The New Jersey Devils are in a pretty weird situation. They have flopped big time this year, and to date they have just a 17-30-3 record. They are on the hook to Ilya Kovalchuk for a lot of money for the next decade plus, and it looks like owner Jeff Vanderbeek has finally had enough. This team has been bounced from the playoffs early the last few years and that puts a hurt on their profit margins. Only a big time cable deal helped the team turn a profit a year ago.
Some may look at this team and think that selling now would be a mistake. However, the business part of this team could actually be looking at an up turn. They have taken over management of their facility for non hockey events and they will probably will have the New Jersey Nets as tenants for the next two years.
Sure attendance is way down, as they rank 27th among the 30 NHL teams and are averaging just 14, 270 fans per game. I think we can blame a lot of that on bad hockey. However when we look at their cash streams it looks like this organization is primed to make a lot of money an that might make it a very interesting property.
So while this is still a rumor, Jeff Vanderbeek bought this club in 2004 for 125 million dollars. Forbes has the value of the Devils listed as 218 million dollars right now. Even though they are no longer an elite team there could be a hefty return on that initial investment.
