Cbz40
The Grand Poobah
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Commissioners of the big four sports gather to discuss 'The Future of Sports'
New York Daily News
Teri Thompson
"They are portrayed as having the job security of a Supreme Court justice or the president of North Korea, but even the commissioners of the four major North American sports have to occasionally answer questions about the future of their sports at a time when, as one of them said, the economy is in the greatest downturn since the Great Depression.
Wednesday, Bud Selig of Major League Baseball, Roger Goodell of the National Football League, David Stern of the National Basketball Association and Gary Bettman of the National Hockey League assembled at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Midtown Manhattan to discuss some of the issues facing an enterprise with a combined revenue of $21.2 billion.
The discussion, called "The Future of Sports" and sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, began with Bettman, who was asked by moderator Sam Walker - the Journal's sports editor - about a major issue facing his league: The bankruptcy filing Tuesday of the Phoenix Coyotes and the resulting offer by BlackBerry boss Jim Balsillie to buy the team and move it to southern Ontario. The NHL stripped current Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes of authority to run the club after Moyer's announcement that he'd filed for Chapter 11 in conjunction with Balsillie's $212.5 million offer, which is conditional on the Coyotes relocating to Canada.
"I don't know whether or not he could get approved," Bettman said of whether the league's board of governors would allow Balsillie to buy and move the team. "This is about our league's rules and enforcing them. If in fact it becomes an issue for board consideration, the board of governors of the league will make that decision. We generally try to avoid relocating franchises. You try to fix the problems - we don't run from cities."
Next up was Selig, who was asked about the future of sports coverage by the media and how much of the success of a team such as the Boston Red Sox has been due to the coverage in the Boston Globe, which, in the economic downturn, is in danger of being closed.
"Obviously, everything in life is changing," said Selig, whose league has invested heavily in the Internet and in its own television network. "The Boston Globe, from a baseball standpoint, has always had great baseball coverage - remarkable baseball coverage over the last 50, 60, 70 years - and clearly has helped the Red Sox.
"But it isn't only Boston. Baseball is played in a 183-day season, 162 games, and day-to-day coverage of newspapers has been helpful over the past 'X' amount of decades. If that is about to change in any way, and it clearly has in many places, I guess the sports themselves, we have grappled with that and we understand we have to make changes to continue the linkage with fans. Whenever media in whatever city get to be less and less of a factor, we'll have to do things to pick that up.""
New York Daily News
Teri Thompson
"They are portrayed as having the job security of a Supreme Court justice or the president of North Korea, but even the commissioners of the four major North American sports have to occasionally answer questions about the future of their sports at a time when, as one of them said, the economy is in the greatest downturn since the Great Depression.
Wednesday, Bud Selig of Major League Baseball, Roger Goodell of the National Football League, David Stern of the National Basketball Association and Gary Bettman of the National Hockey League assembled at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Midtown Manhattan to discuss some of the issues facing an enterprise with a combined revenue of $21.2 billion.
The discussion, called "The Future of Sports" and sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, began with Bettman, who was asked by moderator Sam Walker - the Journal's sports editor - about a major issue facing his league: The bankruptcy filing Tuesday of the Phoenix Coyotes and the resulting offer by BlackBerry boss Jim Balsillie to buy the team and move it to southern Ontario. The NHL stripped current Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes of authority to run the club after Moyer's announcement that he'd filed for Chapter 11 in conjunction with Balsillie's $212.5 million offer, which is conditional on the Coyotes relocating to Canada.
"I don't know whether or not he could get approved," Bettman said of whether the league's board of governors would allow Balsillie to buy and move the team. "This is about our league's rules and enforcing them. If in fact it becomes an issue for board consideration, the board of governors of the league will make that decision. We generally try to avoid relocating franchises. You try to fix the problems - we don't run from cities."
Next up was Selig, who was asked about the future of sports coverage by the media and how much of the success of a team such as the Boston Red Sox has been due to the coverage in the Boston Globe, which, in the economic downturn, is in danger of being closed.
"Obviously, everything in life is changing," said Selig, whose league has invested heavily in the Internet and in its own television network. "The Boston Globe, from a baseball standpoint, has always had great baseball coverage - remarkable baseball coverage over the last 50, 60, 70 years - and clearly has helped the Red Sox.
"But it isn't only Boston. Baseball is played in a 183-day season, 162 games, and day-to-day coverage of newspapers has been helpful over the past 'X' amount of decades. If that is about to change in any way, and it clearly has in many places, I guess the sports themselves, we have grappled with that and we understand we have to make changes to continue the linkage with fans. Whenever media in whatever city get to be less and less of a factor, we'll have to do things to pick that up.""