Baca's Mailbag, December 15

Have you been able to find out anymore information about what actually happened at the merger talks? Who ended up sinking the deal? From a few posts around the internet it appears it was the NPPL that ended things.

To answer the first part of the question, yes, I've found out more about what happened. Without assigning blame here's roughly what happened at the end. As everyone (who cares) now knows the meeting in Vegas ended badly. There was an effort made after that via a series of conference calls to get back on track the day before the NPPL announced their 2012 event schedule. [The joint the-merger-is-off statement came out November 30th and the NPPL announced their complete 2012 schedule the next day, December 1st. The PSP announced their first two events on December 5th.] Proposals and counter-proposals were made and rejected and neither party apparently could agree to any middle ground between the proposals offered. To the best of my current knowledge format wasn't the make or break issue--it would have been dealt with after a basic deal was agreed to. It seems the core issues were ownership stake(s)--who ended up with what--and something VFTD remarked on back in September, uncertainty about the legal structure of the NPPL and the status of its team/owners in some instances. (Both parties agreed months ago, during the process, to release records to a third party for review and it took the NPPL months to comply.) How much bearing the later issue had on an inability to agree to the former I've no idea--nor can I break down the numbers or dollars being discussed. (If I can get the-rest-of-the-story and be reasonably certain of its accuracy I'll tell that tale when I can.)

I don't think either league left the bargaining table unhappy with the outcome and from here on out we will see what sort of line the industry takes, along with the players. (And I do mean players, not the etools who have never played either one but insist on repeatedly declaring their opinions.)