NHL buyout Ice-capades

Professional sports can be a lot like Wall Street. The competition for talent can be so great that most of the value in the business is extracted by the players, not the owners. Anyone who dramatically mitigates that competition could make a killing. That is Bain Capital’s bet in its $4bn offer to acquire the National Hockey League. Sure, the deal has plenty of warning signs – not least the perennial problem that occurs when grown men with lots of money let sports fanaticism guide their investm...