Reaction: Checketts Sets Deadline

As reported by Andy Strickland, Dave Checketts has made August 22nd the final day formal offers will be accepted by groups interested in purchasing the St. Louis Blues. Strickland also reports that letters were sent to nine different groups that have all expressed their interest in buying the organization, stating that their formal offers must be in by the above date.

Strickland’s article states that each of the interested groups were given a list of items they must also submit along with their offer.

Consider this a major sign that the Blues should have a new owner by the start of the 2011-12 season as Checketts originally predicted. Clearly there are several interested parties (nine by Strickland’s count) and the current group believes they can set a deadline and move forward now that the informal talks are over.

From a fan’s point of view, this should be viewed at positively. The sale is finally moving forward and finally has a hard date attached to it, granted it is only a date that offers must be submitted. Still, to this point the process has seemingly moved quite slowly. Frustrations have grown and the whole ordeal has gotten to the point where most fans (as judged by Twitter) are more than ready to find a new owner and move forward.

Perhaps the biggest thing to take away from this news, aside from the date itself, is the fact there are potentially nine individuals or groups that expressed enough interest that the Blues felt the need to reach out and contact them about the finalized date with instructions on how to submit an offer. Granted, several of these probably have no serious intention of becoming the new owner, but the fact remains that the number of nine groups is probably much larger than any of us thought. One would imagine that out of these nine someone will make an offer that Checketts’ group is willing to take.

As I’ve said numerous times when discussing the future of the team’s ownership, stay tuned. This story is only going to get more interesting, especially once August 22nd comes and goes.