NHL’s Bettman honored for lifetime achievement
Hockey purists might be grumbling about the upcoming Stanley Cup Final because it will have nothing but Sun Belt teams involved. It suits Gary Bettman just fine.
Bettman was honored by the Sports Business Journal on Wednesday with a lifetime achievement award for the NHL’s growth during his 30 years as commissioner, from a business that generated $437 million in revenue before he took over to nearly $6 billion now.
Fittingly, it comes with conference finalists in Las Vegas, Dallas, South Florida and North Carolina, given how crucial Sun Belt expansion and growing the league south of the Canadian border is to Bettman’s legacy.
“It’s more about the footprint: You do better in terms of interest at all levels of the game where you have franchises,” Bettman said. “Creating a more national footprint, both in Canada and in the U.S., is important for growing the game.”
The NHL had a presence in just 13 U.S. markets (three in the New York area) in the final full season before Bettman took over and it wasn’t televised nationally. Over the past three decades, that has ballooned to 25 American teams in 22 markets from coast to coast.
One of the challenges, Bettman said, was demonstrating to TV networks that the NHL had “a compelling national story.” This postseason features a final four in cities that did not have teams before Bettman got the job.
The Florida Panthers joined the league in 1993, months after Bettman came over from his post at the NBA, at about the same time the Stars moved from Minnesota to Dallas. Raleigh, North Carolina, got a team later in the late 1990s when the Hartford Whalers became the Carolina Hurricanes. And the Vegas Golden Knights are only in their sixth season of existence after becoming the 31st franchise through expansion.
In between, teams were added in Nashville and Columbus, relocated to Colorado and Arizona, and rebirthed in Minnesota and Winnipeg. Along the way, Bettman has ruffled plenty of feathers and upset fans in places that lost teams, leaning on a lesson he learned from the late NBA commissioner David Stern to make decisions, big and small, for the right reasons.
“You do your homework, you make as an informed a decision as you can and you don’t do it for political reasons because political and popular reasons can change in the moment,” he said. “You got to do what you think is right because if you’re wrong, at least you did it because you thought it was right. And that’s how you sleep at night.”
Bettman prefers the term “newer markets” over “nontraditional” to describe many of those places, including Tampa Bay, which has become a model franchise and won the Stanley Cup three times since joining the league in 1992. He points out that having teams in new markets leads to more rinks being built and the game growing beyond some of the traditional North American hockey hotbeds.
That’s partly why Bettman is basking in the quality of play, even if the ratings for this year’s final might not be as high as a year where powerhouse markets like Boston, New York, Chicago, Toronto or Los Angeles are involved.
“What’s more important to me is the game: Is it exciting? Is it entertaining? Is it compelling?” Bettman said. “Some markets will always be bigger than others, but to me it’s more about the game and how entertaining it is.”
The phrase, “The game on the ice has never been better” is a staple of Bettman’s state of the league addresses over the years, and it will likely come up again when he speaks before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final next week.
He’ll turn 71 on June 2, Bettman isn’t ready to retire but says he’s “not going to do this into my 80s.” He said he sees a time in the not-too-distant future when he’ll want to take a long trip with his wife, Shelli, to a place they haven’t been and spend more time with his seven grandchildren.
“At some point, when you have a public-facing job, you need to say, ‘It’s time to move to somebody younger,'” Bettman said. “There’s some other things I may want to spend my time doing.”
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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
The San Diego Padres have acquired second baseman Luis Arraez in a trade with the Miami Marlins for reliever Woo-Suk Go and prospects Dillon Head, Jakob Marsee and Nathan Martorella, the teams announced Saturday.
The Padres also received nearly $7.9 million in cash considerations, leaving them responsible only for the major league minimum salary for Arraez.
The transaction represents the first significant move for the Marlins since Peter Bendix took over as the team’s president of baseball operations in November after Kim Ng departed. It marks the beginning of the Marlins’ teardown of an underachieving roster that has produced the third-worst record in the majors at 9-25 with a minus-61 run differential after reaching the postseason in 2023.
On the other side, it’s another aggressive deal for A.J. Preller, the leader of the Padres’ front office since 2014. Arraez, one of the sport’s best contact hitters, will give the Padres a needed left-handed-hitting weapon after Juan Soto was sent to the New York Yankees in December. San Diego is 17-18 with a plus-6 run differential.
