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Leipold extends Preds deadline, signals desire to keep team here
Seven hours before the deadline he imposed was scheduled to expire, Nashville Predators owner Craig Leipold announced that he was giving a group of local investors more time to complete their contract talks with Metro.
At 5 p.m. Wednesday, Leipold issued a statement saying that he was giving a group of local investors led by Nashville businessman David Freeman more time to negotiate with Metro over changes to the Predators-Sommet Center lease.
The investor group sought a number of changes to that lease before agreeing to purchase the franchise from Leipold.
Leipold, who has received additional offers from other potential buyers outside Nashville, accepted a preliminary offer from Freeman’s group but gave them until midnight yesterday to hammer out a deal.
At the end of last week, negotiations between Metro and Freeman’s group seemed to get tripped up by a disagreement over how much financial liability the team would need to assume versus how much Metro would have to shoulder.
In announcing the last-minute deadline extension, Leipold signaled a willingness to let both sides continue to work toward an agreement and a desire to see the Predators remain in Nashville.
“Based on the progress being made, I am convinced all parties will benefit from extra time to complete this transaction so we will extend the purchase agreement with David’s group with a goal of completing the sale as soon as possible,” Leipold’s statement read. “We understand how complex this transaction is and how much time and effort David [Freeman], his group, the Mayor’s office and others have invested into the process—all with a goal of keeping the Predators in Nashville and making the franchise viable for the long-term.
Leipold also said he “look[s] forward to completing the sale to David and his group.”
A new deadline was not set, and Leipold said in his statement, “we do not plan to comment further on the sale status until there is significant and definitive news.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Leipold met with Mayor Karl Dean to, as Leipold’s statement read, “hear an update on where the city stands regarding lease negotiations with David Freeman’s group.”
He said he met separately with Freeman yesterday as well and received “an update on the ownership group’s overall progress towards completing the purchase of the franchise.”
Neither Freeman’s group nor the city would comment on the status of the negotiations other than to say they remain ongoing.
Public comment on the negotiations ceased following the release of a series of e-mails the two sides exchanged last Thursday.
According to those e-mails, the investor group consented to Dean’s demand, made last Wednesday, that the new owners agree to keep the team in Nashville for five years beyond the termination of the team’s current lease with the Sommet Center, which runs through the end of the next NHL season.
At the same time, though, the investor group “assumed the Mayor will continue to agree that there has to be some upper limit to the losses that might be incurred by the local group,” according to an e-mail sent by Chase Cole, an attorney for the group. “Thus we request that the local group not be required to incur cumulative cash losses in excess of $20 million, which must include use of all the additional operating subsidies.
Metro’s attorneys responded saying they did not agree to “any particular proposal or economic incentive” suggested by the group.
Before Leipold’s afternoon announcement that he was extending the deadline requirement, Dean released a statement saying he told Leipold “we are making progress.”
“We also have been in communication today with the local investor group. Everyone is working very hard and I appreciate Mr. Leipold’s patience and cooperation,” Dean’s statement read.
According to the agreement Leipold originally made with Freeman’s group, Leipold could have held out until the deadline had passed and moved on to other buyers, including buyers willing to pay more but likely to move the team away from Nashville.
Leipold seems willing to allow Freeman’s group more time to work out a deal that will presumably keep the Predators in Nashville for at least the short-term.
“We thank our fans, partners, team and staff for their patience and understanding during the transaction process, and look forward to completing the sale to David and his group,” Leipold said.
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Way to much drama!
I find it strange that the lenght of time it has been extended is not been mentioned.
because it is indefinite
If you think this guy Liepold does not have the cat bird seat then you don't know what a cat bird seat is. He knows that no matter how long it takes he will come out a winner. P.S. that will be the only winner associated with this folly. Be it the team,the new "local" owners,the city,the taxpayers and the downtown business people.....Ice Hockey in a medium sized southern city with an NHL football team down the street. That alone is recipe for failure.
If they don't make attendence this year the value will go up with an instant move possible.
Nashville Predators owner Craig Leipold keeps the ten million dollar deposit. Cha-Ching!Nonetheless, Frank I agree with you. I remember when the Atlanta Flames “Professional” ice hockey team arrived in Atlanta. Even though Atlanta, Georgia is a as "southern" a city (In the eighties Atlanta's population and demographics were about the same as Nashville today) as it one can find we actually had several ice rinks that the locals could use to learn to ice-skate and therefore ice hockey.When the then owners decided that they were not making the money necessary to be profitable, even though there was much local fan support, there was not sufficient television revenue to make the team profitable. The owners sold the team to a Canadian businessman that took the Flames to Calgary. Atlanta survived and even thrived without a professional ice hockey team. My point is – Nashvillians do not have the same opportunity to learn to ice skate as the folks in Atlanta, Georgia did thirty years ago. So… why should we be surprised that they have so little fan support vis-à-vis ticket sales? Another issue is that one that I have noticed – Once one travels south of the Ohio River (Mason-Dixon), price becomes much more of an issue. Southerners, for the most part, do not and will not pay as much as those up north for products or services if they have a choice. Could be the reason that Wal-Mart was born in the south.
