actually had multiple TV hosts,<\/a> both a radio and play-by-play crew, and essentially owned and operated their own TV network as they were earlier victims of the collapse of the regional sports networks.<\/p>\nBefore this season was over, Hurricanes media and fans could have told you they were about to be shipped out. Good-bye longtime radio caller Chuck Kaiton, hello TV simulcast. Good-bye veteran play-by-play man John Forslund, hello much reduced contract for Tripp Tracy, moving beloved sideline reporter and all around great guy Mike Maniscalco to the play-by-play side, and elevating an in-arena host to the role that would then be paid by the regional sports network. This was all before the Canes were consistently winning and it felt like the whole thing was still a house of cards, but few outside of the area said anything because \u201cit\u2019s just the Hurricanes.\u201d<\/p>\n
We could have told you about the guy Rod Brind\u2019Amour calls \u201cBusiness Tom.\u201d It\u2019s that Mr. Hyde alter-ego of Dundon that will let him spend to the cap on players but try to get anything else for the lowest price he can. It\u2019s cut-throat, and it\u2019s run people who have long been associated with the team out of town to the point where it\u2019s napalmed bridges. Yet, despite this, there are also multi-decade employees still with the team, Brind\u2019Amour figured out how to handle \u201cBusiness Tom\u201d to get what he needed, and that same mentality that made Dundon want to win off the ice made him want to win on it, too.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of parallels from the situation in Portland pre-Dundon to the Hurricanes. The Trail Blazers were owned by someone who wanted to create a family environment, and valued loyalty. It showed in different ways between Allens and Karmanos as Peter Karmanos probably stayed too loyal to too many people for too long, and then couldn\u2019t afford to look outside nor spend on players. The abrupt shift in style rubbed a lot of people wrong when they thought the team was a family.<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t anymore, it\u2019s a business.<\/p>\n
Hurricanes fans could have also told you that Dundon is quick to start out very hands-on. It was well-known that for a long time Don Waddell did both the hockey and non-hockey work\u2014of course part of that was saving the money on the two jobs, but a part of it honestly was it would be fewer people he\u2019d have to talk to in order to get something done. It has only been recently when the non-hockey side of the coin has grown to such a degree that he realized he needed a person like Brian Fork to handle that side, leaving hockey to Eric Tulsky\u2014and it took Waddell leaving for him to realize it.<\/p>\n
Honestly, we\u2019d also tell you he hates empty seats. Right from the beginning, he was trying to fix the empty arena problem by offering unique discounts, creating mini-plans out of nowhere when there were a lot of games not selling, and he\u2019s been unafraid to undercut the value of Season Ticket Holder tickets solely to make sure that people come to games. Now, is that because he wants them walking around, paying for parking, buying merchandise and concessions? Of course, but you can\u2019t sell those things if people are at home.<\/p>\n
We\u2019d also tell you that he\u2019s going to do all of this in Portland because he\u2019s like a lot of billionaires\u2014he thinks if it worked in one place it\u2019ll work in the other. It\u2019s why he\u2019s not paying a lot of money for a head coach and likely never will, but he immediately cut checks to make sure the Hurricanes would be better on and off the ice. He did spend money on training facilities, and he\u2019s spent to the cap basically every year except this past one\u2014and only because that GM signed so many good deals. Someone looking to just scrimp everywhere he could would just spend to the floor, but for him it\u2019s about winning.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s ultimately a totally different mindset. He won in Raleigh\u2014on and off the ice. He turned around the Hurricanes, got a Stanley Cup, essentially quintupled the value of the team, won renovation concessions from local leaders, and got the ability to make money off the land around the arena by investing in making it a destination like so many other teams are working for. So, that\u2019s what he wants to do in Portland. He wants to win on and off the court. Get the best coach for the least money, get a knowledgable GM who\u2019ll do so for less, get fans in the seats, get a better arena deal, and try to make money on the area outside the arena. It\u2019s not about moving the team, it\u2019s about making the most money because that\u2019s how he wins.<\/p>\n
Again, this isn\u2019t to defend Dundon. In an ideal world an owner owns a team, maybe breaks even because they get their money from other things, and just cares about the team winning for the city, the fans, and creates a family inside the organization. They run it like a small business. Unfortunately, that\u2019s just not the way it works these days. Franchises are selling for amounts higher than the market cap of companies like Mattel and Bath and Body Works. There are likely going to be a lot more Dundons out there than Paul Allens or Steve Ballmers.<\/p>\n
So, hey, we\u2019re out here if you want to talk. We\u2019ll be happy to give you our perspective to maybe help with the whiplash you must be feeling. If you need us we\u2019re the ones pining for John Forslund while still tearing up over the pictures of the players celebrating a Stanley Cup win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billionaires do not need defending. Let\u2019s start with that, because if someone has several billion dollars they really…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[336452,336453,257,355,99],"class_list":["post-791558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-carolina-hurricanes-analysis","tag-fans-want-to-know","tag-general","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}