OilerFan4Life said:Thanks Gary, for saving NHL hockey in Edmonton.
JayPSU said:It's a shame your beloved boy has destroyed the sport itself. Who gives a crap about Edmonton if the sport has gotten so bad in the last 10 years?
JayPSU said:It's a shame your beloved boy has destroyed the sport itself. Who gives a crap about Edmonton if the sport has gotten so bad in the last 10 years?
FLYLine4LIFE said:You havn't shaved in 315 or so days?
JayPSU said:It's a shame your beloved boy has destroyed the sport itself. Who gives a crap about Edmonton if the sport has gotten so bad in the last 10 years?
Hockey_Nut99 said:Says the Big Market fan.....
Hockey_Nut99 said:Does the NHL have a marketing committee or something like that? Isn't it their job to promote the game and do all that stuff? Why does Gary get the blame for not marketing the game properly? I thought companies hire people to do that.
Crazy_Ike said:He gets the blame because a lot of shortsighted people who know nothing of what they're talking about just repeat what they see on message boards or on TV from talking heads. The main concern is that there is no big TV deal.
The fact is revenues have tripled. That means Bettman marketed the game as well as he reasonably could have.
The TV contract never materialized because nationally too few Americans care about hockey and, because nationally it has no grassroots support (kids don't grow up watching or playing it), a high enough level of them can never be made or even encouraged to care about it to anywhere near the same level as basketball, football, or baseball. People will just have to accept that of the nearly 300 million people in the US, far too few give a rat's arse about hockey no matter how entertaining WE think it is. It was a good try, though, increasing national presense; probably the only way that even had a snowball's chance in hell of working.
With luck the new amount of influence the players have along with a greater sense of urgency in the management segment, the dinosaurs will no longer be able to prevent the changes that are necessary to making hockey interesting again. This will revitalize the regional side of things which is most important right now.
syc said:Yeah way to go maybe in the next 6 years he can make this sport more popular then bowling on American T.V.
The cap is good but give me a break!!!!! The guy has done nothing for hockey in 10 years but now that big teams can't buy small market team players hes the savior to the NHL?
Great job Bettman the NHL has never been stronger.
Why would they be done? Ever heard of revenue sharing?OilerFan4Life said:Try to view this whole process from a "smaller" market perspective. If Bettman/owners had caved and not gotten the cap/linkage then Edmonton, Calgary, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, as well as many other franchises would be done...you man not give two $hits about these teams but many many fans do, so stop spewing your hate for Gary Bettman already.
OilerFan4Life said:Thanks Gary, for saving NHL hockey in Edmonton.
Anyone with a law background could have done this. The Owners finally got unified and didnt crack.Randy May said:Here Here. Gary Bettman does not nor will not get enough credit for what he has done for the league. I do not like the # of expansion clubs that continued after he was hired nor do I like the change of division and conference names but none of that was entirely his doing...he works for the owners...and he did a kick ass job on this CBA.