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Time after Gary Bettman?

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Two weeks ago Gary was asked when he plans to retire. Without hesitation wants to stick around as long as owners want him. The day will come for sure but for now mind remains very sharp. Hopefully those occasional shakes are not much of a concern.
 
Bill Daly would be a good choice. What about John Collins? He left in 2015 and was the NHL COO then was senior vice president. He was in part responsible for the NBC and Sportsnet negotiation and focusing on making the NHL more of a national brand in the US. The league doubled in revenue from 2 to 4 billion while he was there. Gary Bettman gave him a lot of credit for the games growth. I always thought he was well spoken and came across well in selling the league. Of course Bill Daly is also will spoken has longevity and loyalty going for him.
 
He's made what? 10 million per for how many years without paying into escrow...

You'd think he'd want some time to enjoy spending it...but yeah someday soon there will be a new commish
 
It's easy to assume that Daly is his successor, but Daly is also 60 years old. You wonder how much he wants it and how much the BoG wants someone younger.
 
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Bettman's 72. In a sane world, he'd be close to retiring or already in retirement. But if the past decade+ has taught us anything, it's that folks born in the 40s/50s seem to have a very hard time retiring from positions of power once they're in it.

For all we know, their wind-down from Bettman could last until he's 80+. Hard to really guess who could be hired internally or externally potentially years from now.
 
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This all boils down to the owners. If they want consistency, a steady hand, and to punt the decision down the road, they'll just appoint Bill Daly. If they're looking for the next 30 year guy, I would expect them to look at the other three major sports and try to poach someone up and coming. The NHL seems to always try to chase the hot hand from a safe distance, so I have a suspicion that we should be looking at the NFL for candidates. Could easily be wrong, but that's my uneducated guess.
 
I'd like to see them go after an MLB person. MLB is really the only one of the other major sports (outside of soccer) that deals with so many salary issues as well as development leagues/international leagues. Just don't hire a person who likes the Luxury Tax system.
 


Friedman talks about planning for Bettman's exit. Talks about wanting to get CBA, Canadian TV deals in place. Might be some of the things he wants done before announcing when he'll retire.

They might be thinking about putting Daly in to train the next long term guy.
 
LadyStanley said:


Friedman talks about planning for Bettman's exit. Talks about wanting to get CBA, Canadian TV deals in place. Might be some of the things he wants done before announcing when he'll retire.

They might be thinking about putting Daly in to train the next long term guy.
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Why not a lady? :popcorn:
 
The NHL needs a commissioner who will #MakeTheNHLGreatAgain by restoring Canadian team dominance.

Doing this could help achieve that

Post in thread 'NHL Expansion back on agenda?'

It's time to abandon the current conference/division alignment, as I have proposed expansion to 40 teams aligned as such (expansion teams marked with *):

Central: Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Indianapolis*, Kansas City*, Milwaukee*, Minnesota, St. Louis

East: Boston, Buffalo, New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington

North: Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec*, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg

South: Atlanta*, Carolina, Dallas, Florida, Houston*, Nashville, New Orleans*, Tampa Bay

West: Anaheim, Arizona*, Colorado, Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle...
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Takuto Maruki said:
Sure seems like they are doing a good job considering franchise values and the amount of money for TV contracts! But sure, Bettman knows as much as Joe Blow on HFBoards, lol.
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On some level, I'm on board with what you're saying.

But on another, I think there's a feeling that they've left a lot on the table because they don't do a good enough job on the marketing side. I do think people have a tendency to yell "marketing!" without any real knowledge of what that really entails. I admit that I don't really have that knowledge, but I agree with that feeling at least instinctually.
 
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Tawnos said:
But on another, I think there's a feeling that they've left a lot on the table because they don't do a good enough job on the marketing side.
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It depends on what that 'marketing' is though. A league can only do so much for getting their players out there into the public conscience, ultimately companies have to be the ones that bring it up.

If we're talking about 'marketing' in terms of the actual games though...by this point the NHL is on ESPN's streaming service, having nationally televised games on ABC, TNT and now Amazon Prime. This isn't the days of NHL on Versus - and realistically, that was a blip on the radar compared to the historical mean of how the NHL is being televised to the masses.
 
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It's an interesting question.

Gary Bettman of course was brought in from the NBA with an eye to getting a big US national TV deal.

That move was pretty unusual at the time, as he wasn't a "hockey guy". If you look at guys like Adam Silver, Roger Goodell, or Rob Manfred they all came up from within their league's offices. The NHL going to a different sport was wild. Also the fact of how young Bettman was at the time - 41.

That was also 30 years ago. The NHL has changed.

The obvious contender is Bill Daly. If you're looking for the betting favourite Daly is definitely it. He fits the general mold - long time within the league office, a lawyer.

But Daly is 60 years old, and the NHL a long time ago did go outside the usual pattern to select a commissioner.

But if not Daly - who?

I spent some time googling and came up with the name David Zimmerman - the NHL's Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel. Not much of a public profile though, and I doubt any younger than Daly (who is also a lawyer).

Gary Bettman was the NBA's General Counsel. That position is currently held by Rick Buchanan. Again though - having graduated from Harvard Law in 1988 Buchanan isn't any younger than Daly or Zimmerman.

Beyond that - a prominent player agent perhaps? Just to throw out a name - Craig Oster (since he seems to be the biggest agent by dollar value). Also - a lawyer. At least he's not a shit disturber with the league, so I've heard crazier ideas.

There's the Budd Selig example in MLB - could a prominent owner be selected? It would be pretty unusual though. OK, so here's a wild card name for you - Mark Chipman. Lawyer, part owner of the Jets, member of the NHL BOG Executive Committee. Still not really younger than any of the other names I've mentioned though (Oster would be the youngest, probably mid-50s).

Any other names to throw out there?
 
Takuto Maruki said:
It depends on what that 'marketing' is though. A league can only do so much for getting their players out there into the public conscience, ultimately companies have to be the ones that bring it up.

If we're talking about 'marketing' in terms of the actual games though...by this point the NHL is on ESPN's streaming service, having nationally televised games on ABC, TNT and now Amazon Prime. This isn't the days of NHL on Versus - and realistically, that was a blip on the radar compared to the historical mean of how the NHL is being televised to the masses.
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A league can only do so much to get players out there, but the question is ultimately whether or not the league is doing enough. Gretzky and Lemieux were known by most sports fans in the late-80s and -90s. Even when Gretzky was an Oiler, people knew his name. Is McDavid anywhere near as well known as that? The answer seems to be no, and I think that's a failure on the part of the league.

I was reading a discussion the other day, I think on Reddit, about a couple of commercials that the league put out this year... the tipping one and the gen Z one. One thing someone mentioned was that the only place they've seen those commercials is during hockey games. If true, that's also a problem (I don't watch anything with commercials except hockey games, so I would have no way of knowing).
 
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joelef said:
Your delusional if you think that
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When were Crosby and Ovy ever in a non-nhl commercial together? McDavid and Matthews are in that Mcds commercial that's on every channel. Similarly, Crosby and McKinnon are in a bunch of Tim Hortons stuff together but no Ovy.
 
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