“It’s really amazing — that guy is a baller,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said about Arraez after the Padres’ win Friday night. “He’s probably the closest to Tony Gwynn right now, so looking forward to seeing him in our lineup. … The guy’s a pure hitter, and I can’t wait for him to help us.”
Miami is paying San Diego $7,898,602 of the $8,491,398 remaining for the final 149 days of Arraez’s $10.6 million salary. That left his cost to the Padres at $592,796 — exactly a prorated share of the $740,000 minimum.
Arraez, 27, was the Marlins’ best player, an All-Star and batting champion each of the past two seasons. This season, he is batting .299 with a .719 OPS in 33 games, all started at second base. He also has extensive experience at first base.
“When a guy like that is taken out of the lineup or potentially traded, you feel it, because he’s such a good kid and one of the leaders in that clubhouse,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said, “so there’s definitely a shock value.”
Arraez is expected to start games as the Padres’ designated hitter, but the club plans to cycle through the DH spot. Jake Cronenworth, Xander Bogaerts and Manny Machado could also get at-bats there. Bogaerts has been the club’s starting second baseman.
Go spent seven seasons in the Korean Baseball Organization before signing a two-year deal with a mutual option worth $4.5 million guaranteed during the offseason. The 25-year-old right-hander appeared in 10 games for Double-A San Antonio, posting a 4.38 ERA across 12⅓ innings after failing to make the Padres’ bullpen out of spring training.
Head was the Padres’ first-round pick (25th overall) last year out of high school. The 19-year-old center fielder is batting .237 with a .683 OPS and three stolen bases in 21 games in low-Class A.
Martorella is batting .294 with an .820 OPS in 23 games in San Antonio. The Padres selected the 23-year-old first baseman in the fifth round of the 2022 draft. Marsee, a 22-year-old outfielder, has spent the season in San Antonio batting .185 with two home runs. He was a sixth-round pick in 2022 out of Central Michigan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
NEW YORK — Yankees ace Gerrit Cole threw off a mound Saturday morning for the first time since being shut down in mid-March, checking off another box in his road back from an elbow injury.
Cole took the mound in the Yankees’ bullpen at 10:40 a.m., hours before New York took on the Detroit Tigers at Yankee Stadium. He said he threw 15 pitches, 13 for strikes and all fastballs. He said the pitches averaged 89 mph.
“It was exciting,” Cole said. “This was a good day for me. I was fired up.”
Cole, 33, started the season on the 60-day injured list after being diagnosed with nerve irritation and edema in his pitching elbow following one spring training outing. The reigning American League Cy Young Award winner is eligible to come off the injured list May 27, but the Yankees have declined to share a timetable for Cole’s return.
On a scale from 1 to 10 — 10 being game ready — Cole reported he is “somewhere between 1 and 5.” He said how his body responds over the next 48 hours will decide when he throws off a mound again.
Cole’s injury was a significant blow to a club with championship-or-bust aspirations, but the Yankees’ starting rotation has been one of the best in the majors and a primary reason for the team’s 21-13 start. The rotation’s 3.43 ERA through Friday ranked ninth in the majors. Its 183⅔ innings pitched ranked fourth.
Luis Gil, Cole’s rotation replacement, logged the best start of his young career Wednesday, holding the explosive Baltimore Orioles scoreless on two hits over a career-high 6⅓ innings. Gil, 25, has recorded a 3.19 ERA in 31 innings across six starts despite leading the American League with 20 walks.
Earlier this week, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said neither the team’s nor the rotation’s success will impact Cole’s timeline. Asked whether the overall success has made his absence more “palatable,” Cole was unsure.
“I don’t really have anything unpalatable to compare it to,” Cole said. “You know what I’m saying? So I’m just kind of like, just like everybody else, just glad we’re playing well.”
Also on Saturday, the Yankees reinstated infielder Jon Berti from the 10-day injured list and designated former first-round pick Taylor Trammell for assignment.
Berti, 34, has been out of the Yankees’ lineup since April 10 with a left groin strain. The Yankees had selected Trammell off waivers from the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 18, and he collected 1 hit, 1 walk and 2 runs in five games with New York.
Field Level Media contributed to this report.
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