Ithaca Times, November 20, 2007, Tuesday

Ithaca Times

By: Colleen Corley
11/20/2007

Speakeasy

Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League, spoke to members of the Cornell University community on Saturday, Nov. 11. Bettman, an alumnus who graduated '74, hit on moments of controversy in his tenure at the NHL and previously at the NBA, including the installation of salary caps in both leagues and NHL work stoppages in 1994 and 2004. To a crowd of School of Industrial Labor Relations students, Bettman recalled the lessons in collective bargaining and cognitive dissidence he learned while an ILR student and shared memories of sleeping outside while waiting for CU hockey tickets. At the end of his talk, students and alum posed some questions of their own.
What are some of the adjustments you had to make moving from the NBA to the NHL?
Gary Bettman: Hockey's great because the fans - and all of the research demonstrates it - are more avid, more connected and more passionate about the game than the fans in any other sport. [It] doesn't mean we have the most fans. Part of it has to do with the fact that ... we only had six franchises. After that we only had 12 franchises. Going back to the '90s, we had 21 franchises, and not all of them were in the United States. The point of all that is hockey people had to be very passionate about their game and the people associated with it. So the first rap on me when I left the NBA [was] 'He's a basketball guy.' I was always a hockey fan first and foremost, and if you want to work in sports you take the job you can get when you can get it. [The] biggest adjustment was ... understanding the people. That's where [I] first got into a little bit of trouble, because I didn't know my owners very well.
Is it true that while you were at the NBA you were known as the "Pope of Salary Caps"?
GB: There were some people - and I'm not sure in flattering ways - who always referred to me that way because there had never been a salary cap before and I was the one who installed it. It was no secret that when the NFL decided, after all the litigation in the '80s, that they wanted a cap they actually came to visit. Baseball consulted us as well....You can't take what you do in one sport and use it on a cookie-cutter basis in another sport. The businesses, the dynamic, the player development, what goals you're making for a team, differ from sport to sport and you have to take that into account. As commissioner you were looking at liquidations. [In Buffalo], most of the sports and business world said turn the lights out, leave. In your leadership you took it in a different direction. Could you share some of the examples of what led you in that decision making?
GB: I believe that a sports league has a covenant with its fans. It's not that the fans just buy tickets or buy jerseys or watch on TV. Your fans ... perhaps unlike [in] any other product make an emotional commitment to you. It's not just the money and the time; it's passion and emotion. We provide that, we sell that more than anything else. And if you ever begin to cut that off, I think you jeopardize the very fundamentals of what professional sports represent. If you do it in Buffalo, maybe somebody in Ottawa is gong to say, "Well, if Buffalo's gone, maybe we're next ... and maybe we need to separate from the team." There are some times situations that are untenable, it won't work, there's no amount of money that can save it and you have no choice. I always believe you've got to do everything to try to make it right.
Who's going to win the Stanley Cup?
GB: If you look at my standings right now, nobody's out of it. Everybody's got a shot. If you look at the standings for the last two seasons, 25 clubs were still in the hunt in the last months of the season to make the playoffs. To me that's the best measure of competitive balance. With one or two exceptions, no matter who you root for this year you've got a shot at making the playoffs. The best thing that any sport can give its fans is hope. So the answer is I have no idea, and that's why we play the games.
- Colleen Corley


©Ithaca Times 2007