For those of you who either don't pay attention to the Nashville Predators, the business side of hockey or if you're too wrapped up in the Stanley Cup Finals, there's been some big news. Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie has signed a letter of intent to purchase the Predators from owner Craig Leipold for a reported $220 million.

Globe & Mail reporter James Mirtle, NHL.com's Paul Kukla and Washington sports commentator Eric McErlain are all over this story with links and commentary on their respective blogs. Here's my two cents on the situation, in particular, what the future holds for the Predators franchise.

First off, the main reason why Leipold is selling is attendance, specifically corporate.  Whilst Leipold wasn't blaming rank and file Predators fans, he expressed disappointment over the lack of investment corporate Nashville put into the franchise.

Here's what Leipold said in a letter to season ticket holders, suite owners and sponsers, courtesy of Eric McErlain:

• The Nashville Predators tallied up 216 points in the last two seasons, fifth most in the NHL, yet because of below-average attendance, the team will still have a real cash loss of $27 million during that time. Additionally, that loss is despite receiving the most money in the league from revenue sharing. Over the last five years, the team has lost over $60 million.

• We've invested heavily in sales and marketing efforts, spending over $50 million in 10 years, most of that with locally-based businesses.

• Our average regular season attendance this past season was 13,589, up from the year before, but still 2,000 below the NHL average. A low turnout, combined with a low ticket price results in a poor financial situation.

• The new NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement with revenue sharing is not a cure-all. Each local market must still support its local team. In addition, this attendance does not qualify us for our full revenue sharing allocation under the collective bargaining agreement.

• While individual fan support has always been strong, we've worked aggressively to increase our local business support since Season Four. We've tried a variety of approaches with minimal success. Our records show today that corporate support for the Nashville Predators makes up about 35% of our season ticket base. The average in other markets is around 60%. During our first two years, approximately 4,000 businesses owned season tickets. Today, only 1,800 businesses have season tickets.

As McErlain notes, 

"Leipold was one of the owners who actually helped negotiate the terms of the current CBA. On the face of it, it might seem odd that an owner who helped create the league's new economic order would be the first to jump ship after the resolution of the lockout.

Then again, we ought to remember that for most owners, the game isn't so much about year-to-year operations as it is about franchise valuation."

Many folks thought the lockout was to achieve "cost certainty", to bring players salaries under control, make a level playing surface for all teams to build and maintain rosters, and to make ticket prices more affordable.

The real reasons were two-fold: crushing Bob Goodenow and the militant wing of the NHLPA and increasing franchise values. Considering, as McErlain noted, Forbes Magazine pegged the Preds value at $134 million, the current CBA has certainly served its purpose in terms of increasing the value of the Predators franchise.

This supposedly owner-friendly CBA is not enough to save franchises struggling in non-traditional hockey markets. Sure, it's encouraging as Preds head coach Barry Trotz recently noted that hockey is slowly catching on in Nashville compared to when the team first came into existence, but it takes time to build up that kind of support. And time is never a friend to owners of professional sports franchises struggling to get local corporate support.

The first warning shot in this came in January 2007 when Leipold tried unsuccessfully to find someone in the Nashville community willing to become a minority (40%) owner of the team.

That's why there appeared to be a whiff of desperation regarding the team's acquisition of Peter Forsberg two weeks before the trade deadline. Leipold desperately needed the Predators to go deep in this year's playoffs to bolster his bottom line for the season. When they were bounced in the first round, that was the last straw for Leipold, and now he's cutting his losses.

If Balsillie's name rings a bell, it should, as he attempted to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins last fall, only to have the deal fall through at the 11th hour when the league wouldn't approve an "out clause" allowing him to move the team if a new arena for the Penguins wasn't built in Pittsburgh.

Evidently, neither Balsillie nor the NHL burned bridges once that deal fell through.

James Mirtle noted that Balsillie wasn't the only interested buyer in the Predators, citing a Wall Street Journal article noting the Anschutz Entertainment Group - owner of the Los Angeles Kings as well as a $276 million arena in Kansas City - was also interested in purchasing the Predators.

