No, not a Western. A fight between the NHL, some owners, the city of Glendale, and a bankruptcy judge. It sounds very complicated and it is, but the important bit is that the franchise declared bankruptcy, found buyer who wants to move it to Canada, which the NHL and Glendale officials do not want to happen.
The NHL has even said it has and will fund the operation of the franchise in Glendale. Yesterday Glendale pulled out its supposed trump card, the lease language which it says binds the team to Glendale. The city wants an injunction barring any sale of the franchise.
In other words, Glendale is behaving exactly as the city of Charlotte would if Bob Johnson were to tap out and walk away from the Bobcats. Better still, check out this headline from The Arizona Republic: Taxpayers could end up footing arena payments. Glendale basically TIFed $200m. worth of arena and collects $2.4m. a year in rent from the NHL team. The Bobcats pay nothing in rent, but are responsible for the operation of the Uptown Arena.
Bottomline, when speculative entertainment ventures go bad, the only place to turn to make the numbers work is the taxpayer. And the pro sports industry cannot allow owners to get out of deals with cities by declaring bankruptcy. Otherwise, how are you going to get cities to build free arenas for billionaires?
