DoItALL9 wrote:What kind of owners do we expect David Bonderman, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Tod Leiweke to be for the Supersonics in regards to spending money and going over the salary cap?
Will they lead as owners willing to spend on salaries and franchise amenities similar to Balmer (LAC) & Jacob (GSW)
Or
Will they be tighter on the dollar similar to OKC & San Antonio (SAS)?
How are they with the Kraken? I'm not familiar with the salary cap in the NHL. Is it a soft cap, hard cap, or uncapped (pretty sure there is a cap after their yearlong lockout/strike)
Is there any reason to believe they'd be different with their NBA team as opposed to their NHL team?
Well, like Cactus said the NHL has a hard cap so it's different from the NBA.
Also, the ownership group has stated before that they'll most likely add people given the financial implications of an NBA team(expansion fees might be at least $4 billin, I guess) and Todd Leiweke is not a real owner but the CEO of the Kraken.
The third bigger(finanically) guy on that ownership group(besides minority owners like Marshawn Lynch and Macklemore) is current Amazon CEO Andy Jazzy.
As far as the Kraken goes.
They spent nearly $1.2 billion on the arena, $90M on the prectise facility and around $200M on the arena for the AHL(minor league) team.
They've also spend quite a bit on the analytical side of the front office and have spared no cost on the production, tv side bringing in big(and expensive) names like Jon Forslund and Eddie Olczyk to broadcast the games.
They've also spend close or to the cap even though they've only been around for their third season now and have given their GM the green light to do so.
Though, the real important decisions will start now with a lot of their core becoming UFA's this offseason and them besically having to decide on either just staying the same(and therefore like a middling team) or going for it/retooling.
The latter part might not happen given that the first round of season tickets need to be renewed and they're having trouble with that given the prices they were able to ask for(Seattle has the highest ticket prices of the whole NHL right now) with the hype around a new franchise and fans trying to be part of the first of everything.
Anyways, overall the ownership group has shown their (financial)support of the GM and given him the green light to spend but I doubt they'll most likely need another 1 - 2 "big fish" amongst them to be able to handle both the NHL and NBA.