Should Gary Bettman go into the Hall of Fame?
 

I recently read this suggested over in a thread on the Business forum, and I was wondering what people here thought of it.

Once he retires as NHL Commissioner, should Gary Bettman go into the Hockey Hall of Fame?

That's a tough sell for me. He leads the universe in most games lost to labor dispute of any comissioner in any professional sports league in North America.

I haven't done my own research yet, but what type of accomplishments are considered the threshold to get in as a builder?

This is serious?

No.

Yes. The game has experienced unmatched growth under his watch.

I think he will. He's been commish for 20 years now and has led the league to a bit of growth.

He might get Art Modell'd

I think he will eventually, but it's going to take a good bit of time. Feelings about him are just too raw at the moment for me to imagine them subsiding in the near future.

My problem with crediting Bettman personally with any of that, is that revenues increased largely due to technology vastly improving the scope and profitability of NHL broadcasts (remote production and electronic distribution alone...). Whoever the commissioner was during the technological revolution between the early 90s (almost no internet, limited cable/satellite) and now (almost too much internet and cable/satellite, lol) would have presided over record growth - no matter how many games they lost due to labour disputes, or how many attempts were made to "fix" the game through rule/officiating changes, gimmicks like shootouts, etc. :sarcasm:

Is it accurate to say that Bettman has presided over the most rule changes in history at this point? Lots of modifications over the past 20 years, and I'm certainly going to point out that the DPE happened in the early years of Bettman's watch.

In a perfect world I'd say not a chance, but as we have Ziegler in the Hall, it seems pretty much a given that if your the figurehead of the NHL (and you're not named Gil Stien), you get in.

i wouldnt put him in.

3 lockouts, its looking like 2 completely lost seasons.

Growth? doesnt sound like growth to me.

i know it the league has brought more $$ in than it ever has, and that makes this current lockout even worse.

I think a solid majority of hockey fans believe the Hall of Fame should lock Bettman out. ;)

He will. They just have to give the fans a few years to learn to boo the new commissioner.

He is a lock to get in.

Ya, totally & completely. The BOG's with the exception of a few love the guy. When hired given 3 objectives; 1) Oversee pre-existing Expansion Plans; 2) Bring in Cost Certainty & establish a CAP system; 3) Secure a National Broadcast Contract in the US. Accomplished what he was instructed to do regardless of whether we agree with or like the way in which he went about it. Though there in & of itself one is left wondering how much of it was a case of just following orders; how much was it of his own concept, design & execution. Id hazard to guess he gets into the HHOF the same year he retires, steps down. His Contract runs for another 3yrs I believe, hard to say if he renews thereafter or does in fact retire, possibly moving on to something else.

I can't stand the guy, but sure he should go in as a builder. Hard to deny his influence on the game.

Yeah he'll probably end up in the HHOF, despite the protests of many. Like others have said in this thread, he presided over significant growth for the league, and he's managed to stay in the job through a whole bunch of work stoppages, so the higher ups clearly seem to be fond of him.

i think unless the NHL folds, there's no chance bettman doesn't make the hall.

if it were my decision, he'd be banned from the hall due to crimes against hockey. hell, i'd even go pete rose-style and ban him from collecting hockey cards.


but is being influential the same thing as being a meaningful builder? eagleson was undoubtedly influential. he even did a few good things (summit series, e.g.), but he did an awful lot of damage. likewise, bettman.

Hate him all you want there are millions of new hockey fans and thousands of kids playing the game that wouldn't be doing so if it weren't for Bettman

Hard to say. Yeah he's grown the league into a multi-billion dollar business, but when you consider the inequality of the wealth that's generated, you can't just say "the league is profitable".

Also, it's the Hockey Hall of Fame, not the Business Hall of Fame.

"Builder" section. Bettman could be a neighbour to Harold Ballard.

Is there a Hall of Infamy? He might be a little more suited to that.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the 'builder' arguement, but it seems to me that a lot of the forward steps in profitability that have been made under Bettman's tenure have been made at the expense of a basic "gardianship" of the game.

I think the situation in Florida is a good example of this - a team with a tiny fanbase is basically serving as a loss leader for SS&E's other endeavours, and there are surely other examples of teams being granted to businessmen whose top concern is a real estate play, not a passion for the sport (full disclosure: even my team - the Senators - was conceived out of that same ideology)

20 years as commissioner. Don't think they have any other choice.

i think to various degrees, every exists as a real estate/urban planning gambit. i mean, you have to get the richers to pay for the team and the city to finance the arena somehow. i think the distinction is whether that team has some other meaningful reason to exist. judging by their fanbase, the senators obviously do. the panthers, not so much.

i was at a panthers game a few years ago when i was on vacation in miami. i bought cheap tickets from the team's website, something like $40 for four seats. really high up, but still. i was living in toronto at the time; that wouldn't have bought me a beer at the ACC. point is though, while i was waiting at the will call for my tickets, and the line was ridiculously long, i noticed that every single other person in that 20 minute line for tickets was comped. i know this because the ticket office was completely incompetent and each of the people at the five ticket windows had to confer with the others and root through file folders to figure out what promotion or what corporation the tickets were being held under. from talking to the people in my section, the only people who paid were the snowbirds from new york (they were playing the rangers), who were also on vacation.

the real question i guess is whether bettman will ultimately leave the game better than he found it. well, being that the game was already on the way up when he was hired and then he almost immediately curtailed its momentum by locking out the players in '95, has presided over two lockouts since, and given teams to multiple crooks, i have a hard time admiring what he "built." sure, the leafs are worth more now than ever before. but was that an inevitable result of extrinsic economic forces and inflation? did putting teams in miami, nashville, and phoenix really raise the value of the leafs or rangers or any other team?

Bad time to discuss this. I hate the guy as much as I hate the Fehrs, but he will probably go in down the road. Far, far down the road.