The Fallout of the Edmonton Oilers Firing Peter Chiarelli
By Phil Gretzky
Edmonton Oilers: I’d be shocked if you found anyone sad about the firing of Peter Chiarelli in these parts.
Edmonton Oilers: There are some exciting rumors going about to see who will replace him and what the next step will be. I usually don’t reference other blogs, but I recently read one that was just too good not to share – also it’s on a blog that is much smaller than ours and puts out content very infrequently and thus isn’t much of a threat here to Oil on Whyte.
Let’s start with one rumor: Katz is just as angry as the fans. Check it out here:
That makes sense – not only from the perspective of Katz as a fan but Katz as a businessman.
After all, Katz did put Nicholson in place to oversee everything about his hockey ops and Nicholson did hire Chiarelli, so a year he’s probably pretty PO’d with the way things have gone. After all, this is the 11th year he’s been the owner of the team, and they’ve only made the playoffs once. Katz became the Oilers owner specifically so they would have the resources to get a new arena, spend to the cap, and bring the Stanley Cup back to Edmonton.
Nicholson’s comments singling out Tobias Rieder for the failures of the season only poured gasoline on the fire.
He was able to accomplish 1 of those goals already (the arena), and while the Oilers aren’t a cap team just yet (almost, but not entirely), they’ve only made the playoffs once since he bought the team. That’s not the kind of results he’s looking for, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Katz was feeling owly and chewed out Nicholson more than once.
After all, we’re talking about a guy who took multiple drugstore brands and sold them both for over $2 billion. A guy like that is not used to failure.
Not to mention he’s not impressed by the fact he’s being said in the same vein as Eugene Melnyk, the Senators owner who is by far the worst owner in the league – so bad that many Sens fans are clamoring for him to sell the team to someone else.
The business part of that as well is also coming into play. I’ve heard that as many as 20% of season ticket holders and luxury box purchasers are not going to renew their purchases this year. That’s a HUGE amount of revenue to the Oilers, and will only continue standing in the way of them coming to success.
Now yes, there is a waiting list for season tickets and luxury boxes, so some of that revenue will be recouped by others, but honestly, it’s also a possibility that some folks on the waiting list are all “take me off the list, I’m not paying for this crap” too.
I’ve also heard figures that when the Oilers DID make the playoffs, it brought in revenue of $3 million PER GAME. PER GAME. Combine this with the fact the players don’t get paid during the playoffs, and you can see why Katz wants this sweet, sweet playoff kool-aid.
Katz, as he always has, keeps to himself and usually doesn’t report the business side of things, and frankly, I don’t expect him to this time around as there’s no upside for him doing it.
So, all of this is a rumor, and maybe the figures are higher or lower. But I’ve already heard reports from specific season ticket holders who won’t be renewing their season tickets. After all, those tickets are a huge commitment both in money and time. Would you shell out $3000-6000 to watch a losing hockey team? Probably not.