Could the team be headed to Houston?
Without new arena, betting money sees franchise owners selling to Houston group
As if the arena impasse with the mayor isn’t enough of an impetus to prompt Calgary Flames ownership to look into selling the team, Gary Bettman just gave the group 150 million more reasons to package the team up for Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta.
That’s how much the NHL commissioner added to the value of every NHL team last week when he bumped the price tag of a possible expansion team in Seattle to $650 million, up from the $500 million Vegas paid.
Don’t be fooled by the $430 million Forbes estimated the team to be worth last month. The Flames wouldn’t sell for a dime less than the newly-pegged cost of starting a franchise from scratch. (Minus sizable NHL transfer fees, of course.)
After all, there’s far more value in acquiring a team with proven, marketable superstars like Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan and backed by a solid team and front office that knows the business inside out.
Fact is, we’ll eventually reach the point in this dangerous game of chicken that the most logical solution may just be to sell. It certainly is the easiest. After all, it’s only worth twothirds of a billion dollars if you sell it.
It’s worth a fraction of that in Calgary, where the political and business climate is such that the reality may just be that the Flames have outgrown this town.
While profitable, the Flames lose ground on all 30 NHL rivals every day they stay in the 34-year-old Saddledome, where the team has maximized the revenue it can generate.
The team can’t possibly continue to play there long-term.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi, whose attitude has proven to be the biggest impediment to having meaningful negotiations on the possibility of a much-needed new venue, is here for at least another four years.
The Flames will decide on their future long before then.
The mayor needs to find a way to be the bigger man by coming up with a way to get the Flames back to the negotiating table to build something the city will eventually have to build (with or without the Flames in town). His ego likely won’t allow that. At this point it looks like the best hope Calgarians have of getting an arena and keeping the team is a 2026 Winter Olympics bid the city will have to make a final decision on by the summer.
If Nenshi thinks the arena is a bad investment of local tax dollars for the people, he’s wholly insane if the thinks the guaranteed-to-expand price tag of the fraudulent five-ring circus is a prudent commitment.
When the city inevitably realizes as much and opts not to pursue the Games, the arena hopes will essentially disappear, followed soon thereafter by the Flames.
Those who refuse to believe Bettman would allow a vibrant hockey market like Calgary to lose its team need to be reminded the commissioner has long said the two biggest pillars to having an NHL team is having solid ownership and having a viable venue to play in.
Without such a building, ownership would no longer be willing to stay here.
They know enough not to make such a threat. They’d just move on and it would be too late to save in Calgary.
Bettman has already gone public with his belief Calgary’s mayor doesn’t see the value major pro sports teams bring to his market.
Maybe this formerly progressive city of 1.4 million is, in fact, reflective of the anti-business leadership at all three levels of government, driving entrepreneurs like principal Flames owner Murray Edwards out of town.
In sport, winners and losers are essentially decided by who wants it more.
At this point, it’s clear Calgary doesn’t.
Houston does, as Fertitta stated when he bought the Houston Rockets for $2.2 billion and made it clear he wanted an NHL team to go with it. So does Quebec City. Prospective owners in both cities have undoubtedly been in touch with the Flames already to ask about their availability.
Edwards said last week the team wasn’t for sale, knowing that saying anything to the contrary would be one of those threats nobody likes.
If the public’s price tag for chipping in for a world-class arena with the help of Flames owners is too high, that’s fine. The team will be sold. Not moved — sold. Edwards and his four partners who own the Flames will simply cash out, taking with them the Flames Foundation that donates $3 million for charities annually.
Without a new arena, there is no other choice.
Some will say ‘good riddance,’ given the strong-arm tactics they believe the Flames have employed throughout the process.
Certainly, the club’s approach is not without fault.
Sympathy is not on the side of the wealthy owners at a time when the local economy is struggling mightily.
Indeed, the timing of this debate is not helping the Flames.
Seeing $240 million spent on a downtown library and exorbitant amounts spent on controversial roadside art isn’t helping the mayor, who only got 51 per cent of the vote in October.
Critics suggest the well-heeled owners should build the proposed $555 million arena with their pocket change.
The critical mass simply isn’t there to fill the building often enough, which is why a public/ private partnership works best for a venue to be used to host so many world class events Calgarians would benefit from. Well, should work best. Forget about the nuances of what each side last offered to chip in for the project before the Flames walked away from what they saw as a futile endeavour.
The bottom line is, who wants it more?
The answer is Houston, which is where my money says the Flames will be within the next three years.
As sad as that is for Canadian hockey fans to hear.
In the 34-yearold Saddledome, (the team) has maximized the revenue it can generate.