Billionaire's new game plan: Balsillie to make another bid for Predators Billionaire Jim Balsillie, whose fervent desire to bring another NHL team to Canada has made him the scourge of league officials, is expected to make his third attempt in less than 2 years to buy a franchise. Sources say Mr. Balsillie, the 47-year-old co-founder of the BlackBerry (R.I.M.) and lifelong hockey fan, is considering the final terms of an offer to acquire a 27% stake in the Nashville Predators, whose backer filed for bankruptcy last June. "I'm going to get my name on the Cup one way or another," he said when he offered to buy the Penguins in Oct.'06, for $175-million.
October 30, 2008
Plunging dollar gives sports leagues a currency conniption The sudden nosedive of the loonie this month and its continuing volatility threaten to wreak havoc with the finances of Canadian sports businesses that face heavy expenses in U.S. dollars, compounding the inevitable woes stemming from any sustained weakness in the economy.
"We don't know where the bottom is," said Toronto Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey, who estimates that each one-cent drop costs the Jays about $760,000 on a payroll of $100-million. "It's like falling into a black hole."
October 01, 2008
Build your sportfolio on OneSeason.com. "At OneSeason, users can trade real money based on the performance of athletes, teams, leagues and other sports personalities."
September 29, 2008
Landis sues in Federal Court "Suspended cyclist Floyd Landis has taken the unusual step of challenging the decision to uphold his positive doping test, stepping outside the anti-doping adjudication system to try to prove in U.S. federal court that his case was not fairly heard by a sports arbitration panel."
August 26, 2008
New Stadiums: Prices, and Outrage, Escalate But even as fans of the Mets, the Yankees, the Giants and the Jets look forward to state-of-the-art stadium architecture, better sightlines, wider concourses and more bathrooms, some of them are also facing startling increases in ticket costs during a serious economic downturn.......The Giants Mara offered a blunt lesson in market-driven economics on WFAN radio this month. We have 130,000 people on our waiting list,-- he said. We could charge anything and still fill the stadium.--
August 08, 2008
The Science of Doping "The processes used to charge athletes with cheating are often based on flawed statistics and flawed logic." By Donald A Berry, published in Nature.
July 09, 2008
Michigan to pay $2.5M, Rodriguez $1.5M to satisfy WVU buyout -- Former West Virginia University football coach Rich Rodriguez and the University of Michigan have agreed to pay a $4 million buyout clause and settle a lawsuit that WVU filed after he broke his contract in December 2007. (previously)
June 06, 2008
CBC fumbles negotiations on Hockey Night theme A lowball offer by the CBC to buy the Hockey Night in Canada theme song from its composer prompted the temporary collapse of year-long negotiations and a national furor Thursday over the future of the iconic anthem, the man in charge of its copyright says. For many Canadians, the stirring "dunt-da-DUNT-da-dunt" that has opened each broadcast of Hockey Night since 1968 is pure Canadiana as deeply woven into the national fabric as Tim Hortons and the great game itself.
May 30, 2008
Canadian NHL teams mean money The six Canadian teams account for 31 per cent of the $1.1 billion (U.S.) in league ticket revenue, and have gone through league-leading double-digit increases over last season, according to the internal NHL report.
May 22, 2008
Female ski jumpers taking VANOC to court .... sources indicated that the petition is being filed against the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics and alleges that banning women jumpers from the Games violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Ski jumping, a part of the Games since 1924, is the only Olympic event closed to women. The IOC has argued that there are not enough top-calibre women ski jumpers to warrant inclusion.
March 27, 2008
New NHLPA head "the right guy to lead us" Some of the NHL's most powerful agents got their first real glimpse of the new executive director of the NHL Players' Association yesterday, and they liked what they saw.
March 25, 2008
Lenny Dykstra, Financial Planner to the Stars? The fascinating post-baseball career of a man called Nails.
March 11, 2008
Mark Cuban asks: When will US pro sports get its Abramovich? (I know, it looks like Mark Cuban day.) For a while there, it looked like North American sports teams owners were going to take over European Soccer. The biggest Premiere (sic) League names were getting bought up. Then a funny thing happened. The US Dollar turned upside down against major currencies making deals that once looked tenable, all of the sudden seem very, very expensive. Which US pro league and team, and which foreign owner is most likely to be the first? Why?
February 06, 2008
Katz finally gets his Oilers Enter billionaire Darryl Katz, a born and raised Edmontonian who has persued this team with Sutter-like tenacity, who finally gained hold of the team Tuesday, for the purchase price of $200-million. The Edmonton Investors Group, a noble and community minded bunch who saved the city from a fate similar to Winnipeg or Quebec City, begrudgingly moved over so that the Rexall Pharmacies billionaire may take things from here.
February 02, 2008
Damn, why didn't I think of this? Fringe prospect the Indians farm system sells $36,000 worth of stock in himself in exchange for a cut of his potential big league earnings. Legitimate idea or not? What do you think?
January 31, 2008
The Super Bowl Economy Surprisingly, the NFL and the athletes on the field are not the richest beneficiaries of the big game. Players on the winning team each take home $78,000; on the losing team, each player gets $40,000. The league's biggest take is from merchandise hawked at the game venue, at the online NFL shop, as well as at retail stores across the country. The sales record for such merchandise was set in 1997, at around $125 million, and sales have hovered just below that amount in the years since
NBA players' financial security no slam dunk A statistic was cited during the meeting that startled some of the hoopsters. It was said that 60% of retired N.B.A. players go broke 5 years after their cheques stop arriving.
The Official Line vs. The Betting Line Each year at Super Bowl time, N.F.L. executives go to great lengths to distance the league from the estimated $10 billion in gambling that it generates, not only in Las Vegas, but also in offshore betting shops, office and bar pools and among illegal bookies. They were not only friends and founding fathers of the N.F.L., but Art Rooney and Tim Mara were also gamblers, proud ones. In 1936, Rooney, whose family still owns the Pittsburgh Steelers, famously turned two prescient days at the racetrack into $300,000. In 1925, Mara, a bookmaker in the days when that profession was not only legal but honourable, paid $500 for the New York Giants
January 28, 2008
Buy A Piece Of Baseball's Future! Alright, kid, I've dropped my twenty bucks, you'd better start taking PEDs quick!
January 10, 2008
If you don't do what I say, I'll take my football home! Lawyer, multimillionaire, University of Washington alumnus, and former three-term Everett, Washington mayor, Ed Hansen wants his way. And if the University of Washington wants $200,000 for law school scholarships all they have to do is fire their football coach and athletic director. [more inside]
December 21, 2007
Helping hand, or PR stunt? Teams buff their own image when they give, but does their motivation matter?