At this moment we are sitting 1 point off the bottom of the Elite league, if we lose to Belfast tonight we will be bottom, we have put together a high profile team with one of the highest wage bills in the league, we were the only Elite team to reveal our wage bill to the board at the July meeting, hence the comments from some of the teams via their websites and local press.
Fair enough. So far, so standard "put the blame on the players for not performing"
It goes on to what will be the meat of the statement for many Bison fans-the financial questions...
The position with regard to the long term viability of the club is as follows, we believe that professional Ice Hockey is viable from the Basingstoke Arena, we gave our assurances to the board last week and stand by those assurances, Sharon and I have been financially supporting the club to the tune of £6,000 per week together with a pre season investment of £10,000, the reason for the wage cut of £1,500 per week was to firstly secure the long term financial viability of the club and to bring down the costs to a manageable level for us as owners, which at the same time allow us to develop the product,
So on the one hand, "developing the product" meant signing an expensive, highly-skilled team, but on the other hand the wages now need to be cut in order that this "developing the product" didn't cost the owners more than they can afford? Notice also that there's no mention of them putting money into the Bees-are we talking about the Bison as a team here or are we talking about putting money into the company? The obvious question here is, how exactly is making the product poorer by losing two of its top players developing it?
we are currently working with 2 corporate agencies specialising in sports sponsorship with the outcome being realised during this season,
Fair enough. But why, if this is going on, was nothing said about it earlier when fans were questioning the lack of marketing? All you have to do is say "the Bison are working with XYZ plc in order to explore new avenues of sponsorship", and people go "fair enough". I freely admit that you can't release details of actual sponsors until the deal is done, but why not at least say something to this effect earlier, rather than waiting until matters well and truly come to a head and it can easily be read as "telling the people what they want to hear?" I know if it were my team in the same position, I'd be asking a question or two about just why the owners saw the need to pay two consultancy agencies in order to find sponsorship rather than simply having employees of the club go out and do it themselves-or indeed simply by inviting companies along to a game or two and saying "look, here's a market"
the second reason was due to the performance of the team in recent games, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that changes have to be made to the team to return us to winning ways and to do justice to the Basingstoke Bison name, the new wage level is just below the wage cap and will allow Ryan (Aldridge, the Bison coach) to get the team back on track.
Read the bit I've highlighted again. Is this the owners effectively admitting they've broken the wage cap and thus league rules? Not the smartest thing to do in a press release.
The article from Ryan was based upon his request that if he can raise x amount per week from various fund raising concepts can he be allowed to spend that directly on strengthening the squad, my answer was yes he can, hence his comments about the money going to him.
So, effectively they're now making it sound like the fans are being asked to pay even more for a better team and to replace the two imports, by the coach, because the owners are putting in all the money they can. It seems a strange way to run a hockey club (I am aware that the Blaze have done it before by getting a small group of fans to subsidise the wages of certain players, but never thought it would be done in public...
As the owners we have expressed our concerns to and have been met with agreement from Ryan that 3 wins from 11 games is unacceptable, Ryan and I met Monday evening to decide the best way forward, the first instance was to look at our current squad to identify where the problems was, the decision was taken to release Peter Campbell and allow him to accept the offer he received from Belfast last week (whilst under contract to Basingstoke) and look immediately to replace him with a new playing partner to Steve Thornton, the players met on Monday evening again to confirm their commitment to the club, Tuesday morning Ryan woke to Stevie Lyle packing his suitcase (they share a flat together to keep the costs down) Stevie requested his release so he too can accept the offer and contract again put onto the table to him by Belfast last week.
This smacks of something of a smear campaign against both Peter Campbell and Stevie Lyle, particularly the "coach waking to find his starting goalie packing a suitcase" line. If the players wanted to leave then fair enough, but there is no need to make them out to be some sort of villains of the piece. Presumably, also, it is a coincidence that the two players who decided to leave were two of the highest-paid, and that Belfast only made approaches to them AFTER the rumours of financial trouble in the Silverdome came out, even according to the article, which quotes "last week" as when the offers were made.
The statement then makes reference to "vicious and uncalled-for personal attacks" which has made the Taylors decide not to appear at any public event for fear of it being turned into a witch-hunt. This is a fair decision-although their attempt to take the moral high-ground is somewhat harmed by this next section, referring to the Bison fans discussions of the issue on forums...
much of it is complete rubbish mixed in with some extremely un pleasant personal attacks on me by a large number of supposed supporters of the team, because of the vicious nature of this comments we will not be entering into any off ice event which runs the risk of being turned into a witch hunt against Sharon and I.What is required now is for all the persons who clearly seem intent on driving us from the club to shut up, get off our backs and get behind the team, we are in much better position financially now than we were at the start of the season and fully intend to build upon our current league position.
So, you're basically telling the people you need to get on your side to "shut up, stop behaving like idiots and sit down, children"-the language used is guaranteed to inflame the situation rather than calm it. No-one in any of the forums that I've read (THF and the Elite Forum) has openly made threats against the owners-a few have strongly expressed their dis-satisfaction but there is certainly no movement to "drive the Taylors from the club"
Finally...Ryan was informed once our Accountants were able to confirm our exact income and outgoings we informed Ryan of the trading position, who in turn appraised the players hence the calls from some players to other clubs to possibly line up other options, with hindsight this may not have been the best course to take.I have raised the fact that 3 clubs have made offers to a couple of our players whilst they remain under contract to Basingstoke with the Elite League Board, we do not hold the players responsible for that but we are very disappointed with the clubs for not only negotiating with the players involved but also making offers to them, at the end of the day the players must do what they feel is best for them and their families.
Paraphrased as "we told the players what was going on, they did what they thought best, but our Elite League rivals behaved unfairly". How on the one hand can you not hold the players responsible for telling other clubs they could be available, but then criticise them for making offers? Either you criticise both or neither...
I have a feeling that this debate has some way to run yet, somehow-it will be interesting to see what effect this statement (even if it is somewhat contradictory and can be reads as covering of backs/blame-shifting in parts) will have on the situation. I shall keep monitoring things from up here in Coventry...
Keep keeping your eye on the puck...
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