The case against BUYOUTS: No profit, no point

[CanuckRookieFan]

As a business owner and CEO of my business I am constantly re-evaluating my expenses, revenues and bottom line profits.

 

As a smart business man Aqua is not in a rush to part with his money on a losing proposition, so ask your selves oh wise Canucks fans, why would he ever, ever buy out OEL or anyone else? Giving up 5 mill a year or more to pay players just to leave?

 

In retro spec that $5 mill give away represents a cool 10% profit margin for the entire year of the organization. He would be losing $5 mill right off the top, no thanks no smart business owner would do that to his margins.

 

2022 and 2023 been exceptional for Auqa in profits, not only is gate revenue up, he has signed an incredible TD sponsorship deal, his radio deal closed, Rogers TV deal continues to offer revenue, new digital boards bring more cash to Aqua than ticket sales do, then you add traditional in risk advertisements, add merchandise, food sales, parking. AQUA doesn't  need to appeal to the couch GMs on here because he doesn't want to part with $5 mill, who would?

 

For what just a small cap benefit so the team can be a little more competitive over the same years as he is losing $5 mill per? If I had to choose between profits and a winning team I'll still take profits, it's a no brainer I hope you see it how I see it I am siding with Aqua on this.

 

 

 

 

 

[King Heffy]

It's not only terrible financially, it's something no GM with a functioning brain would even consider.

[Biff Tannen]

3 hours ago, CanuckRookieFan said:

As a business owner and CEO of my business I am constantly re-evaluating my expenses, revenues and bottom line profits.

 

As a smart business man Aqua is not in a rush to part with his money on a losing proposition, so ask your selves oh wise Canucks fans, why would he ever, ever buy out OEL or anyone else? Giving up 5 mill a year or more to pay players just to leave?

 

In retro spec that $5 mill give away represents a cool 10% profit margin for the entire year of the organization. He would be losing $5 mill right off the top, no thanks no smart business owner would do that to his margins.

 

2022 and 2023 been exceptional for Auqa in profits, not only is gate revenue up, he has signed an incredible TD sponsorship deal, his radio deal closed, Rogers TV deal continues to offer revenue, new digital boards bring more cash to Aqua than ticket sales do, then you add traditional in risk advertisements, add merchandise, food sales, parking. AQUA doesn't  need to appeal to the couch GMs on here because he doesn't want to part with $5 mill, who would

 

For what just a small cap benefit so the team can be a little more competitive over the same years as he is losing $5 mill per? If I had to choose between profits and a winning team I'll still take profits, it's a no brainer I hope you see it how I see it I am siding with Aqua on this.

 

Maybe I'm missing something, but Canucks are consistently spending to the cap so why would buying out OEL cost Aqua $5m? The buyout counts against the cap and the cap hit is actually slightly larger than the cost, so arguably it would save him over $1m.

 

I don't think buying out OEL would be a good idea yet, but I also don't understand your figures.

 

In retro spec, when you say business owner and CEO so you mean sole trader?

[J-23]

Okay.

[Dazzle]

18 hours ago, CanuckRookieFan said:

As a business owner and CEO of my business I am constantly re-evaluating my expenses, revenues and bottom line profits.

 

As a smart business man Aqua is not in a rush to part with his money on a losing proposition, so ask your selves oh wise Canucks fans, why would he ever, ever buy out OEL or anyone else? Giving up 5 mill a year or more to pay players just to leave?

 

In retro spec that $5 mill give away represents a cool 10% profit margin for the entire year of the organization. He would be losing $5 mill right off the top, no thanks no smart business owner would do that to his margins.

 

2022 and 2023 been exceptional for Auqa in profits, not only is gate revenue up, he has signed an incredible TD sponsorship deal, his radio deal closed, Rogers TV deal continues to offer revenue, new digital boards bring more cash to Aqua than ticket sales do, then you add traditional in risk advertisements, add merchandise, food sales, parking. AQUA doesn't  need to appeal to the couch GMs on here because he doesn't want to part with $5 mill, who would?

 

For what just a small cap benefit so the team can be a little more competitive over the same years as he is losing $5 mill per? If I had to choose between profits and a winning team I'll still take profits, it's a no brainer I hope you see it how I see it I am siding with Aqua on this.

 

 

 

 

 

I appreciate your perspective.

 

Lots of people talk about Aqua being dumb, but he's not. People chastise him (and rightfully so) for his questionable business practices. He's largely gotten away with them. That's saying something, no? He's worked the system to favour himself. I'm not justifying anything here. We just have to come to an agreement before moving onto the next topic.

 

I believe the narrative about Aqua being a meddler is not entirely accurate. Current management obviously felt like re-signing Miller would make sense, but they were wrong. Aqua signed off on it, so he bears some responsibility. I seriously doubt that Aqua would've willingly sacrificed Horvat over Miller, if we were to assume that he loves this team. He does love the team - there's no question about THAT. The debate is determining how much involvement he has with the team.

