Win City makes Bettman man with the golden touch
If you’re one of the many hockey fans who’ve been waiting patiently for NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to finally retire, this probably won’t be a pleasant Stanley Cup final for you.
Bettman has been in his job since 1992 — most of a quarter-century too long for the lovers of the game who lustily boo the man whenever he appears in public. And even though he’ll turn 66 on Wednesday, this week Bettman openly mocked the idea of stepping aside. On Monday, when he announced the retirement of long-time NHL media relations liaison Frank Brown, Bettman said of Brown: “Since we’re the same age roughly, I don’t understand what he’s doing.” The commissioner can’t even fathom the idea of hanging it up just yet. And then again, why would he?
No matter who wins this Cup final, after all, it’ll be an occasion for a victory lap for Bettman, and not only because Game 1 between the Vegas Golden Knights and Washington Capitals was a wholly enthralling scorefest complete with lead changes and momentum swings wild enough to make you forget the pre-game concussion denial and the shoddy refereeing.
You get the sense Bettman has probably spent a lot of this spring absorbing pats on the back from the NHL owners who employ him. Vegas’s band of hockey misfits, now three wins away from winning a championship thanks to their 6-4 victory, have been living by a tagline that sums up their real-life sporting fairy tale: “Welcome to Impossible.”
Bettman’s bosses might add: Welcome to Enormously Profitable, too.
It was only a few years ago that the commissioner’s adventures in the desert revolved around the never-ending saga of the financially-strapped Coyotes. But the league’s blowout success in Nevada isn’t simply a feel-good underdog story and an economic boon. It’s a drop-dead-gorgeous advertisement for expansion that appears to make the fee of $500 million (all figures U.S.) paid by Golden Knights owner Bill Foley seem like a bargain. Never mind the purists grousing about the product-killing dilution of talent or the coin-flipping randomness of a parityobsessed, excellence-squashing league. All indications suggest there’s a long line of suckers lining up to be next on the NHL’s list, from Seattle to Houston to Kansas City. And as for the notion that the next fee could top $600 million — cash to be split among 31 owners and not shared with the league’s players — well, maybe there’s a reason why nobody in the league has expressed much public outrage about the sweetheart terms of the expansion draft that helped formulate Vegas’s Cup-contending roster.
“No pushback whatsoever,” is how Bettman characterized the reaction of 30 competing franchises to the Golden Knights’ success.
There has, of course, been at least a smidgen of pushback. Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold has suggested the expansion-draft rules gave the Golden Knights far too much leverage over opposing teams. And considering Leipold owns an expansion franchise that missed the playoffs four of its first five years and has advanced past the second round once in its history, maybe it’s not surprising he has vowed to be a voice for making the rules slightly less favourable for the next newcomer.
“Trust me, it won’t happen again,” Leipold said earlier this season, speaking of the Golden Knights’ out-of-the-gate success.
Then again, if the league procures another $600 million from Seattle, that’ll be about $35 million injected into the coffers of the typical NHL owner over a mere handful of years.
That’s found money, or money found by Bettman. Not only will he go down as the commissioner who beat the NFL to Las Vegas, he’s still beating the NFL at their long-abandoned game of concussion denial. More than two years after NFL officials acknowledged the clear connections between football-related head trauma and the brain-ravaging disease known as CTE, Bettman spent Monday holding steady to the NHL line that there’s no link between playing hockey and developing CTE, never mind the dead ex-NHLers who’ve been shown to exhibit the condition’s signs.
Bettman can get away with it, mind you, because there’s clear public fatigue about concussion-related issues, and also because the city of Las Vegas knows more than a little about the art of putting on an overthe-top show. Say what you will about the Canadian voices wondering aloud why Quebec City keeps getting the NHL’s short shrift, but there isn’t a market in Canada, perhaps outside of Winnipeg, that can boast the kind of in-arena energy on offer in Vegas. And it’s not just the kitschy pregame shows and the sellout crowds. The city’s sports fans have reportedly spent the spring lining up en masse to spend absurd amounts of money at the team’s merchandise store, too. Not coincidentally the league has announced that the long-stagnating salary cap is finally set to take a substantial jump for the 2018-19 season — tacking as much as an additional $7 million on the current $75-million payroll ceiling — this thanks in considerable part to the revenue influx provided by the rousing success of the 31st team.
You could point out that Bettman is presiding over a league devoid of stars — and the lack of hockey-related presence on ESPN’s recently released list of the 100 most famous athletes on the planet would speak to that point. Bettman might counter that his league’s strength is that it isn’t reliant on stars — the better for expansion franchises to prosper. And unlike the NBA final that begins Thursday, nobody can be sure who’s going to win hockey’s biggest prize.
Not that the commissioner needs assistance framing a situation. When the topic of Bettman being chronically bathed in boos was raised during this week’s annual state-of-the-league address, the commissioner offered a quip: “I get booed? I get an emotional, enthusiastic reaction.”
It’s not spin to suggest that an emotional, enthusiastic reaction is exactly what has welcomed the Stanley Cup final to the sun-baked sands of Nevada. Boos or not, Golden Knights or Capitals hoisting the chalice, the commissioner wins.