New Lease on NHL Life

NASHVILLE -- Had Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie had his way, the Nashville Predators would be playing out their final NHL season in the Tennessee capital and preparing to pack their bags for Hamilton.

Instead, 10 months after Balsillie believed he had a deal to buy the team for $234-million (all currency U.S.), the Predators' new owners are awaiting final approval of a renegotiated arena lease they say can keep the NHL in Nashville for a long time.

"In an ironic way, we probably owe Jim Balsillie a debt of gratitude," said David Freeman, the Predators' chairman and one-third owner. "It simply pulled this entire community together to see the value of the team and find a solution that made sense for everybody."

That solution will be voted upon by the local sports authority today before going to city council for final approval on April 1.

The city has agreed to give the Predators $3-million a year for five years to manage the city-owned Sommet Center, $3.8-million a year in annual operating support and additional incentives to bring in more events.

In exchange, the Predators agreed to stay in Nashville for five years.

The team would be allowed to leave after the 2009-10 season if it lost $20-million under the lease and was unable to sell an average of 14,000 tickets a game. But the team would repay the sports authority roughly $6.8-million every year they operated under the lease.

The deal might smell like a public subsidy to a private enterprise, but local politicians are apparently convinced the Predators have no chance of surviving on revenue generated by the team alone.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman pledged that the league's new labour agreement would work for all 30 teams, but in Nashville, that day is a long way off.

"Based on our business model, we have a hard time coming up with a scenario where we as an ownership group would be pulling profits out of this business," Freeman said. "NHL franchises appreciate very nicely, but we have no intention of selling or moving. The value may go up, but we all intend to die owning this club."

If the lease proposal is not approved, the Predators would be free to move at the end of this season should they fail to reach the paid-attendance figure of 14,000 (the team is projecting a season-end average paid-attendance figure of 13,300).

However, Freeman discounts that possibility.

The former owner of a company that disposed of medical waste, Freeman, 46, is an unlikely hockey saviour. Prior to leading the group that in December bought the team from Craig Leipold for $193-million, Freeman had been to just three NHL games. The only hockey game he remembers watching is one involving the U.S. Olympic men's team in 1980. A picture of that game, signed by goaltender Jim Craig, hangs in his office, a gift from Freeman's mother when he took over the Predators.

The native of Knoxville, Tenn., admits he knows far more about U.S. college football than ice and pucks and is learning many of the business nuances of running an NHL team on the fly. But Freeman seems sincere when he says he is driven not by profit or ego, but by wanting to perform what he considers a civic duty.

Good intentions aside, Freeman and his group of 10 other investors still have their work cut out for them in a city where, even with the Predators in the thick of a fight for the playoffs, the team is often buried in the local media behind men's and women's college basketball, off-season NFL news, baseball, NASCAR and even arena football.

On one recent Sunday, the only Predators story was on Page 7 of a nine-page sports section in The Tennessean. The team is routinely omitted from evening television sportscasts on non-game days.

Cultivated mostly from the local finance and health-care communities, the new ownership group has seen attendance rise steadily since taking over in December, meaning the club will qualify for NHL revenue sharing by achieving a paid attendance figure of at least 13,125. But with cheaper tickets than most NHL markets (the upper bowl is priced at less than $30 a seat for season-ticket holders, and through promotions or packages, many seats can be had for about $20), the Predators know they need local revenue streams beyond the hockey gate.

"I believe there's a small group of very dedicated fans here, and outside of that, I don't know what the interest is," said Troy Hudson, a partial season-ticket holder who was at last week's game against the Los Angeles Kings with his wife and two daughters. "The season-ticket holders are passionate, but outside of that, a lot of people are not that much in tune with what's going on."

While Nashville is roughly the same population as Ottawa, Calgary or Edmonton, demand for hockey in those Canadian markets allows teams to charge more for tickets and draw significant revenues through things such as local radio and TV.

"I may have more money in my pocket right now than we get from our local TV stations," said Freeman, who looked to be in awe when reminded that the Toronto Maple Leafs get $700,000 (Canadian) for each locally televised home game.

"That is our biggest challenge to competing on an equal business footing with franchises in Canadian markets and border states," Freeman said. "We just don't have the sheer depth of numbers you'll find in a Canadian market, where the love of the game is so deep and widespread."

That point was the rallying cry of many Canadians who felt slighted when Balsillie's efforts to move the Predators to Hamilton went up in smoke last summer.

Freeman understands the disappointment, but doesn't apologize for the efforts to keep the team.

"We're finding a lot of people who are coming out for the first time under the theory of, 'I don't care about hockey, but I sure do care about Nashville and I'm going to support this team because it's good for the city,' " he said. "I don't think Hamilton got screwed.

"This is a franchise that was awarded to Nashville 10 years ago, and the people of Hamilton can appreciate a city that loves its hockey team and doesn't want to let it go.

"There's no question in my mind that Hamilton would be a great home for an NHL team," Freeman said. "But if Hamilton gets an NHL franchise, it just has to be named something other than Hamilton Predators."

From globeandmail.com