Primer
- How To Read an NHL Press Release
..the latest edition of our Investigative
Reports™ series on "Real Life" in the NHL
HINT: Always Read the
Last Line First
by the Kourt jEsTeR
Part
15 - Accounting Firm Announces Each Club
Will Take
a
$10 Million Charge to Contribute to Owners' CBA War
Chest.
Accounting
Measure Serves Dual Purposes.
Allows NHL to Claim $300 Million
in Losses for Last Season.
editor's note: The following news story was taken
directly from the Associated Press news wire and has been reprinted word
for word with no changes of any kind.
NEW YORK (AP) -- NHL teams posted record losses of nearly $300 million
last season, according to figures distributed to owners this summer.
That was an increase of 35 percent from the $218 million in operating
losses incurred by the league last year. The losses are blamed on soaring
player salaries. Without a salary cap, the NHL spent 76 percent of $1.93
billion in revenue on players salaries and benefits. That is a greater
percentage than in the NBA, NFL or major league baseball.
"This is a level at which no business can survive,'' Bill Daly,
the NHL's chief legal officer, told The Wall Street Journal in an article
about league finances. ``The league will lose teams and players will lose
jobs if we can't fix this.''
The NHL would not comment further to The Associated Press.
The league will seek what commissioner Gary Bettman calls "cost
certainty,'' in bargaining a new collective agreement with its players
association. The current deal expires in September 2004 and there are
expectations that negotiations will be stormy, possibly resulting in a
strike or lockout.
The NHL locked out players for 103 days in 1994 and reportedly has assembled
a $300 million war chest as it prepares for contract talks.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Trust the AP to bring you the headlines (even if they're committed to
burying the lead) but trust Investigative Reports™ to bring you "the
story behind the story."
Wall Street Icon Warren Buffet, currently America's second richest man
behind Bill Gates, and in California to help actor Arnold Schwartzenegger
in his campaign for Governor, discussed the investors' angle with senior
Investigative Reports™ correspondent Dice Ritchie. Buffet terms the
NHL latest moves as "sheer genius."
According to Buffet, NBA Commissioner David Stern stands in real jeopardy
of losing his job because NHL Commissioner Gary Betman "scooped"
him in the race to attract the most lucrative corporate "partners"
for the major sports leagues.
Buffet asserts that next week, accounting giant Arthur Anderson and former
energy brokerage giant Enron Corporation will announce a corporate partners
agreement with the NHL. The deal will have the two embattled firms first
sending $150 million each to the NHL. Then, as soon as the dust settles,
Anderson and Enron will assume one-year exclusive naming rights to the
NHL itself.
Voila, the Arthur Anderson / Enron National Hockey League™.
For selling these rights each NHL team will pocket a cool $10 million
for the 2003-04 season.
Anderson CEO Joseph F. Berardino confirmed that the beleagured accounting
and consulting giant, one of the world's Big 5 CPA firms, could use the
cachet of legitimacy from the NHL. Berardino said, "My God, when
a puck goes in the net, there's really no doubt about it, eh (as those
loveable Canucks say)? About now we could really use a partnership with
an organization having an unchallenged reputation for integrity in bean
counting."
Returning Enron CEO Kenneth Ley boasted his formerly fraud-ridden (and
bankrupt) firm would soon "be riding high atop the kilowatt towers."
"Our big break started when the lights went out all across the East
Coast and Canada last August, said Ley. "Man, is that the heart of
hockey country or what? All we've got to do is boast about our records
of keeping the power on all the time, even during that (heh heh) energy
"shortage" in California. I mean, no matter who's whining about
how overloaded the grid is getting, we made sure 'Power to the People'
was not just an empty slogan. The average hockey fan will know, with the
NHL teamed up with us, they can depend on the lights coming on whenever
the puck is dropped."
"Hell, we even got Planned Parenthood going in with us as corporate
co-sponsor," crowed Ley. "They know what happened the last time
the lights went out during hockey season. Damn birth rates in the summer
months shot through the roof. SHOT THROUGH THE ROOF!!"
Buffet likened this new triumvirarte of leaders to his all-time favorite
heroes of the past. "Not since the Axis Powers of 1940 have we seen
this kind of bold leadership talent assembled together. Betman, Berardino,
Ley. They'll make Adolph, Benito, and Joe (Hitler, Mussellini, and Stalin)
look like punk-ass bitches."
"I wouldn't want to be an NHLPA union member about now." gushed
Buffet. "Soon as the NHL Owners' bargaining team lays down the demand
for travel to be by cattle car instead of those cushey jetliners, even
those knuckle-dragging jocks will start getting the hint. 'Specially when
we tell them they'll be providing their own soap (literally) in the shower
rooms."
|
