2019 will now be known as the year of the Pig. We are adopting this name from Chinese Zodiac tradition who name their years in a twelve year Zodiac cycle. The Pig year is the last year in the twelve year cycle.
Why would we adopt this Pig year point of view? Simple. It is going to be another pay to play expansion season with bad operators (greedy pigs) and bad decisions on the part of league to expand (fat pigs), who will then pray upon unsuspecting parents to pay for shit show operations (little pigs).
Clearly the last six years of expansion failure and cannibalizing of their own Tier III members has not taught anyone a lesson. Well, it has taught people the lesson that a Tier III franchise is worth about as much as day old bread three days after it was a day old.
Franchise values and purchase prices are down. Shit, some leagues aren’t even charging real money for a franchise now. Some current owners are so desperate that they are giving away, and even walking away from the super awesome franchise they already paid for!
What does it tell you when you cant get $25,000 for something you paid $150,000 for only a few years ago?
See its like real business. Supply and demand. When supply is high and demand is low, prices come down. This is not only true for franchise prices, but its true for player fees as well.
When franchise values are next to nothing, and even shitty players are getting improper discounts on their player fee’s then you have an extremely over saturated market. This makes it even harder for existing operators with a good product to sell their product at a fair value.
So who’s to blame? Not USA Hockey, not AAU, not anyone other than the people who already own teams in the leagues. That’s right, because the owners vote on every expansion team. They approve these disasters in the chase of the elusive expansion fee to be divided among them. Short sighted profit for long term headache.
Its clear they don’t even care about the new owners coming in. They don’t even do announcements when they fail! Teams just vanish as if nothing was ever there. Funny how when these teams begin the “league” makes these great announcements, but when they fail, its crickets huh? I wonder why that is?
So, lets let the year of the Pig begin. Everyone grab your favorite BBQ sauce and get ready for a feast because some of these expansion cities we are hearing about will be nothing more than an open BBQ pit.
Oh shit, yeah, lets not forget the relocation bullshit. More of that on the way in 2019 too. Stick around for all those great announcements.
David Wagner – The Angel Of Death – For Those Who Live Stupidly I Salute You!
*The Death Pool is a mix of Comedy, and Satire in connection with recent events. It is not an official report of current events although it may look as though the news is so accurate that it could one day happen or may be happening.
