Going to address this one item.
Meruelo admittedly has trouble speaking at length in a public setting. So the tendency is to jumble contexts around. Unfortunately, people usually take everything directly on its surface in these sorts of events without thinking beyond the words.
I originally saw Randy Keating's response on Twitter and the initial thought was, "no.... that figure isn't right because I regularly watched those filings myself and it was closer to 1/5th that amount.
Then I watched the actual clip on the PHNX podcast and it just seemed different. Then it dawned on me that Meruelo could have been trying to tell everyone how much he spent altogether, including the 2-3 years of negotiations with Tempe, land and soil surveys, etc. plus the campaign itself, to get TED passed.
If you take all of that into consideration the $7 million figure makes much more sense.
i agree with this …
If I had billions of dollars let’s say through the stock market.. that doesn’t mean I know how to speak in public..
But if I had the cash, and the dream to own a franchise I would totally do it However if I was afraid to be in front of a camera, I would hiire someone to be the mouthpiece..
I wouldn’t hire the mouthpiece to be the CEO that was an obvious mistake .. I guess that’s where the lack of experience came in; I would hire a CEO who has experience running a franchise.. I would be hands off and give them what they needed..
Kind of like Michael Jordon , who bought a NASCAR team..23Xi
You should have heard the Oilers owner welcoming McDavid.. it was just as cringe worthy.. they made McDavid stand in front of the owner, while the owner tried to welcome him to Edmonton while struggling to read his que cards.. he would even pause for 10 seconds or do .
He may not be a good owner, but let’s not demand that he speak and then after obviously witnessing that he is not a public speaker.(both admittingly and obviously) dissecting everything he said and taking it at face value.. ie I don’t like the media..
The press conference was cringe worthy.. But if Bettman didn’t want AM to be successful or the owner, he could have let him defend himself, he could have made it that the board of governors had to approve it.
I think he knows that in the present situation AM is the only one that can get it done quickly.. if not it could be well over 10 years..