On the record with Canes owner Tom Dundon: Sports betting, outdoor games and the NHL
It will be four years next month since Tom Dundon purchased a majority interest in the Carolina Hurricanes from Peter Karmanos. He’s since taken full ownership, and has not been shy to make changes. He promoted Don Waddell and Rod Brind’Amour into their current positions as general manager and coach, spent up to (and now above) the salary cap on players, signed an extension to the team’s lease at PNC Arena — and this season the team is among the best in the NHL and on target for a fourth straight playoff appearance.
Dundon has also made headlines with his personal involvement in hockey decisions and enabling (and encouraging) the team’s sometimes saucy social-media presence, from “Bunch of Jerks” to the mocking of the Montreal Canadiens when the Hurricanes answered the Habs’ (unsuccessful) offer sheet for Sebastian Aho with a (successful) offer sheet for Jesperi Kotkaniemi.
In a Q&A with the News & Observer, Dundon addressed the team’s performance on and off the ice, the future of PNC Arena, the Kotkaniemi kerfuffle and what the possibility of sports gambling in North Carolina would mean for the Hurricanes. Some answers have been condensed for brevity.
Q: The Hurricanes hit a bit of a rough patch after that 9-0-0 start amid some injury and COVID issues but obviously still have solid fundamentals and seem to be back on track. Any concerns? Anything that’s surprised you?
A: I don’t have any concerns. I think we’ve probably played better in the games that we hadn’t been winning. Sometimes it doesn’t go your way. I think we’ve played fine.
Q: You’ll have owned the team for four years next month. What’s surprised you the most about being an NHL owner?
A: I think probably the main thing is, at least with the Carolina Hurricanes, it’s not hard to get everyone doing the right thing. I didn’t know how hard that would be. I’m surprised. It’s probably some combo of Roddy and being very lucky our star players are great people who work really hard and try really hard. That was probably the big concern: Is everybody in it for the team? Do they care about each other? Do they care about the organization? That’s all been really good for us. It’s easy to root for these guys, these kids on the team.
Q: What’s the financial state of the team compared to when you took over?
A: It’s a lot better. It helps to have success and get support. Make the playoffs. Be competitive. If you can do those things then you can spend at or above the cap and above the cap, meaning if you have injuries, you have to replace those players but you can spend above the cap to do it. We have a reasonable financial situation, but if I need to subsidize for us to have great players as we continue to build our season-ticket base and our revenue streams, I’m willing to do that. We continue to grow our revenues. Over this period of time, we’ve been able to grow everything.
Q: You guys were poking around on Jack Eichel. You went and signed Tony DeAngelo when others might not. Is it fair to assume you’ll be keeping tabs on any player who might be available below market value?
A: Yeah, but I think we’re willing to pay market value if it’s appropriate and makes us better. I don’t think that’s unique to us. It’s a cliche. We’re always trying to get better. No matter how good we are, we’re never going to be OK with where we are. No matter how many games we win, how much we win, there’s always something you can do to get better. Now, we have a bunch of guys I see being here a long time. I want to get better, but there are some guys I want to get better around. … Our team’s pretty good. Anything we’re going to do, our philosophy is going to be, we’re not adding anyone just for a (playoff) run. We’ll do something with term. Like the Brady Skjei deal, when we got four years.
Q: With the lease extension done, what’s the next step for PNC Arena? What’s your grand vision for what that experience would be like?
A: We’re working on that right now. There’s a lot of work going on, coming up with some ideas to create an entertainment district around the arena. There are a lot of stakeholders involved. We’re interested in exploring that with NC State and the Centennial Authority and the city and county, everybody. Now we’ve got to get that work done. I believe we can build the best sort of multipurpose entertainment district because we can take what everyone else has done, but no one has this great location. We’ve got this unbelievable location with an arena and a stadium together, which is really neat, right? And then we have all this land to go with it. We have a fresh piece of paper to do something really good: Office, retail, music, restaurants, bars, etc. Lots of jobs. Lots of taxes. Lots of energy. Quality of life. All these life experiences. I wouldn’t want to say it’s my vision. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t see this as a thing. Where we’re really fortunate is, I’m able to do it. I have some ability to do this. We don’t have to worry about the capital, if we can work out everything with all these stakeholders.
