Why should the Toronto Maple Leafs care if they're terrible?

[syn]

rebuild in the 90's? Through the draft? Nope. Never happened. Look at their draft history. It's appalling. Between 91 and 01 they drafted four players that had even semi decent NHL careers: Kaberle, Modin Ponikarovky and Antropov. That's 4 out of 50 or so picks. In the 90's they rebuilt via free agency, something they can't do now. It's easy to create a good team if you have the money.

I feel like a broken record now so I'm going to stop.

Their drafting record is beside the point.

My point is that between 1995-1998 the Leafs traded high priced veterans and shed salary. It's only in the offseason in 1998 that they started to upgrade the team again.

Why wouldn't they do it again? It makes perfect business sense for them to do things the proper way.

 

[ShonTron]

I figure they're too busy running a real estate and media juggernaut to realize that their management of their "core business" is poor. But as long as the profits rise with more games on Leafs TV (and demanding higher fees from restaurants and bars showing it), ticket prices keep going up, and the salary cap letting them swim in even more money while still stiffing the taxpayers, I don't even think it's their top priority.

Even though I am sure they could make even more money from a winning team, they're so diversified and making enough that a risk-adverse kind of company like one run by bean counters that it kind of makes sense, even if it doesn't.

Our only hope is to get a entrepreneur who will treat a team like their own hobby (like a Jim Basillie) to get one in Southern Ontario.

 

[syn]

I figure they're too busy running a real estate and media juggernaut to realize that their management of their "core business" is poor. But as long as the profits rise with more games on Leafs TV (and demanding higher fees from restaurants and bars showing it), ticket prices keep going up, and the salary cap letting them swim in even more money while still stiffing the taxpayers, I don't even think it's their top priority.

Even though I am sure they could make even more money from a winning team, they're so diversified and making enough that a risk-adverse kind of company like one run by bean counters that it kind of makes sense, even if it doesn't.

Our only hope is to get a entrepreneur who will treat a team like their own hobby (like a Jim Basillie) to get one in Southern Ontario.

There isn't an owner in sports whose team constitutes their core business.

It's not like much attention is required by the MLSE board for the Leafs to do well. All they have to do is higher a good manager and let him work. They clearly have no problem investing the necessary money.

The problem is that Ferguson turned out to be a pretty bad GM.

 

[TrickyRicky]

I'm not really sure I buy the MLSE corporate profits / mediocrity conspiracy theories. I think the problem with the Leafs is the poor ownership and management culture. It's all one big dinosaur elitist old boy's network, low on talent, high on patronage and nepotism.

 

[billonlogan]

We can only wish this could happen here....



Montreal mayor upset doors of fire stations painted in Canadiens colours

MONTREAL — Montreal's mayor is seeing red - and white and blue - after city firefighters painted the garage doors of many stations to show their support for the Montreal Canadiens.

The Habs are getting ready to face the Boston Bruins in the first game of their playoff series this evening.

The firefighters used waterpaint to decorate many doors with the Canadiens' logo and the red, white and blue team colours.

Mayor Gerald Tremblay is calling it vandalism and says he'll bring in a private firm to clean things up and send the bill to the union.

The colourful paint job started with a downtown fire station on Monday and others followed suit.

The firefighters are currently involved in a labour dispute with the city, but station Capt. Alain Saint-Pierre says they are just getting caught up in the hockey fever that's taken over Montreal.

 

[ShonTron]

The CBC last night showed a fire truck with a Canadiens flag off the back, but with a "City of Toronto" sign on the ladder.

Here's why:

http://spacingmontreal.ca/?p=731

 

[CDL.TO]

The front page article for the current Macleans is Why the Leafs Suck, which at the same time seems both inappropriate and fitting for what is supposed to be a national news magazine.

 

[gei]

Year after year the Toronto Maple Leafs fail to perform, not just in lack of Stanley Cups, but in recent seasons missing the playoffs entirely. But if I was the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, I'd ask myself why I should care if they're terrible? Even with my mediocre team, season after season every home game is sold out, people continue to buy the TML merchandise, the media continues to buy broadcasting rights. If I spent twice as much money as I do now to get a better team, how would I benefit? I can't put more seats in the stadium, I'm already charging huge sums for broadcasting rights, and I'm selling every TML-branded sweater, shirt, hat and puck China can make for me.

It really confuses me how people can be stupid enough to actually use this sort of logic.

Even from a financial standpoint, they would make TONS more money from playing in even a single playoff game. They also sell WAY more merchandise when the team is doing well, and even more when they go deep in the playoffs.

They have EVERY incentive to get better.