Stop the HQ if you've heard this one before...
Bruce Levenson, one of the Atlanta Thrashers' owners, says the team will not be leaving Atlanta and may actually add investors. He isn't saying anything yet about the "who" in the deal or the "how much of a percentage" in the deal, but he says "something may be done" in the next 90 days or so.
Levenson says despite all the reports of a Thrashers move, all ownership talks are based on the team remaining in Atlanta.
And, oh by the way, the whole thing with co-owner Steve Belkin is still in play.
The HQ has known for quite some time that the folks over at Atlanta Spirit were in the process of having their assets and value appraised by a firm that does those sorts of things- giving a tangible value to something that is intangible. The office that is doing the evaluating is not located in any of the three locations that Spirit, LLC have owners: Atlanta, Boston, or Washington, DC...
Thus the curiosity on our part...
Now we know why all the evaluating is going on- to a degree. Although the thought here is to appraise both ways to get an actual value and to see who would want to check profitability ((insert laugh track here)) for the franchises and the arena.
Philips is still, as far as the HQ knows, still looking to get out of their naming-rights deal with the Atlanta arena. But they have to find the replacement.
The Hawks spent, in the neighborhood of, US$56-million for their payroll and embarassing second-round loss to Orlando. If Spirit is serious, then they would need a huge capital infusion to get to "contender" spending status: $80 to 90-million.
The HQ knows Spirit is less-than-serious on improving the Thrashers lot in life since the team is consistently at or near the bottom of the NHL salary cap numbers. New GM Rick Dudley has his work cut out for him.
The HQ's money is eventually set on a change of address...
Remember this story from October...???
((HT: CBC/lrobb31))
No comments:
Post a Comment