IT RINGS wrong, no matter how loudly money peals. Madison Square Garden should not be half landlord to the Devils in Hoboken. The immediate cringe is reason enough.
Cablevision’s agreement to become 50-50 partners with Devils owner John McMullen in developing his proposed $350 million Hoboken complex raises that question of conflict of interest that the NHL is always willing to ignore.
No matter how scrupulously parties behave, the mere appearance of a possible conflict of interest is a situation the NHL must not allow to exist. Sport must be above question, and this agreement raises plenty of them.
Devils president Lou Lamoriello yesterday adamantly denied that any potential conflict exists.
”This is not a conflict of interest situation as far as the competition of the teams goes,” Lamoriello said. ”This is strictly a business venture situation. It is not a conflict of interest, nor is there any potential for a conflict of interest.”
It does seem the most unlikely of partnerships, this joint venture between the Garden, which would run the Hoboken Arena, and the Devils. The teams have often been diametrically opposed on NHL issues, particularly during the 1994 lockout. Their rivalry is among the most intense in sports, and McMullen and Lamoriello have always disliked the free-spending ways of the Garden. Now some of those freely-spent dollars are coming their way.
In return, the Devils are extending their TV deal with Fox Sports Net New York, a Cablevision operative. MSG would become the arena manager, expected to use its sizable pull to bring other sports, entertainment events, concerts and cultural programs to the proposed arena.
”This erases one of the questions of whether a one-team facility can exist,” Lamoriello said.
Lamoriello, who owns a portion of the Devils, insisted that Cablevision will not receive any part of the ownership of the team for its mass of cash, and he also said that this deal is not a precursor to the 80-year-old McMullen eventually selling the team to Cablevision.
”And I feel very comfortable saying that,” Lamoriello said.
Dolan and McMullen collaborated on a $600 million bid to purchase the NFL Redskins, a bid that remains active, although it is not expected to be accepted.
This plan is not unprecedented in the NHL. The Bruins used to play in the Boston Madison Square Garden, whose middle names were conveniently forgotten over the years, dating from when the league gave two expansion franchises to the same owner in 1924. That situation led to the Americans and Rangers both being tenants of Madison Square Garden, to the ultimate demise of the Amerks. Conspiracy theorists might wonder if this situation will be history repeating itself.
There are also current precedents, particularly with MSG involved in several arenas. That has not been a pretty situation.
The Hoboken arena plan still faces major hurdles. The state of New Jersey is not willing to support two arenas in the area financially, and the Nets are moving ahead with their plan to build their arena in Newark. The N.J. Sports Authority wants to build a new arena in the Meadowlands.
McMullen expects to meet with Gov. Christie Whitman in the next week to plead his case. The Devils-Cablevision group wants the state to grant it rights to the space over the Hoboken train yards, and wants the state to foot the bill for the construction of a base platform over those yards, on which the arena would be built. McMullen has said that his arena would not require any public funding other than the $38 million needed to construct the platform.
Hoboken officials have been skeptical about the ability of the town to handle the traffic they expect an arena to generate.
