The Shakedown

It's as simple as the price tag on Minnie Pearl's hat. For the right offer the New Jersey Devils might pack up their pitchforks this summer and move to Nashville. Imagine that: the Devils in the buckle of the Bible Belt. If the team relocates, it will become—assuming also that these New Jersey/Nashville Devils defeat the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference finals and then win the Stanley Cup—the first to win its championship as the representative of one place and defend it in another. "We're not sure what's going on with Nashville," says Devil right wing Bill Guerin, "but you hear guys in the locker room saying, 'Who's going to buy a horse farm? Who's going to hang out with Dolly Parton?' All you can do is have fun with it."

Well, heeee haaaaw! Fans of the Devils and those of at least 38 other franchises across North America are the latest victims of a recurring scam in sports, by which purportedly strapped owners of big league teams, using everything from subtle implications to outright threats, wheedle or blackmail communities into meeting their demands—or else (chart, page 80). What do the plutocratic extortioners get? Everything from free rent to a new practice facility to full control of that pot of latter-day sporting gold, luxury-box revenue.

It hardly matters whether the Devils are seriously considering a move to Music City, U.S.A., or whether it's a bluff; some governmental or quasi-government public entity—either in New Jersey or Nashville—is going to shell out millions in civic resources that would better be spent on schools, cops or real job creation. Never mind that in a few years the team may well be headed somewhere else, for a better deal still.

If the Devils relocate, it will be their fourth move in barely two decades. The franchise was born in 1974 as the Kansas City Scouts, evolved into the Colorado Rockies two seasons later and moved to New Jersey in time for the '82-83 season. A carpetbagging bunch like this naturally caught the eye of Nashville mayor Phil Bredesen, a politician looking to bring some major league cachet to his community. Nashville is offering the Devils a $20 million relocation bonus and a sweetheart lease if they'll become the first tenants in the new Nashville Arena under construction. The offer couldn't come at a better time for Devil ownership; the team is in a lease dispute with the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, owner of the Devils' current home, 19-year-old Byrne Meadowlands Arena, where they have a contract to play until at least 2002.

But Nashville is hardly the only home wrecker—and the state of New Jersey is far from the only cuckold—in pro sports. A few other examples of reckless love:

•The woeful Cincinnati Bengals want a new home or significant improvements made to 25-year-old Riverfront Stadium. The Bengals have a year-to-year lease and have openly spoken to the Maryland Stadium Authority about moving to Baltimore. The Bengals also have been mentioned at recent NFL meetings as a possible replacement for the Rams in Los Angeles. "People in Cincinnati have come to realize what's at stake," says Bengal president Mike Brown, who contends his team needs more revenue to survive. "We are running out of time, and I have an obligation to the business and the people that own it."

•By the 1998-99 season the Miami Heat likely will be gone from Miami Arena, which is the NBA's second-smallest facility and contains only 18 luxury boxes. To the Heat's owners this makes the arena all but obsolete—at the tender age of seven.

•After seeing the pathetic Minnesota Timberwolves blessed with an $80 million public takeover of the Target Center, their basketball arena, the Minnesota Twins began a campaign this year for a new baseball stadium even though they pay no rent to play in the Metrodome, age 13.

•George Steinbrenner hasn't ruled out the possibility of moving his New York Yankees to northern New Jersey (the Bay-onne Bombers?). The Boss gripes about the traffic, parking and ambience around Yankee Stadium but is less eager to discuss his team's $486 million, 12-year TV deal or the $73.5 million stadium renovation completed by New York City in 1976.

•Canadians like to play Can You Top This? too. Perhaps taking their cue from Edmonton Oiler owner Peter Pockling-ton, who sold off Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier and threatened to move the Oilers until the city agreed to sugar up his lease at Northlands Coliseum last year, the Quebec Nordiques have broken for the border, and the Winnipeg Jets recently threatened to do likewise. The Nordiques were sold after they didn't get a new arena in Quebec and will share a new arena in Denver with the NBA's Nuggets. The Jets, having used a threat to move to Minnesota as blackmail, have struck a tentative stadium deal to remain in Winnipeg, financed in part by $94 million in public funds. And remember: Canada is home to Montreal's Olympic Stadium, a publicly financed boondoggle of such red-ink proportions that it came to be known as the Big Owe.