"At the end of last week, negotiations between Metro and Freeman’s group seemed to get tripped up by a disagreement over how much financial liability the team would need to assume versus how much Metro would have to shoulder." - Sure hope Dean doesn't sell out the taxpayer on this deal like Bredesen did with Bud Adams on the Titans deal.
CL has pocketed 10 mill and stands to clear another 30 or so if the deal closes. Not bad.
hey junebugfan,did you vote on the titans deal (you did know that there was a vote?)because te citizens of Davidson County agreed by a vote to bring the Oilers to Nashville.
There was a vote on the then-Oilers, Producer, but it was forced on Phil Bredesen. It was a petitioned referendum, and it was to build a stadium, NOT specifically on a football team.Plants makes some good points. Of course, one reason that southerners won't pay as much is because we don't make as much. In order for hockey to survive in a southern city, however, the necessary groundwork (ice-work) must be laid, and it's possible that Nashville wasn't sufficiently ready for such a team. The city needs an intrinsic interest in winter sports & it needs a sufficient number of transplants from hockey-playing towns. Without fifty years of northern immigration, there'd be no hockey in Florida.
Lets import some illegals from Canada then eh?
Personally, I could not care less if we have, or do not have a Professional Ice Hockey team. But I do know that one cannot save herself into wealth. Somewhere along the line she has to accept some risk and invest what see can afford to become wealthy. It is much too late to say that we should not have built the Sommet Center. For better or worse we have built that facility and we are financially responsible for that faculty. On the bright side - we have a pretty good Ice Hockey team and we seem to have much support from the town and region; in spite of many Nashvillians not having the benefit of being raised with ice hockey as an intramural or organized sport. Looking at the bigger picture, Nashville is going to grow, either for better or worse. The decisions we make today will impact our quality of life for years and decades to come and it will be that quality of life that will draw those future citizens who are in high school and elementary today to Nashville. Even though many of us transplants were not here and did not agree or even vote for this project, nonetheless it is ours and we cannot simply say “No”, or “Don’t Blame Me. I did Not Vote For It” and wash our hands of it. Therefore, it is our best interest, on the short and long term, to invest in it and make it pay dividends. If we are to encourage private ownership in businesses including sports franchises such as football, baseball, tennis or ice hockey, then we need to hedge our investment and encourage those future citizens to support that which we have built by investing in their education and participation in such sports today. Therefore, I am taking a different tact; I am suggesting that our Mayor and Metro Council stop trying to “save” money, but rather to “invest” in our future by asking our Metro Parks and Recreation to build three or four indoor ice skating rinks and our State and Metro Boards of Education form an intramural an/or high school ice hockey league and fund the teams as we do with other intramural sports. Why should our children and grandchildren be denied the opportunity to develop new skills and learn new sports that people the world over play and enjoy? Folks, if Jamaica can fund and develop an Olympic Bobsled team, surely, Nashvillians can develop a Stanley Cup Champion or an Olympic Ice Skating Champion(s).
Your nuts plant.
producer2, no, I didn't vote on the Titans stadium deal, as I wasn't sufficiently educated on the specifics of the deal - that's my fault. However, I would be a hypocrite if I said I hadn't enjoyed the Titans' being here, and my attending many of their games. I only wish the cost of the stadium hadn't been funded so much with private money, so I could afford to be a season ticket holder. (I certainly can't afford a PSL.) How does that PSL deal work anyway - doesn't that mean the PSL holders have to KEEP paying for the stadium repeatedly, year after year? The deal also doesn't allow Nashville to reap any benefits from ticket sales, nor concesssions/souvenir sales. I know however, that Bud probably would have gone elsewhere with the team had Bredesen not given him everything he wanted. The Preds are a different deal though. They are already here, and unlike the Titans, they don't have a fan base large enough to support them without a HUGE supplement from the taxpayer. My point was that I hope Dean doesn't slap us with yet another property tax increase to support a team that the majority of Nashvillians appearently don't care about. (I know, I know. YOU support them wholeheartedly, idgadf.) Hey - how 'bout a vote on that deal? Bet it would come out differently than the Titans vote. I vote to turn the "Sommet Center" into the world's ugliest aquarium, or some other venue where Nashville taxpayers can take our kids for entertainment. No, none of my three boys care about hockey. They say soccer is a girl's sport, and hockey is soccer on ice. My friend says he likes to go for the fights. Why bother with all the uniforms and skates/sticks, etc.? Why not just have them all duke it out? Bring in MMA/UFC. That's entertaining and wildly popular.