will just warn you that this came from Bob (BOZO) Smizik last night on the nightly sportscall on the CW but he said he heard that Burkle wants to own the team after they get a new arena,Also Pompeani said he's heard that MC is REALLY working hard to buy this team behind the scenes & quietly
Interesting, because this meshes with Savran's report yesterday that certain parties in the current Lemieux Group are interested and are forming a group to look into buying the team when this arena thing is ironed out.
Could something like this be happening...
Burkle and the Pens ownership are trying to make the Pens deal as profitable as possible. With the full control of the hockey and non-hockey revenue streams going to the team, talk that the team's per-year contribution to the financing plan has been cut to $1.5 million a year over thirty years, and a short-term rent-free stay in Mellon Arena also with total revenue control, the Pittsburgh deal is capable of bringing in significantly more revenue over the life of its lease than would the deal in KC.
Burkle isn't an idiot...if the revenue streams between Pgh and KC are comparable (and they should be, given that they are similar markets), Burkle knows this deal could easily trump the KC deal. In fact, the arena deal here could turn out to be a significantly profitable venture. Once they maximize the value on the arena deal, they sign up for the deal and the team stays here.
Relatively soon thereafter, Lemeiux sells off his share in the ownership, whether it be to Burkle, some combination of the current investors, or to a group headed by Mark Cuban...or even some combination of all three. Thus, the team never really goes back on the market because they can finally start making good money off the new arena.