The sale of the Dallas Stars has been getting plenty of attention amongst interested parties in Texas. Current owner Tom Hicks is looking to get out of sports franchise owning in a big way and both the Stars and the Texas Rangers in Major League Baseball are on the block. While Canadian oilman Bill Gallacher and Vancouver businessman Tom Gaglardi have been the two main parties involved in purchasing the team, a report from Dallas says that a third group could be involved looking to purchase the team and this one a bit more familiar to many Americans.
An NHL source confirmed today that the third bidder for the Dallas Stars is News Corp./Fox, which surfaced yesterday as a possible bidder on the Rangers.
The three bidders on the Stars right now are: Calgary Oilman Bill Gallacher, Vancouver businessman Tom Gaglardi and News Corp.
News Corp. owns Fox Sports, and the purchase of the Stars and Rangers would help guarantee contracts for FSN Southwest, as well as ensure future programming if they hope to expand their product. Because the Rangers are in bankruptcy court and the Stars are not, the two purchases would have to be made separately. There is a chance News Corp. could end up with one team and not the other, or it could end up with both teams or no teams.
Obviously News Corp.'s politics have absolutely nothing to do with sports or franchise ownership or anything else of the sort, but if they managed to buy the Stars, just be prepared for all kinds of outside attention from anyone and their political pundit brother or sister.
Ideally they’d be wise to keep any politics away from the rink as back in 2008 the Philadelphia Flyers (as well as the St. Louis Blues) showed that helping out a political campaign can sometimes cause a ruckus when they invited then Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin to drop the ceremonial first puck only to have her get booed out of the building. Just call me when Bill O’Reilly bobblehead night is slated to happen.
