Report: Sale of Senators is “completely out of control”

The ongoing Soap Opera that is the official sale of the Ottawa Senators continues.

Of course, we already know that Hollywood superstar and former Vanier resident Ryan Reynolds has bowed out of the bidding process for the Senators and that there are serious concerns about the bid coming from movie producer Neko Sparks and his celebrity-laden group, but now NHL insider Elliotte Friedman is reporting that the sale is "completely out of control."

Last week NHL insider Frank Seravalli reported that the Sparks bid was in desperate need of some additional financing and had reached out to potential investors in an effort to raise money and to raise it fast.

On Friedman's 32 Thoughts podcast for Sportsnet earlier today though here's how Friedman characterized the now very public sale of the Senators:

“I don’t know if there has ever been another sale process like this that I can remember. Everyone here who is supposed to be in control of the process has lost control of it. And, it’s been this way for quite some time."

“Whether it’s the bank, or the Senators, or one of the big groups, there are people starting to accuse others of being unprofessional and unreasonable. Whoever doesn’t get this deal, things can get really ugly.”

- Elliotte Friedman

And more from Friedman, this time specifically on Sparks' bid:

“A source told me that a group other than the Sparks bid was still looking to change its payment structure, when it came to the reports Sparks was looking for money, the source said that these things aren’t uncommon.”

“Fighting with people on twitter wasn’t a great move by Sparks, but understandable that not everybody can do that. This just showed how the nerves of everybody are just fraying around that deal.”

- Elliotte Friedman

Look... I don't know the first thing about buying and selling professional sports teams but I honestly can't remember too many other times where the sale of an NHL team came with this amount of publicity. I understand that when you have public figures like Sparks, Reynolds, Snoop Dogg and Donovan Bailey all involved that the public's interest is more piqued but, I can't help but feel like this is all a bit messy at this point.