 

It's obvious that this current management does not know how to make contingency plans. They never foresaw the possibility that this team would be as bad as it is now. The proof is in the fact that they did next to nothing with their defensive core. Moreover, they chose to spend to the cap AS IF they were a playoff team. But they're not a playoff team, and neither was last year's team. In addition, we are so badly capped that we lost leverage in almost any future trade except Horvat, which is proof of poor decision making. They painted themselves into a corner.

Imagine doing so well with signing UFAs to bolster your team, but still do so bad as last year's team (prior to Green). Like wow, that's gotta be some epic failure.

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Dazzle

[MaxVerstappen33]

18 hours ago, CanuckRookieFan said:

As a business owner and CEO of my business I am constantly re-evaluating my expenses, revenues and bottom line profits.

 

As a smart business man Aqua is not in a rush to part with his money on a losing proposition, so ask your selves oh wise Canucks fans, why would he ever, ever buy out OEL or anyone else? Giving up 5 mill a year or more to pay players just to leave?

 

In retro spec that $5 mill give away represents a cool 10% profit margin for the entire year of the organization. He would be losing $5 mill right off the top, no thanks no smart business owner would do that to his margins.

 

2022 and 2023 been exceptional for Auqa in profits, not only is gate revenue up, he has signed an incredible TD sponsorship deal, his radio deal closed, Rogers TV deal continues to offer revenue, new digital boards bring more cash to Aqua than ticket sales do, then you add traditional in risk advertisements, add merchandise, food sales, parking. AQUA doesn't  need to appeal to the couch GMs on here because he doesn't want to part with $5 mill, who would?

 

For what just a small cap benefit so the team can be a little more competitive over the same years as he is losing $5 mill per? If I had to choose between profits and a winning team I'll still take profits, it's a no brainer I hope you see it how I see it I am siding with Aqua on this.

 

 

 

 

 

But Aquilini has done it many times already. Ballard, Booth, Loungo, Holtby ect. Its a feeding frenzy at the buyout window.

 

Theoretically it is legalized cap circumvention. Aqulini seems to think he can buy a cup through the buyout window and through free agency. Instead of doing it the hard way by having off years and taking on bad contracts instead of offloading them every year. 

 

 

[kanucks25]

19 hours ago, CanuckRookieFan said:

As a business owner and CEO of my business I am constantly re-evaluating my expenses, revenues and bottom line profits.

 

As a smart business man Aqua is not in a rush to part with his money on a losing proposition, so ask your selves oh wise Canucks fans, why would he ever, ever buy out OEL or anyone else? Giving up 5 mill a year or more to pay players just to leave?

 

In retro spec that $5 mill give away represents a cool 10% profit margin for the entire year of the organization. He would be losing $5 mill right off the top, no thanks no smart business owner would do that to his margins.

 

2022 and 2023 been exceptional for Auqa in profits, not only is gate revenue up, he has signed an incredible TD sponsorship deal, his radio deal closed, Rogers TV deal continues to offer revenue, new digital boards bring more cash to Aqua than ticket sales do, then you add traditional in risk advertisements, add merchandise, food sales, parking. AQUA doesn't  need to appeal to the couch GMs on here because he doesn't want to part with $5 mill, who would?

 

For what just a small cap benefit so the team can be a little more competitive over the same years as he is losing $5 mill per? If I had to choose between profits and a winning team I'll still take profits, it's a no brainer I hope you see it how I see it I am siding with Aqua on this.

I imagine Aqua feels the same way as you, and you're both missing the big picture.

 

First, it depends on he wants to run the team. If he wants to run it as a business first and only, then yeah there's a case to be made for not throwing away millions for marginal cap gains. And in the end, the GM can use that freed up money to sign another bad contract which means it was a complete waste. As we all know, Aqua's GMs over the past 8 years or so have not been strangers to signing horrendous contracts.

 

However, if the primary goal is to win the cup, then the owner must understand that there may need to be a "pain" period financially, at least for a while, until the investment in the rebuild starts to pay off and you start chaining together playoff runs (which means playoff revenue).

Typically, people don't own sports teams for the financial gain. There are much more efficient things these millionaires and billionaires can be doing with their money for better returns. They buy these teams as pet/passion projects and/or to get "in" with a certain crowd.

 

Aqua's directions to his underlings seem clear: I won't spend money on making bad contracts go away or bringing in bad contracts with additional assets, but you have the green light to spend to make the team better immediately/directly (like a big UFA signing, which can be easily marketed to the casual fan). The problem with this approach is that you end up signing bloated UFA contracts and because we never went through a proper rebuild, we don't have the asset pool or a good enough roster to use said UFA's to push us forward. Instead we end up where we are today - capped out with a lot of square pegs in round holes and nowhere to go.

 

If the Canucks were committed to doing things right, they would find a way to open up cap space, and then use that cap space to acquire assets from other teams that want to get rid of bad contracts. This of course would not be cheap, especially because we would be rebuilding/losing during this period (which naturally means deflated market interest), but it would be the correct course of action at this point. Unfortunately we are stuck in this weird middle area where the owner is willing to spend, but not in the right way, and it just leads to a big expensive mess.

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by kanucks25