Q: Is the outdoor game still on track for next year and is there anything about that that’s changed during the delay?
A: That’s our expectation. I think the NHL won’t formally announce what they’re doing next year until the new year. I don’t know when exactly. It’s soon. It’s not official until it’s official, but we’re well positioned and optimistic.
Q: If you were commissioner what’s the first thing you’d change about the NHL?
A: They’re on the right track with the different ideas to increase revenue and they continue to work on how they can enhance the quality of watching the games, which includes the broadcast, how they use replay, things like that. They’re trying to get bad hits out of the game. That’s really important. I like the changes. We’ve got to keep doing that. Add gambling in. Add patches on jerseys and helmets. Enhance the broadcast. Social media. The NHL is doing a lot of good things. You’ve got to give them credit for doing all these good things. What would I change? I think you’ve got to look at expanding the playoffs. Whether that’s some combination of a midseason tournament or expanding the playoffs, those are different things under revenue opportunities you want to look at.
Q: What about going to three points for a regulation win?
A: You can throw that in there, 3-2-1, around an expanded playoffs. I’m not sure who doesn’t agree with 3-2-1. I’ve always wondered why it’s not that way. I’ve never really asked anybody. I don’t think anybody’s not for it. But I wouldn’t want to consider 3-2-1 without some kind of expanded playoffs. You want to keep fans engaged. You want everybody trying to win every game.
Q: What would it mean for the Hurricanes if sports wagering is legalized in NC?
A: It’s frustrating it hasn’t happened. We need it. We need it just to stay competitive. That’s the way it is most places already. Can you survive not having it when everybody else does, when you’re already at a bit of disadvantage? You’re Team X in a bigger market. You get sports wagering and that’s worth $10 million a year and the players get five and you get five. That five the players get, we have to spend that. The salary cap goes up. But we don’t get any of it. We’re going backward. We have to spend to a cap based on revenue. Us having sports gambling isn’t going to make the Hurricanes more profitable. It’s going to stop us falling further behind.
Q: So where does the money come from with gambling?
A: It’s sponsorships. It’s all sponsorships. Sports teams are the best teams to advertise for that. And attached to the arena, we would have a sports book to create more sponsorship, create a pretty good experience for fans. A 365-degree experience. Sports gambling isn’t big money, it’s $5 or $10 in bunches. The game’s more interesting.
Q: Was there anything you learned from the Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov contract negotiations that you would do differently going forward?
A: The main thing is right now is our players like it here and we’ve got to keep creating a winning environment with good people, make them want to be here. I think if we can do that, those things will work out fine. Good players are going to get paid and they should. I don’t know if I learned anything from that. It’s fairly obvious you’ve got to take care of your best players. If the Aho thing hadn’t worked the way it did, we would have gotten a deal done. I’m happy for the guy. It worked out great. He’s going to be here for a long time. The same thing would have happened if Svech got an offer sheet. But I’d like to think you’re always learning.
Q: The beef and social media war with Montreal over the Jesperi Kotkaniemi offer sheet, how personally involved were you?
A: Look, I create an environment where we want to do stuff that is fun and interesting for our fans. There was a point where I said enough. But no, I didn’t even know the quote, that wasn’t me, where they copied (Marc Bergevin’s) quote, I had nothing to do with that. The thing I was fine with was paying him the extra $20 or whatever that was, that was mine. Put $20 on there, that’s funny. I thought it was funny. The rest of it was just kind of them doing their thing. Then I kind of went to them and said, that’s enough now. At some point you’re not being funny anymore. But they knew it, too. ... It was never mean-spirited. We would not have done it if we didn’t want the deal. It wasn’t some revenge: “We’ll show them.” It was a legit, we thought, good hockey play. We’ll find out if we were right. I think we were.
Q: Is this team equipped — as is — to win the Stanley Cup?
A: Absolutely. I don’t think that’s my opinion. That’s just a fact. I don’t think anybody would dispute that. It’s hard to get much better than what we are. And what we won’t do is, we won’t do anything that materially subtracts from the future to get 1 percent better.
This story was originally published December 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "On the record with Canes owner Tom Dundon: Sports betting, outdoor games and the NHL."
