Sports: Hockey's Delay May Check Rise In Its Popularity
Gary Bettman runs a sport with an attractive new TV contract, new corporate sponsors -- and for now, no games.</br></br>In postponing the scheduled start of the National Hockey League by at least two weeks, to Oct. 15, its new commissioner put himself on thin ice. He may be passing up a unique chance to showcase the NHL -- at a time when baseball is canceled and basketball is dormant -- in favor of a tough stance on labor relations.</br></br>"They have a hell of an opportunity, but they're liable to blow it," says Jon Mandel, a Grey Advertising Inc. executive and sports marketing expert. "Hockey has a chance to grow tremendously, but if they don't seize it they may not see it again for 15 or 20 years."</br></br>Hockey's hiatus could stretch far beyond Oct. 15 if owners and players haven't reached or neared a new labor contract by then. They've been without one for a year, and Mr. Bettman doesn't want to start a new season without a new system. He proposes to tax high-paying teams' payrolls, using the proceeds to aid poorer teams. He'd also like to cap rookies' pay and scrap salary arbitration. But the two sides are so far apart they can't even agree what to call Mr. Bettman's action. The union terms it a lockout, the commissioner a postponement.</br></br>There is much agreement outside hockey, however, that Gary Bettman has a bear of a job. He is trying to bring the NHL back from decades of dismal leadership, and he is struggling to reconcile the economics of clubs in flush New York and struggling Edmonton. He is trying to check salary inflation, which has seen average player pay triple to more than $500,000 the past four years and left the majority of NHL teams in the red. And he's only been on the job 19 months.