Wednesday, March 07, 2007

last ditch effort.

Wire services say that NHL commish Gary Bettman is going to attempt to resolve the relocation mess with the Penguins in a meeting on Thursday. His intent may be to preserve the franchise in a home city which actually supports it, but given Bettman's track record, we can safely say the Penguins are as good as gone to a city that will pony up for an arena but may not actually develop a fanbase (see Carolina, Nashville.)

Eric at Seal Clubbers has already detailed some of this, and he's right: why Kansas City and Vegas are considered destinations rather than place that actually have cold weather (Portland, Seattle) is bizarre.

Frankly, the city and the state of Pennsylvania have made the best-faith offer they can about this -- why privately-funded sports teams continue to get politicians and taxpayers to pony up for stadia and arenas still gets me, especially in tight fiscal times for most cities, states, and the federal government.

3 comments:

Marco said...

If the NHL was smart, this team will be in Vegas

Signal to Noise said...

The NHL isn't smart, but Vegas isn't the best option. Why go to another warm weather city?

Scrappled said...

Pennsylvania ponied up for four new stadiums a few years ago -- for the Pirates, Steelers, Eagles, and Phillies. All of those were subsidized by taxpayers.