As Mirtle points out,

"The significance here? The NHL had a choice between Balsillie (Southern Ontario) and Anschutz (Kansas City), and the Canadian bid won out.

It's a telling detail, one that would seem to indicate the league is on board with whatever Balsillie's plans are for the franchise."

And that plan would appear to be relocation north of the border into Canada.

Of course such a move might not happen right away. As the Globe and Mail's Stephen Brunt noted, the Predators have an escape clause in their current arena lease agreement with the city should attendance fall below 14,000, which it did this season.

However, the team has to give its intent within 60 days of its final game, which was April 19th, making June 19th deadline day.  It'll also cost the Predators $18 million to get out of the lease.

Thus the Predators may not be moving this year, but it would appear the clock is ticking.

It's believed Balsillie wants to move a struggling American-based team to Canada. Three potential destinations are Winnipeg (home of the former Jets and now Phoenix Coyotes), Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo.

Winnipeg and Hamilton appear better choices as both cities have the arenas to support an NHL franchise, however, Balsillie is based in Ontario, which could rule out Winnipeg, and Hamilton is smack in the back yard of the Toronto Maple Leafs, which will probably fight tooth and nail to prevent an NHL franchise coming there.

That leaves Kitchener-Waterloo, which currently lacks an NHL venue but is Balsillie's home base, where he could invest either on his own or most likely with some outside investment in building a shiny new arena to house his newly purchased NHL franchise.

If "K-W" is the potential destination, it could be one, two or five years, maybe longer, before the Preds would be moved, but it seems, at least in the eyes of most pundits in Canada, that move they will, and to the Great White North.

This might also, in the estimation of the Globe and Mail's Eric Duhatschek, be the start of a trend, of other struggling NHL franchises in the American "Sun Belt" pulling up stakes and heading north, closer to where hockey's larger, traditional fan base has been located.

"(Y)ou have a situation where, two years into the current CBA, franchises in Phoenix and Atlanta and Florida as well as Nashville still can't operate in the black, or even at the break-even point. And when the day comes that the owners in all those markets say 'enough' to the losses, that's when the migration to points north will occur.

It's no longer a question of if anymore.

It's only a question of when."

Perhaps, but that only happens if the owners of those franchises can find buyers in northern cities with venues that can accommodate NHL franchises (or the money to build them).

Yes, Winnipeg and Hamilton have the venues, but lack the buyers. Nobody has stepped forward in either city yet. Neither the respective cities nor the provinces will purchase them. So until someone with big bucks like Balsillie is willing to take the plunge, it's easier said than done.

Forget about Quebec City, former home of the Nordiques-turned-Colorado Avalanche. They lack a buyer and an arena.

Seattle? Only if Bill Gates becomes a hockey fan and that ain't likely.

Portland's been mentioned because of internet billionaire Paul Allen, but he commissioned a study on the viability of buying an NHL franchise in the late '90s which advised him against it.

Besides, Allen's a basketball and football man, who's currently believed interested now in purchasing an English football (soccer) team. He's not a hockey man.

Kansas City thus far appears the only "northern" team that could support an NHL team, at least in terms of ownership and venue, so it's not a stretch to imagine a current southern NHL team moving there. After all, the Penguins were believed headed there at one point.

Another possibility isn't northern, but rather in the Sun Belt, in the desert of Nevada, in a little town called Las Vegas, where it's believed there's genuine interest in moving an NHL franchise, provided somebody puts up the cash as well as builds an arena.

Yet another Sun Belt location could be Houston, where the Edmonton Oilers were nearly moved in the late 1990s. Hockey has always been popular there going back to the old Houston Aeros of the WHA, and with the Dallas Stars success it's possible another NHL franchise could thrive in Texas.

At the end of the day, if this sale to Balsillie goes through, it appears only a matter of time until the Predators leave Nashville.

And as always happens in these situations, the only ones who get hurt are the fans who loved the franchise since its inception.

I feel for Nashville's hockey fans. They're about to find out just how the fans of the Nordiques, Jets, Whalers and North Stars felt.