Tavares’ Pledge Still Has Empty Ring

Do campaign promises live after the campaign ends? On this day after election day, what more appropriate time to evaluate Tony Tavares’ $10-million pledge?

The Mighty Ducks faced a difficult marketing campaign during the summer. The team had concluded a wretched season, another coach had been fired, the general manager had no discernible plan and ticket prices had been increased. How could the Ducks persuade customers to fork over thousands of dollars in season tickets for a team apparently more committed to sacrificing coaches than winning the Stanley Cup?

Tavares spoke up, challenging the popular perception the Ducks--and their corporate parent, the Walt Disney Co.--would not spend the dollars necessary to build a championship team. During the coming season, Tavares declared, the Ducks’ player payroll would jump by at least $10 million.

The coming season is here. The Ducks’ payroll did not jump $10 million.

Tavares, the president of Disney’s Anaheim Sports division, declined to defend his declaration. He deferred to Pierre Gauthier, whom he hired as Duck president in July.

Gauthier said he insists on speaking for the Ducks. He did not work for them when Tavares made his $10-million pledge in June and could not fully explain it.

“I don’t want to speak for him,” Gauthier said.

The Ducks did deliver on two other pledges Tavares made. The player payroll rose above the league average, and the ticket price increase covered only a small part of the payroll increase, both as promised.

The Ducks closed last season with a $23.9-million payroll and made their home debut this season at $30.1 million. With last week’s trade for left wing Marty McInnis, the payroll rose to $31.2 million, up $7.3 million from last season.

The average NHL payroll this season is $29.8 million, according to The Hockey News.

Gauthier, more restrained than Tavares when speaking publicly, might vow to raise spending but never would publicly pledge a dollar amount. He did offer to interpret Tavares’ promise.

“It was a commitment to the fans to say, we’re going to spend a lot more money on this club because we want to improve it,” Gauthier said.

“It has nothing to do with $10 million or $9 million or $17 million or $12 million. It was a statement that came from the heart, where Tony said, ‘I want to win, and I want to put the resources behind it.’ ”

Clearly, though, Tavares did not randomly blurt the $10-million figure. He stressed at the time that raises would account for much of the $10 million. The Ducks, in fact, awarded raises of $6.5 million to the top line of Paul Kariya, Teemu Selanne and Steve Rucchin, accounting for virtually all of the payroll increase.

Internal projections, undoubtedly the inspiration for Tavares’ promise, included money set aside to sign the free-agent defenseman the Ducks so desperately needed. Within six days of the start of NHL free agency, four top defensemen had signed elsewhere, including Steve Duchesne with the Kings, Jyrki Lumme with the Phoenix Coyotes and Uwe Krupp with the Detroit Red Wings.

“They [the Red Wings] called Krupp’s agent with a proposal,” an NHL source told The Times in July. “The agent called back. There was another proposal and they agreed. Bang. Just like that.

“That sort of thing doesn’t happen with the Ducks.”

It does now, with Gauthier in charge. Gauthier appointed himself general manager, replacing Jack Ferreira, five weeks into the free-agency period. By then, the Ducks could sign no one better than second-tier defenseman Fredrik Olausson.

However, Gauthier put the leftover funds to good use last week, completing a three-way trade--with the Ducks on the receiving end of a salary dump--that brought McInnis from Calgary via Chicago.

The payroll will continue to rise, Gauthier said, as the Ducks’ younger players progress. Rucchin, 27, received a raise from $325,000 to $2.4 million this year. Kariya, 24, figures to seek a raise from $8.5 million when his contract expires after the season.

“Most teams that have high payrolls and are successful are the ones that are paying players on their second, third and fourth contracts,” Gauthier said, “not those that want to just spend on free agents.” NHL players cannot file for unrestricted free agency until age 31.

When the Ducks raised ticket prices in May--for the fifth time in five years--Tavares said in a statement that “this price adjustment will only offset a small part of our payroll increase.”

Indeed, the price hike will generate an additional $2 million, well short of the payroll increase.

The Ducks can ill afford a credibility battle at a time when their fan base shows alarming signs of shrinkage. The Ducks played to 99.4% of capacity at the Arrowhead Pond during their first five seasons, but they were forced to distribute tickets to Disney employee groups to fill the arena for this season’s home opener.

Last Wednesday’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning drew an announced crowd of 13,963, the smallest in franchise history and more than 3,000 short of a sellout. The actual attendance, subtracting tickets sold but not used, was estimated at 10,000.

So what would Gauthier tell fans who might feel deceived because the Ducks did not meet Tavares’ $10-million pledge?

“He made a commitment to the fans that day,” Gauthier said. “We stand by that commitment.”

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Mighty Ducks’ Payroll

The salaries of the Mighty Ducks for the current and last season:

1998-99

Aalto, Antti: $550,000

Crowley, Mike: $525,000

Cullen, Matt: $445,000

Davidsson, Johan: $775,000

Drury, Ted: $450,000

Green, Travis: $1,500,000

Grimson, Stu: $500,000

Haller, Kevin: $900,000

Hebert, Guy: $2,600,000

Kariya, Paul: $8,500,000

Marha, Josef: $350,000

Marshall, Jason: $400,000

McInnis, Marty: $1,100,000

McKenzie, Jim: $600,000

Nielsen, Jeff: $350,000

Olausson, Fredrik: $1,000,000

Pushor, Jamie: $325,000

Roussel, Dominic: $160,000

Rucchin, Steve: $2,450,000

Salei, Ruslan: $775,000

Sandstrom, Tomas: $1,400,000

Selanne, Teemu: $4,750,000

Trepanier, Pascal: $375,000

Trnka, Pavel: $400,000

Total: $31,180,000

****

1997-98

Antoski, Shawn: $400,000

Askey, Tom: $310,000

Banham, Frank: $275,000

Bannister, Drew: $300,000

Crowley, Mike: $650,000

Cullen, Matt: $590,000

Drury, Ted: $400,000

Green, Travis: $1,350,000

Hebert, Guy: $2,400,000

Houda, Doug: $250,000

Jomphe, J.F.: $340,000

Kariya, Paul: $5,500,000

Karpa, David: $800,000

Leclerc, Mike: $460,000

Marha, Josef: $375,000

Marshall, Jason: $375,000

Nielsen, Jeff: $300,000

Pushor, Jamie: $300,000

Rucchin, Steve: $325,000

Salei, Ruslan: $750,000

Sandstrom, Tomas: $1,400,000

Selanne, Teemu: $3,400,000

Severyn, Brent: $500,000

Shtalenkov, Mikhail: $500,000

Stevenson, Jeremy: $325,000

Trnka, Pavel: $300,000

Young, Scott: $1,050,000

Total: $23,925,000