given the league more coverage in the US since the days the league was on ESPN but it's still a far cry from those days in a lot of ways. The league went from being a TV revenue league for the most part to being a gate driven league with strong local TV and very poor national TV numbers. (though last year it looked like they were making progress nationally which is ruined now by this lockout) Personally i'd like to see someone else given the reigns to run the league. I actually think Bill Daly is a lot more in tune with things despite being Bettman's deputy. He has to do a lot of crap because he's loyal but I think the league would be run a bit differently under Daily.

And on top of this, we all know the solution for a gate driven league, and that is revenue sharing. Yet, we have been through 3 lockouts without any revenue sharing adopted. Look, the players get too much of the pie and that is a fair arguement, but that ain't gonna fix the NHL's issues no matter how much the players give back. There will always be a sizeable gap between the Toronto's and Vanconver's versus the Carolina and Nashville's of the NHL when it comes to how much they can charge for tickets to the rink. Doesn't mean they aren't great fans, its just reality. A reality that he created when he went into all these markets with awful ownership groups and the movement from ESPN and big national tv deals. I've said this before, but you can't even charge what Toronto charges for Maple Leafs tickets in the Triangle for an NFL or NBA game. People have way too many options to put up with that.

To make the large team owners happy, adopt a Luxury Tax, that is really penalizing for those teams that wanna go over the cap (dollar for dollar the first 8-10 million or so, then 2-3 bucks for every dollar past that or whatever number you want), put the cap at 63-68 million and lets drop the damn puck and go.