You have to remember, Betman had worked with Katz to sway the Edmonton city council to build the new barn.
The council finally approves the arena, they start building it, and the Oilers win the McDavid sweepstakes.
With everything that went in to that deal, and the new building coming, McDavid landing in Edmonton was actually much better for the NHL than people realize.
Now I'm not saying it's rigged, but for years they have done it behind closed doors, and the big names go to the teams that will benefit the league at the that time more often than not, so from an optics point of view, it does always seem a bit dodgy.
And then the one year they actually televised it.... the entire thing did not look natural